Remembering an overlooked Illinois journalist

Bill Knight column for 6-1, 2 or 3, 2020

The saga of often overlooked Illinois newspaperman George Fitch – born this week in 1877 – started back when “Jack of all trades” was high praise, especially in the newspaper industry, which welcomed reporters familiar with the back shop, printers willing to write a lede as well as run a Linotype, pressmen who could be pressed into service for spot news, Teamsters who could develop sources for newsroom colleagues.

“George knew the precincts of journalism well – the vagaries of the newspaper game as well as the idiosyncrasies of those entrapped within it,” wrote Martin Litvin, author of “I’m Going To Be Somebody,” Fitch’s biography,

“As good as any professional, he could toss off birth, wedding and death notices, editorials, and, when necessary, sell ads and write copy,” Litvin wrote. “He knew how to write straight news, do headlines and layout, [and] could produce pretty good political cartoons.”

A prolific, ambitious and witty reporter, editor, humorist and columnist, Fitch graduated from Galesburg’s Knox College in 1897, and advanced through work on weeklies and dailies, magazines and books, becoming successful and demonstrating that talent and perseverance could pay off no matter where you started.

Galva, Ill., was where George Helgesen Fitch was born that June 5. George’s father Elmer bought the Galva News some six years later, and from a young age printer’s ink seemed to have been pumped into George’s bloodstream.

After college, the six-foot, four-inch Fitch returned to Galva to work for his father’ newspaper, then went to Galesburg, where he was a reporter for the Mail. Galesburg’s rival Register lured Fitch away, only to fire him later. So, he returned again to Galva, then worked for newspapers in Ft. Madison and Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the Peoria Herald-Transcript.

Although now almost forgotten, Fitch’s career made him famous, influential and well-off. He wrote for prominent national magazines including the Ladies Home Journal, Munsey’s and American Magazine; he was a contributing editor at Collier’s; and from 1908-14 penned 20 short stories based at a fictional college named Siwash (a Native American word derived from sauvage, a French word for savage). Based on Fitch’s experiences and exploits at Knox, they appeared in such publications as the Saturday Evening Post and the Kansas City Star.

Eventually, the stories also sold well in book form and were even used as the basis for the 1940 William Holden movie, “Those Were the Days.”

By 1910, Fitch not only was a respected writer and editor, he became a nationally syndicated columnist for George Matthew Adams’ news service. Fitch’s “Vest Pocket Essays” and other articles appeared in dozens of periodicals, and Fitch became associated with the syndicate’s stable of stars: Kansas editor and publisher William Allen White, reporter and playwright Edna Ferber, comic-strip artist Harold Tucker Webster, and editorial cartoonist Jay “Ding” Darling.

After covering the political conventions in 1912, Fitch quit the Peoria paper over a disagreement about Progressive Party presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt. Fitch himself ran as a Progressive for State Representative, and published the Daily Progressive newspaper for six weeks, until Roosevelt’s loss to Woodrow Wilson – and Fitch’s own election to the Illinois legislature.

The Chicago Tribune published Fitch’s series of humorous essays about Springfield and capital politics, then Fitch lost his re-election. He retreated to his Peoria home across the street from Bradley University, writing and receiving guests such as poet Vachel Lindsay and journalist/poet Edgar Guest.

Fitch considered returning once more to his hometown of Galva, where he’d write books. But en route to a California convention of the American Press Humorists, where he was president, Fitch was stricken with appendicitis and died at the age of 38.

Fitch was fondly recalled then, when poet and Indiana native James Whitcomb Riley wrote, “Even while we smiled and laughed with him, he left us, hushed as though awaiting the gladness of his return.

“Only heaven is the brighter now.”