| Notes |
- John Lane and Mary Quirke left Ireland as teenagers and like most nineteenth-century emigrants, they never returned. Their son, Clement Lane, visited Ireland in February of 1946, only a few weeks after his mother's death. It was his one and only time in the country where his parents had grown up. Clem was part of a group of journalists and Church leaders who accompanied bishop Stritch of Chicago and Cardinal Spellman of New York on their trip to Rome where Bishop Stritch was to be elevated to the rank of Cardinal. It was a big news story in Chicago. On the way to Rome, the group stopped in Ireland. This is a letter that Clem sent to his wife, Angela, just after his first time on an airplane.
Dear Angela Feb 12, 1946
I am writing this in a hotel in the town of Killarney in the spot made famous by that song - By Killarney's lakes and dells. We've had some wonderful experiences. But I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was a wee bit nervous as the plane got started. And, of course, I hated to leave you and the youngsters behind. I didn't suffer from any air sickness but the pressure on my ears as we dropped down from the skies bothered me a little bit. I was further bothered when we arrived in New York and I couldn't find the big bag which carried most of my clothes. However, TWA assured me it would do the best to trace it and at 7 am next morning, they called me to tell me it had been put off at Pittsburgh by mistake. I didn't worry too much over this though. We stayed at the Roosevelt hotel. Stan and I went to mass and communion at the Franciscan church on 31st street. I called Norm and Katie Dempsey and had a long chat with them. Then I called Father Massie, the labor editor of America, and he invited me down to America house for a buffet supper with the Jesuits. Stan and I went over around noon to a US Public Health service clinic and were given our vaccinations by a bored young doctor named Frank Bartone, who had been on duty since the day before and who wanted most of all to get out of service and into private practice. His attitude was that it didn't make much difference whether we were vaccinated or not but inasmuch as we were nice fellows he would do it. Later on in the day Stan and I went over to Archbishop Spellman's residence but the archbishop was out so we went into St. Patrick's cathedral and found an auxiliary bishop offering benediction with a full choir. Then I went on to the Jesuit supper and Stan went to meet his sister who had come over from Pittsburgh to see him. I had an interesting session with the Jesuits. I met Father LaFarge, Father Keenan and several more of the big shot Jebs and we went scurrying around picking up a hunk of ham and a plate of beans very much cafeteria style. After supper, we went to their library and Father LaFarge started a discussion as to what actually happens at these consistories. So there was more digging out of books and arguing back and forth and I still don't know who won the argument but it was fun. Father Massie and I went up town together while he got a railroad reservation. He is going to Chicago Feb 21 to make a talk for the Catholic Labor Alliance and we discussed labor and everything else. He thinks Eddie Lahey has a slight blind spot so far as the companies are concerned. We were up at 5 am and over to the air terminal and there we encountered a lot of sleepy newspaper men and air line people and then we went out and had breakfast and the wait began. Seems that some of the gents who had been told to limit their stuff appeared with luggage far beyond that. One gent had 185 pounds overweight. This tied us up until finally they decided to send our heavy luggage direct to Paris so (it is now Tuesday evening around midnight) I have been living out of that one little bag. I'm afraid I'm getting to be a public menace. At long last we got started from New York around 10:20 their time. And we flew and we flew, headed for Gander, Newfoundland. Most of the time we were above the clouds and it wasn't bad at all for most of the day. One of the first things that happened to us after we got on the plane was a short snorter signed by Cardinal Spellman and a medal from him. A short snorter you will recall is a dollar bill or other paper currency which those who have made transoceanic trips sign and get the signatures of others who have flown or are in the lands they visit. So we spent part of the day getting acquainted and signing each others snorters. Bishop McCarthy, a Redemptorist, Father Gannon, president of Fordham University and a half dozen other monsignor and priests are in our party and very nice gents, too. We had a good luncheon, turkey and dressing and stuff to go with it. Along toward dusk, the TWA man came around and served some highballs, which I piously passed up. There is another AA aboard, Jack Manning, editor of the Detroit Times. I didn't feel any discomfort until about 15 minutes before we were to land. Then I got pretty queasy, a cold sweat broke out on the Lane forehead and I thought I was going to be sick. But we finally got to Gander airport before that happened. Then I learned that the pilot had been circling the airport for 45 minutes trying to get down through a swirling snow storm which finally lifted just before my lunch did. We had some coffee at the airport. It's way out in the wilderness, nothing but a hangar and some runways. Nearest town is 40 miles away. We hung around there for about an hour and headed for our big hop off around 7:30 Chicago time. We had coffee and a few sandwiches for dinner - not very much. After we'd been out about an hour or so over the Atlantic, Bishop McCarthy led us in saying the Rosary and I think it was one of the most devout Rosaries ever recited. There are 26 newspaper men and a half dozen priests, etc. on the plane, the crew and the stewardess. There are no berths but the seats recline. I was afraid to do any reclining because I was in that position when my queasiness came upon me at Gander. Along about 10 o'clock we doused lights and went to sleep because in the 10 hours crossing the ocean we lose five hours. To tell you the truth I slept pretty well. I woke up several times during the night but we couldn't see anything because we were rolling along above the clouds. Then I woke up when the sun started coming up this morning, watched it for a while and then went back to sleep. There was a heavy overcast. Finally the pilot came back and said his co pilot was going in on the instruments, so in we shot and he hit it right the first time and there burst upon us the indescribable green of Ireland. In a few minutes we had taxied up to the terminal building where we went in for breakfast. Breakfast was orange juice, grape fruit, bacon and eggs, wheat cakes, toast, rolls, coffee. The bacon was about the most delicious I ever tasted in my life, but the guy that labeled if coffee was kidding. After breakfast we sauntered out and encountered Prime Minister De Valera who was waiting for Cardinal Spellman. I introduced myself, mentioned Charlie Wheeler to him and said I had a letter for him from Charlie but it was in a bag that was deep in the hold of the plane. He said Charlie had written him just a day or two before and he wrote a note to Charlie in my notebook., then he signed my short snorter along with those other reporters and we stood around and in about two hours Spellman's plane thundered over head, circled the field once and came in. Spellman was first out the door. He's a short, somewhat plump fellow and was dressed in his bishop's cassock with the purple biretta and so forth. Then he stepped back and let Cardinal Glennon come down the steps. Glennon is 83 years old, tall and somewhat gaunt but he is a smart cracker. One of his cracks is that while talking with a St. Louis banker a day or so ago about business conditions and hearing the banker view things with alarm, Glennon cracked: :That's nothing. In a few days I'll be in the red myself." He made a few cracks about the weather. Cardinal Tien came out of the plane. He's short and plump and his face has a peculiar mark like a yellow birth mark over most of it. He grinned most of the time. De Valera made a little speech and the cardinals - Glennon and Spellman talked. On his way