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The Old Lion Remembered By Eve Berliner |
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Jimmy Wechsler in the glory days at the New York Post, 1948.
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By Eve Berliner He was above all a newspaperman,
combative, sentimental, inflamed by the battles of his time, his pen a weapon
of truth and human commitment. The old lion, the little warrior, Jimmy
Wechsler, is gone now. I see him still, sitting at his desk in
his shirt sleeves and bow-tie, his tousled hair spilled upon his forehead,
boyish, intense, writing at a furious pace, the Met game blaring, the bottle
of bourbon at hand, ashtray overflowing. He was a fierce adversary, an iconoclast
doing battle with a paradoxical world, a sense of the human comedy through it
all. Always there was laughter, whimsy,
hilarity, the ironic aside, a sense of the comic absurd. There was no pretension to Jimmy
Wechsler. His office was a scene out of The
Front Page, cluttered with photographs, books, memorabilia. And the
political machinators came and went -- Nelson Rockefeller, Hubert Humphrey,
Robert Kennedy, John Lindsay, Hugh Carey, Mario Cuomo. The procession was
unending; the greats and the near greats paid their call. It was a time of excitement, heated
editorial conferences with the publisher, Dorothy Schiff, Al Lowenstein
dropping by for a hamburger and milkshake, David Dubinsky on the line, Alex
Rose, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Joe Rauh, Robert Morgenthau, Jimmy's secretary,
Carole Dozier in a whirlwind of action. Inside the suite of offices, Joseph Lash
pounded out the day's editorials. I remember Jimmy writing at lightning
speed at his desk when the movers arrived to slowly take every piece of
furniture, every chair, book and document from Jimmy's fourth floor suite of
offices at He ran the New York Post when it was
still an organ of journalism. He became its editor in chief in 1947 and
transformed it into a vehicle of journalistic force with soaring readership.
Investigation, sparkling political commentary, human portraiture -- these
were its hallmarks. Its news coverage was political, its heart compassionate.
It was a progressive liberal tabloid. "So-called bleeding heart
journalism was what made the Post. That's what the Post was all about,"
recalled ace investigative reporter Joe Kahn. "A poor, vulnerable person being
subjected to abuse, be it in housing, hospital care, welfare or whatever,
could go to the Post. There was nobody else to go to." Joe recalled an early morning
confrontation by Jimmy. "How about living at the Municipal Lodging House
for Men and finding out what's going on there?" demanded Wechsler. "Look "Are you growing complacent?"
responded Wechsler. "I'll be there tonight,"
stated Joe. Jimmy's editorials were "like
pillars of fire", his old friend Joe Lash was to recall. "His speed in composition was
unnerving," the legendary Abe Raskin would remember. "He could turn
out an editorial column in half an hour. It took an editorial board of six
men at the New York Times working all day to accomplish the same thing,"
he laughed. At a crucial time in our history, Jimmy
Wechsler did not fear to raise his journalistic voice. He took on Joe
McCarthy when no one dared to challenge. His was a voice of courage in a
season of hysteria. His targets were the untouchables -- McCarthy, J. Edgar
Hoover, Walter Winchell, the icons of the day. He was a pugilist and he was a poet. He
wrote with fiery eloquence in a rage for justice. His credo was to comfort
the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. He fought for labor and he fought
for civil rights, he fought for equality and brotherhood of spirit. He
answered the call of conscience. He was above all a battler for the
underdog, a champion of difficult sad causes. He was an incorrigible
romantic, almost childlike in his beliefs. He helped countless little people,
fought for the little man. He sought a more visionary world in which nuclear
madness and human violence did not prevail -- this shy lad, this funny lad, this
quiet observer of man's folly. There were so many he loved -- Adlai,
Norman Thomas, Al Lowenstein, John and Robert Kennedy, FDR and Eleanor. They
are all marching with him, Martin Luther King, Al, Jimmy, the gallant men of
his age who cried out against intolerable sadnesses, brutalities of life. He lived in a state of quiet revolution,
this gentle man, Jimmy Wechsler, his pen a weapon as mighty as the sword.
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