George Reynolds Dale Sr. (February 5, 1867 – March 27, 1936) was an American newspaper editor and politician. He was the editor of the Muncie Post-Democrat from 1920 to 1936 and the mayor of Muncie, Indiana, from 1930 to 1935, a member of the Democratic Party. He started several newspapers and battled bootleggers and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Born in Monticello, Indiana, Dale produced his first newspapers in Hartford City and Montpelier. He moved to Muncie, where he founded the Muncie Post, at the invitation of mayor Rollin Bunch, whom he would later oppose. After this paper shuttered, he founded the weekly Muncie Post-Democrat in 1921, with a left-wing, pro-labor stance. The paper's reporting on bootleggers, as well as accusations of corruption against the leader of the county's Republican Party, led to attacks on Dale.
Dale's Post-Democrat frequently opposed the KKK. He mocked the group and published lists of its local members and businesses. In 1923, the paper accused a judge, Clarence W. Dearth, of being affiliated with the group, for which the judge charged Dale with libel and contempt of the court. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld these charges before Dale was pardoned by Governor Edward L. Jackson. Many Indiana citizens and several national newspapers supported Dale, claiming that the charges had violated the right to freedom of the press. Dale gained national fame for this incident.
Dale won the 1929 election for mayor of Muncie. Days after his inauguration, he replaced the city's police and fire departments. City councilors opposed Dale. They impeached him for an alcohol conviction, but he was restored to the office and pardoned for the conviction. During the New Deal, Dale used federal funds for public works projects. Dale lost his re-election bid at the end of his five-year term. He edited the Post-Democrat until his death in 1936. Historical assessment of Dale has been positive, focusing on his resistance of the KKK.
Early and personal life
George Reynolds Dale was born on February 5, 1867, in Monticello, White County, Indiana. His mother, Ophelia Reynolds, was also born in Monticello and was a Presbyterian of Irish descent. His father, Daniel D. Dale, had been the captain of Company K of the 19th Indiana Regiment during the U.S. Civil War, later serving as the clerk of White County and of the Indiana State Senate. Dale's grandfather, William Dale, had migrated to White County from Virginia. Dale had three siblings: Charles H., Bertha M., and Ida.
Dale went to school in Monticello, dropping out of twelfth grade due to chronic headaches. He briefly worked at his father's law office but found it boring. His father died of injuries from being assaulted in 1886, and his mother died of pneumonia in 1887. After briefly working at a dry goods store in Monticello, Dale moved to Hartford City, Indiana, aged 21, to work at a paper mill owned by his uncle, Albert Reynolds. He was the clerk of Hartford City for one year. Dale married Lena Mohler in Hartford City on January 14, 1900. They had seven children.
Publishing career Early career Dale and Charles Wigmore produced the Hartford City Press, which they acquired in April 1893. This was Dale's first experience in news and was the city's first daily paper. After a dispute with a business partner, Dale sold his stake in the paper after about a year. He moved to Montpelier, Indiana, where he founded the Montpelier Call around 1905. He returned to Hartford City and established the Hartford City Daily Journal in March 1909.
Dale became known for his opposition to gambling and to alcohol, which he called "demon rum". His newspapers led to the closure of bars in Hartford City and Montpelier. According to his wife, Dale was not opposed to alcohol itself, but rather its association with corrupt politicians. After the success of his campaigns, interest in the Journal declined, and Dale sold its subscription list to the Times-Gazette. He moved to Muncie, Indiana, in 1916 at the invitation of mayor Rollin Bunch and his brother, Fred. The mayor, a member of the Democratic Party, was opposed to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which motivated him to establish a newspaper with Dale. Dale was the editor of the Muncie Post until it folded in 1918. He attributed its closure to a boycott over its pro-labor stance. Dale also served as a police sergeant under Bunch. He cut ties with Bunch after the latter was imprisoned for mail fraud in 1919.
Establishment of the Muncie Post-Democrat Dale created the Muncie Post-Democrat, a weekly newspaper, in 1920; it had previously been called the Muncie Democratic Post. Taking a left-leaning stance, it was the only paper aligned with the Democratic Party in Delaware County. His paper was the city's first to report on labor disputes, despite resistance from the city's chamber of commerce and from the Ball brothers, who owned a jar company that was the city's largest employer.
Dale reported on crimes such as bootlegging. He wrote that he had faced several attacks due to this reporting:
Dale wrote that the leader of the Delaware County Republican Party, William H. "Billy" Williams, was corrupt and ran a political machine with connections to bootleggers and the KKK. Dale wrote that this group had supported Bunch's campaign. According to historian Carrolyle M. Frank, the existence of a political machine may have largely been Dale's invention. On March 24, 1922, Dale was attacked and his son, George Jr., was shot. He reported two weeks later that the attack was caused by his reporting on Williams.