into the terminal building, Spellman passed between two rows of Irish policemen. He looked 'em up and down and then smiled and said: "I feel just as if I was in New York." And they did look for all the world like NY cops. We went up to Limerick in buses. Cardinal Spellman went to the cathedral to say Mass but I had a copy of what he planned to say and I wanted to send a small story so I went on up to the press room at the Royal Cruises hotel and after mass we all boarded a special train, all polished up with bunting and with the compartments that seat six, and started for Killarney. I'll write you tomorrow or soon and take up the story from there. I hope all the kids are well and that you are not worrying too much about your globe trotting husband. Flying is more bore some than anything else because most of the time, riding above the clouds, there isn't anything to see except an expanse of cotton batting. All my love to you, darling and I wish you were with me. As ever, your lover. Clem Oxie, Booze and God by John J. Lane He exploded into the newsroom. He was a ball of energy under a shock of white hair. He was Clem Lane, city editor of the Chicago Daily News, and a legendary figure in the history of Chicago journalism. Clem Lane breathed energy. He was a gifted writer and reporter. Born in the city's south side in 1897, he loved Chicago and knew its neighborhoods and people. He covered and wrote about Chicago during the gangland days and invented pejorative nicknames for the hoodlums of the 'twenties and 'thirties. He loved to skewere the gangsters. Lane was considered the definitive rewrite man. He could take a late-breaking story from a reporter in the field and write both fast and clear copy. Reporters knew their story would be well-crafted and accurate when Clem Lane was writing it. And it was his skill as a reporter and writer that made him a very good editor. Lane worked for an afternoon newspaper. When he became city editor in 1942, he faced deadlines from the moment he walked into his newsroom at 8 a.m. The Daily News had a talented group of journalists and he expected the very best from them. He challenged his staff, he screamed and seared the hell out of the reporters and writers who loved and hated him at the same time. He could be bitterly sarcastic and reduce a veteran reporter to near-tears. He could also be kind and caring when one of his reporters had a personal problem. He was a taskmaster and mixed humor and severity as he urged his rewrite staff to meet the daily deadlines. He understood his city. It was said that he knew or was related to every politician, priest and policeman in Chicago. And it was that knowledge and feel for Chicago that drove him to bark at his street reporters who called in from various locations around Chicagoland, urging them to dig harder for stories, suggesting sources for the reporters to talk with, always pushing them to get a better story. A perfectionest in his work, he also played hard. Clem Lane became an alcoholic. He loved to drink and loved to sit in saloons and discuss the doings of the day with many different kinds of people. He was funny and very popular in the bars be frequented. He had almost total recall about historical facts and news stories. He was good company. Lane married his wife Angela in 1923. They had five children, Rosemary was the oldest, then Clem Junior, John, Bob and Sheila. He loved his family. But his problems with alcohol were putting strains on his marriage and also his job. He needed help. And he found that help in Alcholics Anonymous. He became a member in 1940, one of the early members of A.A. It changed his life. Clem Lane rediscovered God. He had been raised a Catholic and went to Catholic schools, but his religion was a rote thing to him. He drifted until he found sobriety and with sobriety, he found God. And that's what his life was about. A gifted journalist, recovering alcoholic and a man dedicated to saving not only his own soul, but also the souls of all he came into contact with in his life. Clem Lane was born at home at 3310 S. Oakley Avenue on Chicago's south side on July 7th, 1897. He was the seventh of eight children of John and Mary Lane. Three of the children died in infancy. Clem was the youngest boy, The oldest child was Elizabeth, called Lillie, then Jack and Dan, and the baby, Loretta. John Lane, called Papa, wanted to name his youngest son, Robert Emmet, after the famed Irish patriot. Mary Lane, known always as Mother, insisted that he be called Clement. As was always the case in the Lane household, Mother prevailed and the boy was baptized Clement Francis Lane at St. Agnes church. He attended St. Agnes grammar school, went to high school at Campion Academy in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin for three years and then DeLaSalle Institute in Chicago for three years. The six years of high school turned out to be a blessing for him. The Jesuits at Campion gave him a classical education and the Christian Brothers at DeLaSalle gave him a practical education. It was at DeLaSalle that he met the future politicians, policemen, and business leaders who helped make him the rounded journalist he became. After graduation from DeLaSalle, he served in World War One as a soldier. He spent a few years in the automobile asscessory business until he talked his way onto the Pontiac Daily Press in 1921. He read a book on journalism on the train ride to Pontiac, Michigan. And his newspaper career grew from there. He joined the Chicago Daily News in 1924. He was a crime reporter early in his career and wrote and reported on the hoodlums of the Prohibition years. He later became a rewrite man, assistant city editor and city editor. The Daily News was waging a campaign against the legalizing of handbooks in Chicago in 1938 and it was suggested that Clem write a satirical column on bookies. Thus was Oxie O'Rourke born. Oxie, along with his friend Torchnose McGonigle, poked fun at politicans, celebrities, boondogglers and others. Oxie was a philosopher and often wrote about his wife, the Weaver, and his children Junior and Anastasia. The three characters were acutllay Angela Lane, Clem's wife and his two oldest children Clem and Rosemary. The Oxie O'Rourke columns were probably his most popular work. Lane was very active in Alcoholics Anonymous and he was said to be the least anonymous member of the organization. He was a popular speaker at A.A. meetings and wrote on a number of topics on sobriety. He literally spent hundreds of hours helping to sober up a lot of drunks. Clem Lane's sobriety pushed him into a very spiritual life. His church activities were numerous. He was active in the Catholic Action Movement and a founder of the Cana Conference and the Christian Family Movement, organizations promoting the strengthening of the family unit. Lane was a founder and president of the Gabriel Guild, a Catholic organization composed of newspaper, broadcasting, and advertising and public relations people. In 1947, he was awarded the St. Bonaventure College Catholic Action Medal. Lane also received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Loyola University in 1958. Unlike many busy and successful people Clem Lane was also a dedicated father. He was always there for his children. When his sons were in the military, he wrote them frequent, long, newsy letters. He stressed education, not only for the boys, but his daughters too. Although he was not an openly affectionate father, his children knew he loved them. He kidded with them, barking at his sons to "get your hair cut." After his children married, he became a proud grandfather and doted on the Spoeri children and the Clem Lane Jr. family, the only offspring he got to know. As busy as he was, his family always came first. But most of all, Clem Lane was dedicated to his wife. His son John recalled that one eveing while they were driving to one of the many wakes Clem regularly attended, he told his father about a conversation he had had with two men who knew Clem Lane. They raved about what a great man he was. The father looked at his son and said, "take that and multiply it by a hundred and maybe you'll realize just how wonderful your mother is." An Interview with Helen Newberg Helen Newberg has been the last