Elmer Davis (June 13, 1890–May 18, 1958) worked as a
reporter, novelist, and radio commentator before heading
the Office of War Information (OWI) (1942–1945) during
World War II. His main OWI achievement was to prod the
army and navy to release news more quickly and completely.
Otherwise, the well-intentioned Davis had an impossibly
difficult job. Internal and external disputes about the content of American propaganda undermined the OWI’s effectiveness and led to drastic budget cuts in mid-1943. After
the war, Davis returned to radio and campaigned against
anti-Communist witch hunts.
Davis was born January 13, 1890, in Aurora, Indiana,
where his father worked as a bank cashier and his mother
taught high school. Although Davis liked to poke fun at his
“hick” first name, he was an outstanding scholar. He earned
nearly all A’s at Franklin College, near Indianapolis, and
received a Rhodes scholarship.
For a decade beginning in 1914, Davis wrote for the New
York Times, where his notable stories included the sailing
of industrialist Henry Ford’s peace ship for Europe in 1915.
During World War I, Davis covered developments in Austria (see New York Times, May 26, 1918, 13) and after the
war, continued to cover international affairs including the
Washington Naval Conference in late 1921 and early 1922
(see New York Times, Oct. 4 and 9, 1921; Nov. 27, 1921;
and Feb. 2, 1922, 1). In the 1920s and 1930s, Davis worked
as a free-lancer and fiction writer. During the 1930s, his
byline occasionally appeared in the New York Times and
he commented on political developments on the radio (see
New York Times, July 1, 1932, 17; Nov. 8, 1932, 28; Dec. 28,
1933, 17; March 7, 1937, 65; and Sept. 24, 1938, 10).
Davis’s big break came in 1939, when Hitler’s armies
invaded Poland, and England and France declared war on
Germany. CBS hired Davis to provide news analysis. Davis
previously had substituted for the network’s H.V. Kaltenborn, but nothing could have prepared him for his start as
a full-time commentator. He described his first nineteen
days as “an endlessly unrolling strip of time, punctuated at
irregular and unpredictable intervals by brief blank spots
of sleep.”
He moved easily from the printed page to the microphone, becoming a celebrity just as radio was cementing its
role as the dominant medium for fast-breaking news. Listeners associated Davis’s flat, reassuring Midwestern voice
and lean prose with the early news of the war, and they
liked Davis, Edward R. Murrow speculated, because of his
friendly, down-to-earth manner.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to demands
for consolidation of America’s many war information outlets
by announcing the creation of the OWI in June 1942, but
only after he had been assured Davis would accept the job.
Davis espoused a strategy of bolstering American morale
and weakening the enemy by disseminating truth. However, he lacked the authority to force government agencies
to release information. Some reporters and civilians complained the army and navy gave out too many half-truths and
held up bad news; conservative congressional critics alleged
the OWI pursued a Democratic, progressive agenda. Davis,
who lacked administrative experience, let the squabbling get
out of hand. In a report to the president, he said the OWI’s
Domestic Branch had been a “cocktail” of dissimilar views;
by the time they began to blend, “Congress poured most of
the contents of the shaker down the drain.”
Davis joined ABC after the war. In his final years he
wrote two notable books of commentary: Two Minutes
Till Midnight (1955), in which he described the dangers of
atomic war but concluded it would be preferable to Soviet
domination, and But We Were Born Free (1954), in which
he prescribed courage and the Constitution as antidotes to
McCarthyism.
Further Reading
Burlingame, Roger. Don’t Let Them Scare You: The Life and
Times of Elmer Davis. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1961.
“Davis, Elmer.” Current Biography: Who’s News and Why, 1940.
New York: H.W. Wilson, 1940, 224–226.
Davis, Elmer. “Broadcasting the Outbreak of War.” Harper’s,
November 1939: 579–588.
——. But We Were Born Free. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1954.
——. “OWI Has a Job.” Public Opinion Quarterly 7 (1943):
5–14.
——. Two Minutes Till Midnight. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1955.
Roshco, Bernard. “A Giant Named Elmer.” American Journalism
Review 13 (Dec. 1991): 35–37.
Sweeney, Michael S. Secrets of Victory: The Offi ce of Censorship
and the American Press and Radio in World War II. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
Winkler, Allan M. The Politics of Propaganda: The Offi ce of
War Information 1942–1945. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978.
Michael S. Sweeney