Local government officials refused to advertise in the Post-Democrat, favoring Muncie's two Republican newspapers, until Dale presented them with court orders under a state law requiring them to advertise in publications of both parties. Dale did not endorse Bunch as the Democratic candidate in the 1921 mayoral election as the candidacy violated a state law barring felons from public office and his belief that Bunch was associated with organized crime. Dale's editorials led to a decrease in support for Bunch, who lost to the Republican candidate, John C. Quick. Dale's opposition to Bunch caused a rift among local Democrats. Opponents of Dale said they would start an opposing newspaper; they founded the city's second Democratic newspaper in 1924, which shuttered the same year.
Opposition to the Ku Klux Klan
With a reputation for his satirical attacks on several subjects Dale was called the "militant editor". As editor of the Post-Democrat, Dale combatted the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The Indiana Ku Klux Klan, formed in the early 1920s, had hundreds of thousands of members, including 3,000 in Muncie; few of the state's newspapers took a stance against the organization. As local KKK members were largely Republican and anti-labor, many were opponents of Dale. Dale initially supported the KKK, writing in April 1922 that there was "plenty of room for an organization of this kind to work in Delaware County", though he disliked their outfits. His first report opposing the organization came a few months later:
Dale began reporting on the KKK in nearly every edition, publishing reprints from national publications as well as allegations against local KKK members. He published the names of these supposed members and of businesses run by the group. He wrote that the Williams political machine worked with the KKK. He described KKK members as "kookoos", mocked their ideology of "100 percent Americanism", and employed exaggerations and disparaging nicknames to describe its members, such as referring to Daisy Douglas Barr as Daisy Doodle Barr. Dale said that KKK members would shove or spit at him. He began to blame the KKK for the 1922 attack, although it had occurred before his KKK reports.
Several KKK members took legal action against Dale. In 1923, Dale wrote that a judge of the Delaware County Circuit Court, Clarence W. Dearth, was a KKK member who engaged in illegal jury selection practices and gave lower sentences to KKK members. That March, Dearth sentenced Dale to a 90-day jail sentence and a $500 fine for libel and for indirect contempt of the court. Dale wrote about his court hearing in the following week's newspaper. Dearth ruled that this was direct contempt of the court and increased the sentence to 180 days. On appeal, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled against Dale, saying, "the truth of the article is not a matter of defense." Indiana citizens petitioned the state legislature to impeach Dearth for violating the First Amendment right to freedom of the press, but the impeachment trial acquitted him on all 21 charges. Dale appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which dismissed the case on a technicality. Dale was pardoned by Governor Edward L. Jackson—a KKK member—after two days in jail.
Several national publications, including the New York World, The Chicago Tribune, and the Hearst newspapers, opposed the court's ruling on the grounds of freedom of the press. They raised money for Dale's legal defense fund. The coverage gave Dale national recognition and led to a large increase in revenue for the newspaper, which reached nearly 18,000 subscribers. Democratic and Republican newspapers, as well as Dale himself, presented him as a hero. Reports resurfaced of the 1922 attack. He asserted that he had killed a KKK member during this attack, and his reenactment of it in a Chicago newspaper was widely circulated. To strengthen this image, he wore a hat with what he said was a KKK-inflicted bullet hole and displayed KKK hoods in his house. The media also reported on gunshots at Dale's house in 1926, attributing this to the KKK. However, Dale blamed this attack on bootleggers, and the KKK's presence in Muncie had declined. The Post-Democrat infrequently reported on the KKK by this time.
Dale received physical and verbal attacks and eventually had to print the newspaper outside of Indiana. He wrote of his anti-KKK reporting, "I lost my advertising, most of my subscribers, my home, my liberty, and every dollar I had in the world." However, according to historian Ron F. Smith, the KKK caused only a part of his financial issues, as the newspaper had gained subscribers and did not significantly lose advertising after it began reporting on the subject. During this time, Dale also ran in the Democratic primary in the 1928 Indiana gubernatorial election. He received the third-most votes but was unsuccessful in the party convention, receiving support only from Delaware County's delegation.
Mayorship of John C. Hampton Dale became known for his criticism of the mayor of Muncie, John C. Hampton, a Republican elected in 1925. Hampton was an alleged KKK member who had worked for Dearth in jury selection. Dale accused him of electoral fraud in the primary. Dale's criticisms of Hampton as mayor included an allegation that he sanctioned a "paving trust" that exerted control over street paving contracts. Editor Wilbur E. Sutton of The Muncie Evening Press, a Republican publication, found this allegation credible. The Municipal League of Delaware County, affiliated with the anti-Williams-Hampton faction of the Republican Party, launched an investigation.
Dale published a letter to the editor opposing Hampton and Dearth in February 1927. Dearth ordered that this edition of the newspaper not be distributed. This led to an impeachment trial against him. The Indiana House of Representatives voted 93-to-1 for his impeachment, but a slim majority in the Senate kept him in office. County citizens forced him to retire the following year.