surviving member of the once-extensive social circle of Clem and Angela Lane. There was a daisy-chain of relationships which allowed Helen to befriend Clem and Angela Lane. Helen and Mary Hopper became friends as very small children, in the first decade of the twentieth century. They met on Cass Street (now Rush Street) on Chicago's near North Side. Helen was attending the Yardlin Grade School on Delaware Street, and Mary went to the Cathedral Grade School at Holy Name, a few blocks away. Years later, Mary met a student from DeLaSalle High School named Clem Hopper, whom she began to date. His best friend and DeLaSalle classmate was Clement Quirk Lane (Class of 1916). Clem's sister Lilie Lane introduced her brother to a friend, Angela Lavery; she and Clem soon became a couple. They all became fast friends, and their friendship lasted for life. Helen remembers that when they were very young, they enjoyed playing tennis at a tennis court across the street from Chicago's landmark Water Tower. When Clem and Mary Hopper were married during the Roaring Twenties, Helen was Mary's Maid of Honor and Clem Lane was Clem Hopper's Best Man. During Prohibition, Helen remembers going to "Speakeasy's" with Clem and Angela and the Hoppers. She also recalled the Lane brothers making "bathtub gin" in the 1920's. Helen described Prohibition as "a big circus." Helen married in 1934. After Prohibition ended, the couples frequented The Black Cat Room, in the basement of Chicago's famed Edgewater Beach Hotel. She described Clem Lane as "the life of the party in a bar." She noted that Clem had "a big but difficult job" which took a toll on him. She recalled the heart problems he had in the late 1950's. After his death, Helen reminisced about the Saturday night outings and the bridge games that she and Angela and Mary Hopper enjoyed. In 1972, Angela Lane advised Helen that Angela's granddaughter Jeanne Spoeri was going to be attending Loyola University. Helen was instrumental in landing Jeanne a job at Root Photography, where Helen worked. Since Angela's death in 1981, Helen has remained a great and loyal friend to Clem and Angela's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. An Interview with Margaret Whitesides She worked with Clem Lane at the Chicago Daily News for thirty years. Ms. Whitesides embodies the traditions of the Daily news more than anyone. She had some wonderful observations on what it was like to work with Clem Lane. The Daily News was in her family's blood. Her father went to work for the paper in 1895 as a proofreader; Ms. Whitesides explained that at that time, there was more money in the mechanical end of the news than in reporting. Her brother Bill was a photoengraver for the paper. She started to work at the Daily News in 1928. She was still with the paper when they closed the doors in 1978. I suspect that if the paper were still being published, she would still be one of the people at the helm. She is one of the few people alive today who worked at the Daily News when it was at 15 North Wells in the loop. In June of 1929 the paper moved to 400 West Madison, just across the Chicago River. This building was adjacent and connected to the terminal of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. At that time, before the advent of air travel, Chicago's train stations were major hubs of activity not only for local commuters, but for travelers from all 48 states. Clem Lane came to work every day on the Chicago and Northwestern train. He got on the train at the Rogers Park station (at Lunt and Ravenswood) and rode it practically right into his office. Lane had joined the Daily News in 1924, a few years before Ms. Whitesides. In his early days, he worked as a crime reporter and she initially had little contact with him. She recalled that even then, he was highly regarded for his writting skills. He was very outgoing and personable. In the late 1930's he began to write his Oxie O'Rourke columns, which became very popular. In 1942, he was made the City Editor of the Chicago Daily News. Ms. Whitesides was promoted to the City Desk in October of 1944 and worked hand-in-glove with Lane at that point. This was the first time that a woman held this type of position at the Daily News. Although Ms. Whitesides was too discrete to say so, I suspect that her promotion was more due to her own considerable talents being recognized, and the fact that the war caused a shortage of men, rather than any enlightened policy on the part of Mr. Lane or the management team at the Daily News. Mr. Lane was relatively progressive about wanting the best educational opportunities for his daughters. However, his granddaughters and great-granddaughters will need to take a deep breath right now and accept that he would probably not qualify as a "sensitive male" by today's standards. Ms. Whitesides recalled that in the 1940's, a woman reporter from Los Angeles visited Lucia Lewis, the travel editor for the paper. The female visitor asked Mr. Lane for a job as a reporter. He responded: "We do not hire women in our newsroom." She replied: "the Chicago Daily News needs a woman's touch." He retorted; "All of our men here have a woman's tough." Obviously, she did not get the job. In November of 1944 John S. Knight bought the paper. At its height, its circulation was 625,000 copies per day. Ms. Whitesides noted that the Daily News had better reporters than its chief competitor, the Chicago Tribune. She felt that reporters tended to take jobs with the Tribune only if they could not get on the staff of the Daily News. Ms. Whitesides was in charge of giving reporters their assignments. She enjoyed her work. She recalled the excitement of a breaking story and the excellent staff of reporters who worked with her. She especially recalled the time the Daily News outscooped the other Chicago papers in the late 1940's when there was a train wreck in Naperville, IL. The information they received from a tipster allowed her to dispatch a reporter very quickly. For a reporter, working with "the inclement Mr. Lane" had its benefits and drawbacks. He was very witty. He was also very intense about wanting only the best from his reporters. He was known to raise his voice and his temperature when he felt someone was not working hard enough. He had an explosive personality which colored the day-to-day atmosphere at work. One thing that Lane especially respected in others was eloquence. Ms. Whitesides explained that one of the highest compliments he could pay to a colleague or a competitor was to say; "He has the gift of words." John Justin Smith was a highly regarded journalist and an Assistant City Editor at the paper; he thought the world of Lane. Other bright lights at the paper included Jack Mabley, Ritz Fischer, Bill Stoneman and Ed Lahey. Ms. Whitesides indicated that the Daily News had the best foreign service in the world. She specifically mentioned Edgar Ansel Mowrer and Paul Scott Mowrer who reported from Germany. She also cited George Weller. He won a Pulitzer prize for a story he did during World War II about a medic on a submarine, who did an emergency appendectomy surgery while hundreds of feet below the surface of the South Pacific in hostile waters. The Fields family bought the newspaper in 1961. Much to the disappointment of Ms. Whitesides and others, Mr. Fields discontinued the foreign service department in the 1970's, because it was too costly. Another veteran reporter, Eddie Cikanec referred to Clem Lane as "the master." For interesting reading, Ms. Whitesides recommends an article from the December 1994 edition of the American Journalism Review (AJR) entitled: "A Dying Breed." It called Lane one of the "legendary" editors of the twentieth century. It contrasted the dictatorial style of the firebrand mid-century editors with the more polite but less colorful editors of today. Ms. Whitesides also mentioned another article about the Daily News that we might want to read. It was from the September 1996 edition of the AJR, and was written by Bill Eaton. There are many humorous moments with Lane. During his drinking days, he and reporter Ed Lahey (head of the Foreign Bureau) left the newsroom one afternoon on Ascension Thursday. They announced that they were going to mass at St. Patrick's church. After