Charles K. McClatchy and the Golden Era of American Journalism by Steven M. Avella (review)

The names Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Medill, Robert R. McCormick, and Harrison Gray Otis are familiar to anybody interested in the history of American journalism, but a lesser-known contemporary very much their equal was building his own newspaper fiefdom in California: Charles K. McClatchy. CK, as he was known—along with his brother, Valentine—inherited the Sacramento Bee from his father, James, who had moved to California during the Gold Rush seeking fortune, finding it not in the mines but in the newspaper business. By the time of his death in 1936, CK controlled three newspapers that covered California from the Oregon border to Bakersfield, as well as interests in radio.

CK’s story is richly told by Steven M. Avella, a Sacramentan himself who now teaches history at Marquette University. Fortunately, the McClatchys were diligent record-keepers. Avella had a trove of resources to draw from, primarily copies of CK’s correspondence kept by the family and later donated to the Center for Sacramento History. Just as important was Avella’s friendship with James Briggs McClatchy, a grandson of CK’s, who supplied details about the family that the documents could not. Using archives of the Bee itself, Avella connects CK’s personal life with his use of the Bee to promote Sacramento’s—and his own—interests.

What emerges from Avella’s telling is a portrait of a man of contradictions. A loving family man devoted to his wife and children, he long held grudges against those who slighted him—including his own brother. A champion of the workingman, he fought back ferociously when his own employees went on strike. A critic of business monopolies, he sought to be the dominant newspaperman in Sacramento and later in Fresno and Modesto. An established business operator, he was a populist who admired Williams Jennings Bryan and a progressive who was close friends with Hiram Johnson, the California governor (and later US senator) who helped break the stranglehold the railroads had on California politics. A fighter of vice within Sacramento, he had a weakness for alcohol, his public drunkenness providing much fodder for his foes.

At first the Bee was run jointly by CK and Valentine, who held equal ownership shares. Although both took the title of coeditor, it was CK who ran the editorial side while Valentine tended to the Bee’s business affairs. CK used that position as a bully pulpit. It wasn’t just the railroads that were stung by his venom. He took on the miners in the Sierra Nevada foothills, whose spoils washed downriver to Sacramento, making the waterways unnavigable. He exposed corruption in city and state government, spurring reforms that continue today. When San Francisco was hit with an epidemic of bubonic plague, he took on that city’s newspapers, which, worried about the effects on tourism, tried to cover up the contagion.

CK could be vindictive. When he felt wronged, he inflicted merciless attacks on the offenders in the Bee. He relentlessly took on merchants who had supported Bee workers when they went on strike in 1890. A favorite target was Peter Yorke, an outspoken Catholic priest in San Francisco who had attacked CK after the Bee had publicly criticized Pope Leo XIII. Their public dispute dragged on for years. CK even went so far as to attempt sting operations to expose his opponents.

CK and Valentine eventually had a falling out, prompted in part by Valentine’s publication of editorial positions that CK opposed while CK was out the country and amid tensions between Valentine’s children and CK’s. Each sought to buy the other out, and in 1923 they agreed to an auction. CK won, paying $316,000 to acquire the McClatchy newspapers outright.

It was CK’s plan to have his son, Carlos, take over the family business. It was Carlos who proposed and oversaw...