Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of Donald Ring Mellett

1. The Newspaperman

the newspaperman · 1· 1 · 1 The Newspaperman W ho was Donald ring Mellett that by virtue of his death he achieved overnight nationwide fame and recognition? The Mellett name was French. A distant relative and the first governor of south Dakota, Arthur Calvin Mellette, wrote proudly of those who bore the Mellett name: “They are a law abiding, industrious, temperate Christian family. . . . The men are patriotic and brave.” While the governor may have been engaging in some political hyperbole, the description was accurate and extended to subsequent generations.1 Don came by his journalistic skills and principles honestly. Born september 26, 1891, he was the sixth of seven sons born to Jesse and Margaret ring Mellett in ellwood, indiana, where Jesse was a former schoolteacher turned publisher of the daily Ellwood Free Press. in an era when most newspapers identified with a political party, the Free Press was unabashedly Democratic. yet Jesse Mellett was not an unprincipled party hack. Though Grover Cleveland was the only Democrat elected to the White House between 1860 and 1912, the elder Mellett refused to support Cleveland’s attempt at a second term in 1892. Jesse’s endorsement of Cleveland would have secured him the lucrative ellwood postmastership and at least four years of prosperity 2 · murder of a journalist for the Melletts. However, this failure to endorse the eventual winner on a matter of principle (one no one in the family could later recall) meant the family had to continue to scrape by on the meager profits of the Free Press. The episode left the Mellett boys to contemplate the real personal cost that can accompany a principled stand. The Free Press eventually failed and forced the family to leave ellwood in 1900.2 From ellwood, the family moved to Muncie, where, around 1900, Jesse briefly published another unsuccessful newspaper. Next stop was a short stay in Anderson, indiana, before they finally settled in indianapolis . it was in the state capital that Don attended shortridge High school, where he was known for his amiability and thoughtfulness. While attending shortridge, Don met classmate Florence Mae evans, an orphan living with an aunt and uncle. Petite, brunette, barely five feet tall, with large, captivating dark eyes, she was as smitten with the brown-haired, gray-eyed Don as he was with her. on graduation day in 1909, they became engaged. That fall, Don entered indiana university at Bloomington, and there he renewed his childhood acquaintance with another son of ellwood, indiana, Wendell Willkie, who was studying law. Don was determined to follow his father and four of his five older brothers into what was now the family profession: journalism. Don’s older brother Lowell, who had a bright career that would include the editorship of the Washington Star and membership in Franklin roosevelt’s circle of “Brain Trust” advisers, articulated the Mellett family philosophy regarding the press: “Newspapers should be free agents of public service.” of Don, Lowell later wrote, “(Don) took public issues personally. The public’s fight was his fight, always.” At indiana university, Don was a member of the press club and the cross country team. He also worked as a student reporter for the Indianapolis News. on Christmas eve 1913, he married Florence, and during the spring term of 1914, he took over the editorial reins of the Indiana Student newspaper, published six days a week. it was a position his elder brother John once held. “Print the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. . . . Legitimate publicity is the cure for almost all evils,” he wrote at the beginning of his tenure as editor .3 As the Student’s editor, Don Mellett wrote forty editorials, some the newspaperman · 3 high-minded and some preachy. He campaigned for reform of the Greek system at the university, for improvements to the Bloomington municipal water supply, and against the use of profanity and tobacco by students (some of those editorials did not endear him to his fellow collegians). He also oversaw the first issue of the Indiana Student written entirely by women. Don Mellett’s last day as editor of the student newspaper also marked the end of his college career. Acknowledging that he had taken some unpopular stands with sometimes preachy editorials, he said of the criticism he had received, “it hurts.”4 overseeing thirty-one staffers , writing editorials, and being newly married left him exhausted and brought on a...