mass, they stopped off for a series of drinks. They did not make it to work the following day, Friday. When they showed up for work on Monday, several co-workers commented: "You Catholics have the longest services of any religion." Ms. Whitesides noted that Ed Lahey was the master of ceremonies when Clem Lane received the Catholic Layman of the Year Award from St. Bonaventure University. Ms. Whitesides had another interesting anecdote. Jim Mundis was a reporter who had recently returned from service in World War II. He apparently did not know that during the war, Postal Telegraph, one of the two major telegraph companies, had gone out of business. There was a telephone strike, and Ms. Whitesides assigned the story to Jim Mundis. To give Mr. Mundis a lead, Lane suggested that he check with Western Union to see if the telephone strike had resulted in any increase in business at Western Union. Possibly anxious to impress his boss, Mundis volunteered that he would also check with Postal Telegraph. Lane laughed and then bellowed sarcastically: "And while you're at it, you might want to check with the Pony Express." On another occasion, Ms. Whitesides pulled a chair into a closet, so she could obtain an item that was too high for her to reach. When Lane noticed what she was doing, he quipped; "Are you going to hang yourself, Margaret?" Another one of the men in the newsroom was Maury Mangen. Like Lane, he had snow-white hair. One day, the two of them were on their way out. Lane turned to his co-workers and said over his shoulder: "If anyone asks of us, tell them that Maury and I have gone out to get a purple rinse." There was an enormous amount of work at the newspaper. In 1956, the Daily News was almost single-handedly reporting on a story about a state auditor named Orville Hodge who was embezzling public money. George Thiem was the reporter who was doing the legwork and research on the investigative series. Clem Lane was overseeing his work on the story. Hodge eventually went to jail and Mr. Thiem received a Pulitzer prize for his efforts. The series took a toll on Lane, who suffered a heart attack shortly afterwards. Lane spent time recuperating in Florida and then returned to the newsroom. Ritz Fischer began to help out with many of the editing duties when Lane was too ill to work. After Lane's death, Mr. Fischer became the new City Editor. Ms Whitesides noted that his was a low-key approach to managing the paper compared to the stormy style of Clem Lane. The staff may have feared Lane, but they also saw his endearing side. There was a caricature drawing of Lane that Bob Mills, one of the paper's artists, sketched in 1945. There was also a poem that a young reporter named Joe Haas wrote about Lane. Carl Inde, another reporter, also wrote a short poem about his boss. Ms. Whitesides observed that during the Korean War, Clem Lane delighted in the letters he received from his son John for two reasons. One was that he was glad to hear from his son who was in the service overseas. The other was that he began to notice that his son had considerable writing talent. We all know that John J. Lane went on to work as a reporter at the Daily News and then had a quite successful career in television network news. In addition to his work for the Daily News, Ms Whitesides spoke about Clem Lane's other writings and activities. He was very involved in church affairs. She recalled that he went to Ireland with a Catholic group in 1946. This is when he went to Killarney. (Editor's query: Does anyone know whether he visited with his Uncle Michael Quirke or his first cousin James Quirke in Abbeyfeale at this time, because he would have had to drive right in front of their house on the Killarney Toad on his way). He also had an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome while covering a Daily News story. He did four articles for Ave Maria Magazine. In 1961, after his death, these articles were compiled into a booklet and distributed to interested Catholic groups. Lane and Dan Herr collaborated on editing a book of writings from noted Catholics (one of whom was Eugene McCarthy, who ran for president in 1968). He also did a Catholic radio program for a few years. In November 1955, Sign Magazine, a nationally syndicated Catholic publication, did a cover story on him. Ms. Whitesides commented that the photographer who put his picture on the cover was Jaques Lowe, who later was John F. Kennedy's photographer. Margaret Whitesides seems to have had the same passion for her work that Clem Lane had for his. It was a sincere disappointment for her when financial considerations and the inroads of television news sealed the fate of the newspaper in 1978. Surrounded in her apartment with Daily News memorabilia, she stated without any hesitancy: "The Daily News was the best-loved newspaper in Chicago." For those of us who grew up reading the paper, it is difficult to disagree. it is encouraging to know that Clem Lane played an important par
John Lane and Mary Quirke left Ireland as teenagers and like most nineteenth-century emigrants, they never returned. Their son, Clement Lane, visited Ireland in February of 1946, only a few weeks after his mother's death. It was his one and only time in the country where his parents had grown up. Clem was part of a group of journalists and Church leaders who accompanied bishop Stritch of Chicago and Cardinal Spellman of New York on their trip to Rome where Bishop Stritch was to be elevated to the rank of Cardinal. It was a big news story in Chicago. On the way to Rome, the group stopped in Ireland. This is a letter that Clem sent to his wife, Angela, just after his first time on an airplane.
Dear Angela Feb 12, 1946
I am writing this in a hotel in the town of Killarney in the spot made famous by that song - By Killarney's lakes and dells.
We've had some wonderful experiences. But I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was a wee bit nervous as the plane got started. And, of course, I hated to leave you and the youngsters behind. I didn't suffer from any air sickness but the pressure on my ears as we dropped down from the skies bothered me a little bit.
I was further bothered when we arrived in New York and I couldn't find the big bag which carried most of my clothes. However, TWA assured me it would do the best to trace it and at 7 am next morning, they called me to tell me it had been put off at Pittsburgh by mistake. I didn't worry too much over this though. We stayed at the Roosevelt hotel.
Stan and I went to mass and communion at the Franciscan church on 31st street. I called Norm and Katie Dempsey and had a long chat with them. Then I called Father Massie, the labor editor of America, and he invited me down to America house for a buffet supper with the Jesuits.
Stan and I went over around noon to a US Public Health service clinic and were given our vaccinations by a bored young doctor named Frank Bartone, who had been on duty since the day before and who wanted most of all to get out of service and into private practice. His attitude was that it didn't make much difference whether we were vaccinated or not but inasmuch as we were nice fellows he would do it.
Later on in the day Stan and I went over to Archbishop Spellman's residence but the archbishop was out so we went into St. Patrick's cathedral and found an auxiliary bishop offering benediction with a full choir. Then I went on to the Jesuit supper and Stan went to meet his sister who had come over from Pittsburgh to see him.
I had an interesting session with the Jesuits. I met Father LaFarge, Father Keenan and several more of the big shot Jebs and we went scurrying around picking up a hunk of ham and a plate of beans very much cafeteria style. After supper, we went to their library and Father LaFarge started a discussion as to what actually happens at these consistories. So there was more digging out of books and arguing back and forth and I still don't know who won the argument but it was fun. Father Massie and I went up town together while he got a railroad reservation. He is going to Chicago Feb 21 to make a talk for the Catholic Labor Alliance and we discussed labor and everything else. He thinks Eddie Lahey has a slight blind spot so far as the companies are concerned.
