Vermont Royster - (1914-1996)
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I. Upbringing, Education, Family and Professional Life
"Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak
immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air." -Henry Anatole Grunwald
Vermont Connecticut Royster was born in Raleigh, North Carolina on April 30, 1914 and died on July 22, 1996 also in Raleigh. His family used state names to name their children.
When his great-grandfather decided to have a family, the popular opinion was to have big families. He didn't want anyone to be confused about whose kids were whose. So he
decided to name his kids all after states. He had Iowa Michigan, Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, and Oregon Minnesota for the boys. The girl's names were Louisiana
Maryland, Virginia Carolina, and Georgia Indiana. However, Royster's grandfather decided that naming his children after states was not an option. Royster's father was
named Wilbur High, and his brother was Percy Hoke. Royster was named after his grandfather because his mother loved his grandfather so much. Royster was born to
Wilbur High Royster and Olivette James Broadway and they had Royster, Saravette and Tommy. Royster married Francis Claypoole and together they had Bonnie and Eleanor.
Royster graduated at the Webb School in Bellbuckle, Tennessee, went to the University of North Carolina and graduated with a major in English Literature in 1935. A year later he
got a job as part of the staff and a reporter of the New York City News Bureau. During that time, he went to The Wall Street Journal to be a journalist for $15 dollars a week and
editor in its Washington D.C. bureau. Royster was an American journalist and editor of The Wall Street Journal and president of Dow Jones & Company. In his long journalistic
career, he has known and written about every American president from Roosevelt to Reagan. Famed for his editorials, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for his editorial writing
and a second one in 1984 for the commentary and for his weekly column in the Journal. He received every major journalistic award, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1953. He won the
Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club in 1978 for his lifetime contribution to journalism. Enlisted for four years in the U.S. Navy in 1941, Royster took part in actions in the Palau
Islands, the Philippine Sea and the Okinawa areas. He returned to the Journal after World War II. He became a successful chief Washington correspondent, editorial writer and
columnist. He also was an associate editor in 1948-51, senior associate editor in 1951-58, editor in 1958-71, and senior vice president in 1960-71. Then, after 1970, he was the
director of Dow Jones & Company, who was the publisher of the Journal. In 1971, he was named Editor Emeritus (an honorary title) and he continued to write his weekly column
until 1986. Royster served as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He also served as a professor at the University of North Carolina and as a member of the
Pulitzer selection committee. He taught both journalism and political science. Royster was a regular commentator on the CBS radio-television program spectrum and
appeared frequently on public affairs programs such as NBC's Meet the Press. His writing appeared in magazines ranging from The American Scholar to TV Guide. On June
3, 1960, Royster received a letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower stating that even though he hardly read any articles in The Wall Street Journal, he read the editorial called
"The Pursuit of Unhappiness" and he decided that he would read the Journal from now on since he enjoyed it so much. Vermont Royster also met Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson
in 1964 and John F. Kennedy in 1962. II. Literary Works Summaries My Own, My Country's Time-A Journalist's Journey: The Essential Royster-A Vermont Royster Reader: III. Literary Works Journey Through the Soviet Union (1962) IV. Sources
Fuller, Edmund, ed. The Essential Royster. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1985. Royster, Vermont. My Own, My Country's Time-A Journalist's Journey. Chapel Hill:
Algonquin Books, 1983. Simpson, James B. 1988. Bartleby. 29 October 2000.
This book is his autobiography. It talks about his career, discusses his time spent in the Navy and Royster basically expresses how life was for him. It shows how he felt about
the presidents he met and their personalities. He tells of his origins in North Carolina and his work as a reporter.
This book is edited by Edmund Fuller, who selected numerous essays and writings from Vermont Royster's column from The Wall Street Journal called "Thinking Things Over."
Since people really enjoyed the column, Fuller decided to make a book that more people could enjoy. It takes up where Royster's earlier book left off. There are essays of politics,
history, war and peace, changing more, the press, opera, education, travel, growing up and growing older—the observations of a gifted writer and thinker of almost twenty years. It's
a "treasure trove of the most memorable and entertaining of his writings."
A Pride of Prejudices (1967)
My Own, My Country's Time-A Journalist's Journey (1983)
The Essential Royster (1985)
"Vermont Royster." 1999-2000. Britannica.com Inc. 20 October 2000. http://www.britannica.com/seo/v/vermont-royster/
This essay was submitted by a student of Rita Achenbach, a teacher at Fuquay-Varina High School in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina.