For most of its history, the Arkansas Democrat newspaper was taken for granted, existing in the deep shadows of the famed Arkansas Gazette. It was so easy to stereotype the Democrat as a second-rate newspaper, and in fact it did leave a lot to be desired. However, the story of Arkansas' second newspaper is far more complicated than often assumed. Thanks to the work of veteran newspaperman Jerry McConnell, we now have an interesting and balanced look at the newspaper that won the great Arkansas newspaper war.
Published by the University of Arkansas Press, The Improbable Life of the Arkansas Democrat is an oral history. Thus, McConnell's book is limited to the years remembered by his informants--essentially since World War II. The book evolved from an oral history project sponsored by the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral & Visual History at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Jerry McConnell was the oral history project director. Disclosure: As head of special collections at UAF, I was supervisor of the Pryor Center when McConnell conducted his interviews.
While The Improbable Life covers the history of the Democrat only since World War II, readers should recall that the newspaper has a history stretching back to the Reconstruction era. Rex Nelson, author of the entry on the Democrat in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, summarizes its early history thusly: "A newspaper first called the Liberal became The Journal and then The Chronicle. Finally, it became The Evening Star, having passed through several owners and editors by 1875."
In 1878 the now-defunct Evening Star was acquired by Col. J.N. Smithee, who named his new paper the Arkansas Democrat. Smithee, a combative and volatile veteran of the Civil War, initiated a duel with one of the Gazette owners in 1878, believed to be the last duel fought in Arkansas. James Mitchell, a former professor at the newly created Arkansas Industrial University in Fayetteville, became co-owner of the Democrat not long after the duel, inaugurating a quarter-century of progressive journalism which saw the Democrat support public education, editorialize for protecting the rights of those formerly enslaved, plead for economic diversification, and especially, for championing equal rights for women. The Democrat began to drift after Mitchell's death in 1902.
K. August Engel, a Texas native who had been the paper's business manager since 1911, bought the Democrat in 1926. Instinctively conservative and focused on the bottom line, Engel seemed content with a solvent second place, as McConnell noted: "There is evidence that the two long-time owners of the papers, J.N. Heiskell at the Gazette and K. August Engel at the Democrat, were content with that situation. Heiskell never made an effort to put the Democrat out of business, and Engel never made an effort to take over the No. 1 slot. Heiskell seemed happy to have a well edited newspaper of record ... Engel seemed happy to have a newspaper that filled in the gaps and always made money."
While Engel might have been uninspiring and a skinflint, he does get credit for hiring the first black reporter by an Arkansas white-owned newspaper. Ozell Sutton, who joined the Democrat in 1950, was at first segregated in the newsroom, but that soon changed. Sutton's interview is interesting in part because he recounted how he succeeded in convincing the Democrat to address black women by the courtesy title "Mrs." In 1971 the Democrat hired the first black female reporter, Deborah Mathis, who had been the first black editor of the Central High School newspaper.
K.A. Engel, who never married, died in 1968, and his nephews Marcus George and Stanley Berry became the new owners. They made a valiant attempt to improve the newspaper, bringing in the well-regarded Bob McCord, owner of the North Little Rock Times, to handle the editorial page, and Gene Foreman, editor of the Pine Bluff Commercial, to run the newsroom.
Foreman, who would go on to a distinguished career as editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, stirred things up at the Democrat. He hired a platoon of aggressive young reporters and editors such as Tucker Steinmetz and Ralph Patrick. Still, the Democrat failed to prosper.
It was at this point--with the Gazette's circulation in 1974 at almost 120,000 compared to a skimpy 62,000 for the Democrat--that the paper was sold to Walter Hussman. The Hussman family had built up a string of successful newspapers in southern Arkansas. At age 27, Hussman set about to save the Arkansas Democrat.
Hussman first attempted to convince the Gazette to enter into a joint operating agreement, but he was rebuffed. Eventually the two papers entered into a head-to-head competition that soon became known as the "newspaper war."
Among the many turning points of the war documented in McConnell's book were Hussman's daring decisions to offer free want ads, to print in color, to switch to morning publication, and perhaps most importantly, his hiring John Robert Starr as managing editor. The dust jacket of The Improbable Life features a color picture of Starr perched atop a Gazette vending machine, wearing a helmet and clinching a combat knife in his teeth. Starr died in 2000 before McConnell began his oral history interviewing.
The Improbable Life of the Arkansas Democrat is hardbound, contains 245 pages, and sells for $34.95.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Malvern. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 06/19/2016