We were up at 5 am and over to the air terminal and there we encountered a lot of sleepy newspaper men and air line people and then we went out and had breakfast and the wait began. Seems that some of the gents who had been told to limit their stuff appeared with luggage far beyond that. One gent had 185 pounds overweight. This tied us up until finally they decided to send our heavy luggage direct to Paris so (it is now Tuesday evening around midnight) I have been living out of that one little bag. I'm afraid I'm getting to be a public menace. At long last we got started from New York around 10:20 their time. And we flew and we flew, headed for Gander, Newfoundland. Most of the time we were above the clouds and it wasn't bad at all for most of the day.
One of the first things that happened to us after we got on the plane was a short snorter signed by Cardinal Spellman and a medal from him. A short snorter you will recall is a dollar bill or other paper currency which those who have made transoceanic trips sign and get the signatures of others who have flown or are in the lands they visit. So we spent part of the day getting acquainted and signing each others snorters. Bishop McCarthy, a Redemptorist, Father Gannon, president of Fordham University and a half dozen other monsignor and priests are in our party and very nice gents, too.
We had a good luncheon, turkey and dressing and stuff to go with it. Along toward dusk, the TWA man came around and served some highballs, which I piously passed up. There is another AA aboard, Jack Manning, editor of the Detroit Times. I didn't feel any discomfort until about 15 minutes before we were to land. Then I got pretty queasy, a cold sweat broke out on the Lane forehead and I thought I was going to be sick. But we finally got to Gander airport before that happened. Then I learned that the pilot had been circling the airport for 45 minutes trying to get down through a swirling snow storm which finally lifted just before my lunch did. We had some coffee at the airport. It's way out in the wilderness, nothing but a hangar and some runways. Nearest town is 40 miles away. We hung around there for about an hour and headed for our big hop off around 7:30 Chicago time. We had coffee and a few sandwiches for dinner - not very much. After we'd been out about an hour or so over the Atlantic, Bishop McCarthy led us in saying the Rosary and I think it was one of the most devout Rosaries ever recited.
There are 26 newspaper men and a half dozen priests, etc. on the plane, the crew and the stewardess. There are no berths but the seats recline. I was afraid to do any reclining because I was in that position when my queasiness came upon me at Gander. Along about 10 o'clock we doused lights and went to sleep because in the 10 hours crossing the ocean we lose five hours. To tell you the truth I slept pretty well. I woke up several times during the night but we couldn't see anything because we were rolling along above the clouds. Then I woke up when the sun started coming up this morning, watched it for a while and then went back to sleep. There was a heavy overcast. Finally the pilot came back and said his co pilot was going in on the instruments, so in we shot and he hit it right the first time and there burst upon us the indescribable green of Ireland. In a few minutes we had taxied up to the terminal building where we went in for breakfast.
Breakfast was orange juice, grape fruit, bacon and eggs, wheat cakes, toast, rolls, coffee. The bacon was about the most delicious I ever tasted in my life, but the guy that labeled if coffee was kidding. After breakfast we sauntered out and encountered Prime Minister De Valera who was waiting for Cardinal Spellman. I introduced myself, mentioned Charlie Wheeler to him and said I had a letter for him from Charlie but it was in a bag that was deep in the hold of the plane. He said Charlie had written him just a day or two before and he wrote a note to Charlie in my notebook., then he signed my short snorter along with those other reporters and we stood around and in about two hours Spellman's plane thundered over head, circled the field once and came in. Spellman was first out the door. He's a short, somewhat plump fellow and was dressed in his bishop's cassock with the purple biretta and so forth. Then he stepped back and let Cardinal Glennon come down the steps. Glennon is 83 years old, tall and somewhat gaunt but he is a smart cracker.
One of his cracks is that while talking with a St. Louis banker a day or so ago about business conditions and hearing the banker view things with alarm, Glennon cracked: :That's nothing. In a few days I'll be in the red myself." He made a few cracks about the weather. Cardinal Tien came out of the plane. He's short and plump and his face has a peculiar mark like a yellow birth mark over most of it. He grinned most of the time.
De Valera made a little speech and the cardinals - Glennon and Spellman talked. On his way into the terminal building, Spellman passed between two rows of Irish policemen. He looked 'em up and down and then smiled and said: "I feel just as if I was in New York." And they did look for all the world like NY cops.
We went up to Limerick in buses. Cardinal Spellman went to the cathedral to say Mass but I had a copy of what he planned to say and I wanted to send a small story so I went on up to the press room at the Royal Cruises hotel and after mass we all boarded a special train, all polished up with bunting and with the compartments that seat six, and started for Killarney.
I'll write you tomorrow or soon and take up the story from there.
I hope all the kids are well and that you are not worrying too much about your globe trotting husband. Flying is more bore some than anything else because most of the time, riding above the clouds, there isn't anything to see except an expanse of cotton batting.
All my love to you, darling and I wish you were with me.
As ever, your lover. Clem
Oxie, Booze and God by John J. Lane
He exploded into the newsroom. He was a ball of energy under a shock of white hair. He was Clem Lane, city editor of the Chicago Daily News, and a legendary figure in the history of Chicago journalism.
Clem Lane breathed energy. He was a gifted writer and reporter. Born in the city's south side in 1897, he loved Chicago and knew its neighborhoods and people. He covered and wrote about Chicago during the gangland days and invented pejorative nicknames for the hoodlums of the 'twenties and 'thirties. He loved to skewere the gangsters.
Lane was considered the definitive rewrite man. He could take a late-breaking story from a reporter in the field and write both fast and clear copy. Reporters knew their story would be well-crafted and accurate when Clem Lane was writing it. And it was his skill as a reporter and writer that made him a very good editor.
Lane worked for an afternoon newspaper. When he became city editor in 1942, he faced deadlines from the moment he walked into his newsroom at 8 a.m. The Daily News had a talented group of journalists and he expected the very best from them. He challenged his staff, he screamed and seared the hell out of the reporters and writers who loved and hated him at the same time. He could be bitterly sarcastic and reduce a veteran reporter to near-tears. He could also be kind and caring when one of his reporters had a personal problem.
He was a taskmaster and mixed humor and severity as he urged his rewrite staff to meet the daily deadlines.
He understood his city. It was said that he knew or was related to every politician, priest and policeman in Chicago. And it was that knowledge and feel for Chicago that drove him to bark at his street reporters who called in from various locations around Chicagoland, urging them to dig harder for stories, suggesting sources for the reporters to talk with, always pushing them to get a better story.
A perfectionest in his work, he also played hard.
Clem Lane became an alcoholic. He loved to drink and loved to sit in saloons and discuss the doings of the day with many different kinds of people. He was funny and very popular in the bars be frequented. He had almost total recall about historical facts and news stories. He was good company.
Lane married his wife Angela in 1923. They had five children, Rosemary was the oldest, then Clem Junior, John, Bob and Sheila. He loved his family. But his problems with alcohol were putting strains on his marriage and also his job. He needed help.
And he found that help in Alcholics Anonymous. He became a member in 1940, one of the early members of A.A. It changed his life.
Clem Lane rediscovered God. He had been raised a Catholic and went to Catholic schools, but his religion was a rote thing to him. He drifted until he found sobriety and with sobriety, he found God.
And that's what his life was about. A gifted journalist, recovering alcoholic and a man dedicated to saving not only his own soul, but also the souls of all he came into contact with in his life.
Clem Lane was born at home at 3310 S. Oakley Avenue on Chicago's south side on July 7th, 1897. He was the seventh of eight children of John and Mary Lane. Three of the children died in infancy. Clem was the youngest boy, The oldest child was Elizabeth, called Lillie, then Jack and Dan, and the baby, Loretta.
John Lane, called Papa, wanted to name his youngest son, Robert Emmet, after the famed Irish patriot. Mary Lane, known always as Mother, insisted that he be called Clement. As was always the case in the Lane household, Mother prevailed and the boy was baptized Clement Francis Lane at St. Agnes church.
He attended St. Agnes grammar school, went to high school at Campion Academy in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin for three years and then DeLaSalle Institute in Chicago for three years. The six years of high school turned out to be a blessing for him. The Jesuits at Campion gave him a classical education and the Christian Brothers at DeLaSalle gave him a practical education. It was at DeLaSalle that he met the future politicians, policemen, and business leaders who helped make him the rounded journalist he became.
After graduation from DeLaSalle, he served in World War One as a soldier. He spent a few years in the automobile asscessory business until he talked his way onto the Pontiac Daily Press in 1921. He read a book on journalism on the train ride to Pontiac, Michigan. And his newspaper career grew from there. He joined the Chicago Daily News in 1924. He was a crime reporter early in his career and wrote and reported on the hoodlums of the Prohibition years. He later became a rewrite man, assistant city editor and city editor.
The Daily News was waging a campaign against the legalizing of handbooks in Chicago in 1938 and it was suggested that Clem write a satirical column on bookies. Thus was Oxie O'Rourke born. Oxie, along with his friend Torchnose McGonigle, poked fun at politicans, celebrities, boondogglers and others. Oxie was a philosopher and often wrote about his wife, the Weaver, and his children Junior and Anastasia. The three characters were acutllay Angela Lane, Clem's wife and his two oldest children Clem and Rosemary. The Oxie O'Rourke columns were probably his most popular work.
Lane was very active in Alcoholics Anonymous and he was said to be the least anonymous member of the organization. He was a popular speaker at A.A. meetings and wrote on a number of topics on sobriety. He literally spent hundreds of hours helping to sober up a lot of drunks.
Clem Lane's sobriety pushed him into a very spiritual life. His church activities were numerous. He was active in the Catholic Action Movement and a founder of the Cana Conference and the Christian Family Movement, organizations promoting the strengthening of the family unit. Lane was a founder and president of the Gabriel Guild, a Catholic organization composed of newspaper, broadcasting, and advertising and public relations people. In 1947, he was awarded the St. Bonaventure College Catholic Action Medal. Lane also received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Loyola University in 1958.
Unlike many busy and successful people Clem Lane was also a dedicated father. He was always there for his children. When his sons were in the military, he wrote them frequent, long, newsy letters. He stressed education, not only for the boys, but his daughters too. Although he was not an openly affectionate father, his children knew he loved them. He kidded with them, barking at his sons to "get your hair cut." After his children married, he became a proud grandfather and doted on the Spoeri children and the Clem Lane Jr. family, the only offspring he got to know. As busy as he was, his family always came first.
But most of all, Clem Lane was dedicated to his wife. His son John recalled that one eveing while they were driving to one of the many wakes Clem regularly attended, he told his father about a conversation he had had with two men who knew Clem Lane. They raved about what a great man he was. The father looked at his son and said, "take that and multiply it by a hundred and maybe you'll realize just how wonderful your mother is."
An Interview with Helen Newberg
Helen Newberg has been the last surviving member of the once-extensive social circle of Clem and Angela Lane.
There was a daisy-chain of relationships which allowed Helen to befriend Clem and Angela Lane. Helen and Mary Hopper became friends as very small children, in the first decade of the twentieth century. They met on Cass Street (now Rush Street) on Chicago's near North Side. Helen was attending the Yardlin Grade School on Delaware Street, and Mary went to the Cathedral Grade School at Holy Name, a few blocks away.
Years later, Mary met a student from DeLaSalle High School named Clem Hopper, whom she began to date. His best friend and DeLaSalle classmate was Clement Quirk Lane (Class of 1916). Clem's sister Lilie Lane introduced her brother to a friend, Angela Lavery; she and Clem soon became a couple.
They all became fast friends, and their friendship lasted for life. Helen remembers that when they were very young, they enjoyed playing tennis at a tennis court across the street from Chicago's landmark Water Tower. When Clem and Mary Hopper were married during the Roaring Twenties, Helen was Mary's Maid of Honor and Clem Lane was Clem Hopper's Best Man.
During Prohibition, Helen remembers going to "Speakeasy's" with Clem and Angela and the Hoppers. She also recalled the Lane brothers making "bathtub gin" in the 1920's. Helen described Prohibition as "a big circus." Helen married in 1934.
After Prohibition ended, the couples frequented The Black Cat Room, in the basement of Chicago's famed Edgewater Beach Hotel. She described Clem Lane as "the life of the party in a bar." She noted that Clem had "a big but difficult job" which took a toll on him. She recalled the heart problems he had in the late 1950's. After his death, Helen reminisced about the Saturday night outings and the bridge games that she and Angela and Mary Hopper enjoyed.
In 1972, Angela Lane advised Helen that Angela's granddaughter Jeanne Spoeri was going to be attending Loyola University. Helen was instrumental in landing Jeanne a job at Root Photography, where Helen worked. Since Angela's death in 1981, Helen has remained a great and loyal friend to Clem and Angela's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
An Interview with Margaret Whitesides
She worked with Clem Lane at the Chicago Daily News for thirty years. Ms. Whitesides embodies the traditions of the Daily news more than anyone. She had some wonderful observations on what it was like to work with Clem Lane.
The Daily News was in her family's blood. Her father went to work for the paper in 1895 as a proofreader; Ms. Whitesides explained that at that time, there was more money in the mechanical end of the news than in reporting. Her brother Bill was a photoengraver for the paper. She started to work at the Daily News in 1928. She was still with the paper when they closed the doors in 1978. I suspect that if the paper were still being published, she would still be one of the people at the helm.
She is one of the few people alive today who worked at the Daily News when it was at 15 North Wells in the loop. In June of 1929 the paper moved to 400 West Madison, just across the Chicago River. This building was adjacent and connected to the terminal of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. At that time, before the advent of air travel, Chicago's train stations were major hubs of activity not only for local commuters, but for travelers from all 48 states. Clem Lane came to work every day on the Chicago and Northwestern train. He got on the train at the Rogers Park station (at Lunt and Ravenswood) and rode it practically right into his office.
Lane had joined the Daily News in 1924, a few years before Ms. Whitesides. In his early days, he worked as a crime reporter and she initially had little contact with him. She recalled that even then, he was highly regarded for his writting skills. He was very outgoing and personable. In the late 1930's he began to write his Oxie O'Rourke columns, which became very popular.
In 1942, he was made the City Editor of the Chicago Daily News. Ms. Whitesides was promoted to the City Desk in October of 1944 and worked hand-in-glove with Lane at that point. This was the first time that a woman held this type of position at the Daily News. Although Ms. Whitesides was too discrete to say so, I suspect that her promotion was more due to her own considerable talents being recognized, and the fact that the war caused a shortage of men, rather than any enlightened policy on the part of Mr. Lane or the management team at the Daily News.
Mr. Lane was relatively progressive about wanting the best educational opportunities for his daughters. However, his granddaughters and great-granddaughters will need to take a deep breath right now and accept that he would probably not qualify as a "sensitive male" by today's standards. Ms. Whitesides recalled that in the 1940's, a woman reporter from Los Angeles visited Lucia Lewis, the travel editor for the paper. The female visitor asked Mr. Lane for a job as a reporter. He responded: "We do not hire women in our newsroom." She replied: "the Chicago Daily News needs a woman's touch." He retorted; "All of our men here have a woman's tough." Obviously, she did not get the job.
In November of 1944 John S. Knight bought the paper. At its height, its circulation was 625,000 copies per day. Ms. Whitesides noted that the Daily News had better reporters than its chief competitor, the Chicago Tribune. She felt that reporters tended to take jobs with the Tribune only if they could not get on the staff of the Daily News.
Ms. Whitesides was in charge of giving reporters their assignments. She enjoyed her work. She recalled the excitement of a breaking story and the excellent staff of reporters who worked with her. She especially recalled the time the Daily News outscooped the other Chicago papers in the late 1940's when there was a train wreck in Naperville, IL. The information they received from a tipster allowed her to dispatch a reporter very quickly.
For a reporter, working with "the inclement Mr. Lane" had its benefits and drawbacks. He was very witty. He was also very intense about wanting only the best from his reporters. He was known to raise his voice and his temperature when he felt someone was not working hard enough. He had an explosive personality which colored the day-to-day atmosphere at work. One thing that Lane especially respected in others was eloquence. Ms. Whitesides explained that one of the highest compliments he could pay to a colleague or a competitor was to say; "He has the gift of words."
John Justin Smith was a highly regarded journalist and an Assistant City Editor at the paper; he thought the world of Lane. Other bright lights at the paper included Jack Mabley, Ritz Fischer, Bill Stoneman and Ed Lahey. Ms. Whitesides indicated that the Daily News had the best foreign service in the world. She specifically mentioned Edgar Ansel Mowrer and Paul Scott Mowrer who reported from Germany. She also cited George Weller. He won a Pulitzer prize for a story he did during World War II about a medic on a submarine, who did an emergency appendectomy surgery while hundreds of feet below the surface of the South Pacific in hostile waters. The Fields family bought the newspaper in 1961. Much to the disappointment of Ms. Whitesides and others, Mr. Fields discontinued the foreign service department in the 1970's, because it was too costly.
Another veteran reporter, Eddie Cikanec referred to Clem Lane as "the master." For interesting reading, Ms. Whitesides recommends an article from the December 1994 edition of the American Journalism Review (AJR) entitled: "A Dying Breed." It called Lane one of the "legendary" editors of the twentieth century. It contrasted the dictatorial style of the firebrand mid-century editors with the more polite but less colorful editors of today. Ms. Whitesides also mentioned another article about the Daily News that we might want to read. It was from the September 1996 edition of the AJR, and was written by Bill Eaton.
There are many humorous moments with Lane. During his drinking days, he and reporter Ed Lahey (head of the Foreign Bureau) left the newsroom one afternoon on Ascension Thursday. They announced that they were going to mass at St. Patrick's church. After mass, they stopped off for a series of drinks. They did not make it to work the following day, Friday. When they showed up for work on Monday, several co-workers commented: "You Catholics have the longest services of any religion." Ms. Whitesides noted that Ed Lahey was the master of ceremonies when Clem Lane received the Catholic Layman of the Year Award from St. Bonaventure University.
Ms. Whitesides had another interesting anecdote. Jim Mundis was a reporter who had recently returned from service in World War II. He apparently did not know that during the war, Postal Telegraph, one of the two major telegraph companies, had gone out of business. There was a telephone strike, and Ms. Whitesides assigned the story to Jim Mundis. To give Mr. Mundis a lead, Lane suggested that he check with Western Union to see if the telephone strike had resulted in any increase in business at Western Union. Possibly anxious to impress his boss, Mundis volunteered that he would also check with Postal Telegraph. Lane laughed and then bellowed sarcastically: "And while you're at it, you might want to check with the Pony Express."
On another occasion, Ms. Whitesides pulled a chair into a closet, so she could obtain an item that was too high for her to reach. When Lane noticed what she was doing, he quipped; "Are you going to hang yourself, Margaret?"
Another one of the men in the newsroom was Maury Mangen. Like Lane, he had snow-white hair. One day, the two of them were on their way out. Lane turned to his co-workers and said over his shoulder: "If anyone asks of us, tell them that Maury and I have gone out to get a purple rinse."
There was an enormous amount of work at the newspaper. In 1956, the Daily News was almost single-handedly reporting on a story about a state auditor named Orville Hodge who was embezzling public money. George Thiem was the reporter who was doing the legwork and research on the investigative series. Clem Lane was overseeing his work on the story. Hodge eventually went to jail and Mr. Thiem received a Pulitzer prize for his efforts. The series took a toll on Lane, who suffered a heart attack shortly afterwards.
Lane spent time recuperating in Florida and then returned to the newsroom. Ritz Fischer began to help out with many of the editing duties when Lane was too ill to work. After Lane's death, Mr. Fischer became the new City Editor. Ms Whitesides noted that his was a low-key approach to managing the paper compared to the stormy style of Clem Lane.
The staff may have feared Lane, but they also saw his endearing side. There was a caricature drawing of Lane that Bob Mills, one of the paper's artists, sketched in 1945. There was also a poem that a young reporter named Joe Haas wrote about Lane. Carl Inde, another reporter, also wrote a short poem about his boss.
Ms. Whitesides observed that during the Korean War, Clem Lane delighted in the letters he received from his son John for two reasons. One was that he was glad to hear from his son who was in the service overseas. The other was that he began to notice that his son had considerable writing talent. We all know that John J. Lane went on to work as a reporter at the Daily News and then had a quite successful career in television network news.
In addition to his work for the Daily News, Ms Whitesides spoke about Clem Lane's other writings and activities. He was very involved in church affairs. She recalled that he went to Ireland with a Catholic group in 1946. This is when he went to Killarney. (Editor's query: Does anyone know whether he visited with his Uncle Michael Quirke or his first cousin James Quirke in Abbeyfeale at this time, because he would have had to drive right in front of their house on the Killarney Toad on his way). He also had an audience with Pope Pius XII in Rome while covering a Daily News story. He did four articles for Ave Maria Magazine. In 1961, after his death, these articles were compiled into a booklet and distributed to interested Catholic groups. Lane and Dan Herr collaborated on editing a book of writings from noted Catholics (one of whom was Eugene McCarthy, who ran for president in 1968). He also did a Catholic radio program for a few years.
In November 1955, Sign Magazine, a nationally syndicated Catholic publication, did a cover story on him. Ms. Whitesides commented that the photographer who put his picture on the cover was Jaques Lowe, who later was John F. Kennedy's photographer.
Margaret Whitesides seems to have had the same passion for her work that Clem Lane had for his. It was a sincere disappointment for her when financial considerations and the inroads of television news sealed the fate of the newspaper in 1978. Surrounded in her apartment with Daily News memorabilia, she stated without any hesitancy: "The Daily News was the best-loved newspaper in Chicago." For those of us who grew up reading the paper, it is difficult to disagree. it is encouraging to know that Clem Lane played an important par
John Lane and Mary Quirke left Ireland as teenagers and like most nineteenth-century emigrants, they never returned. Their son, Clement Lane, visited Ireland in February of 1946, only a few weeks after his mother's death. It was his one and only time in the country where his parents had grown up. Clem was part of a group of journalists and Church leaders who accompanied bishop Stritch of Chicago and Cardinal Spellman of New York on their trip to Rome where Bishop Stritch was to be elevated to the rank of Cardinal. It was a big news story in Chicago. On the way to Rome, the group stopped in Ireland. This is a letter that Clem sent to his wife, Angela, just after his first time on an airplane. Dear Angela Feb 12, 1946 I am writing this in a hotel in the town of Killarney in the spot made famous by that song - By Killarney's lakes and dells. We've had some wonderful experiences. But I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was a wee bit nervous as the plane got started. And, of course, I hated to leave you and the youngsters behind. I didn't suffer from any air sickness but the pressure on my ears as we dropped down from the skies bothered me a little bit. I was further bothered when we arrived in New York and I couldn't find the big bag which carried most of my clothes. However, TWA assured me it would do the best to trace it and at 7 am next morning, they called me to tell me it had been put off at Pittsburgh by mistake. I didn't worry too much over this though. We stayed at the Roosevelt hotel. Stan and I went to mass and communion at the Franciscan church on 31st street. I called Norm and Katie Dempsey and had a long chat with them. Then I called Father Massie, the labor editor of America, and he invited me down to America house for a buffet supper with the Jesuits. Stan and I went over around noon to a US Public Health service clinic and were given our vaccinations by a bored young doctor named Frank Bartone, who had been on duty since the day before and who wanted most of all to get out of service and into private practice. His attitude was that it didn't make much difference whether we were vaccinated or not but inasmuch as we were nice fellows he would do it. Later on in the day Stan and I went over to Archbishop Spellman's residence but the archbishop was out so we went into St. Patrick's cathedral and found an auxiliary bishop offering benediction with a full choir. Then I went on to the Jesuit supper and Stan went to meet his sister who had come over from Pittsburgh to see him. I had an interesting session with the Jesuits. I met Father LaFarge, Father Keenan and several more of the big shot Jebs and we went scurrying around picking up a hunk of ham and a plate of beans very much cafeteria style. After supper, we went to their library and Father LaFarge started a discussion as to what actually happens at these consistories. So there was more digging out of books and arguing back and forth and I still don't know who won the argument but it was fun. Father Massie and I went up town together while he got a railroad reservation. He is going to Chicago Feb 21 to make a talk for the Catholic Labor Alliance and we discussed labor and everything else. He thinks Eddie Lahey has a slight blind spot so far as the companies are concerned. We were up at 5 am and over to the air terminal and there we encountered a lot of sleepy newspaper men and air line people and then we went out and had breakfast and the wait began. Seems that some of the gents who had been told to limit their stuff appeared with luggage far beyond that. One gent had 185 pounds overweight. This tied us up until finally they decided to send our heavy luggage direct to Paris so (it is now Tuesday evening around midnight) I have been living out of that one little bag. I'm afraid I'm getting to be a public menace. At long last we got started from New York around 10:20 their time. And we flew and we flew, headed for Gander, Newfoundland. Most of the time we were above the clouds and it wasn't bad at all for most of the day. One of the first things that happened to us after we got on the plane was a short snorter signed by Cardinal Spellman and a medal from him. A short snorter you will recall is a dollar bill or other paper currency which those who have made transoceanic trips sign and get the signatures of others who have flown or are in the lands they visit. So we spent part of the day getting acquainted and signing each others snorters. Bishop McCarthy, a Redemptorist, Father Gannon, president of Fordham University and a half dozen other monsignor and priests are in our party and very nice gents, too. We had a good luncheon, turkey and dressing and stuff to go with it. Along toward dusk, the TWA man came around and served some highballs, which I piously passed up. There is another AA aboard, Jack Manning, editor of the Detroit Times. I didn't feel any discomfort until about 15 minutes before we were to land. Then I got pretty queasy, a cold sweat broke out on the Lane forehead and I thought I was going to be sick. But we finally got to Gander airport before that happened. Then I learned that the pilot had been circling the airport for 45 minutes trying to get down through a swirling snow storm which finally lifted just before my lunch did. We had some coffee at the airport. It's way out in the wilderness, nothing but a hangar and some runways. Nearest town is 40 miles away. We hung around there for about an hour and headed for our big hop off around 7:30 Chicago time. We had coffee and a few sandwiches for dinner - not very much. After we'd been out about an hour or so over the Atlantic, Bishop McC
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1897 - 1958 (61 years)