Death of Gilbert

To the Senate press gallery as usual one day last week went grey old Clinton Wallace ("Pop") Gilbert, chief Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Public Ledger and the New York Evening Post. He cocked a melancholy eye down into the chamber, saw nothing newsworthy. Back in the gallery anteroom, he sat down, took pencil & paper, wrote a short, simple "piece" for his journals. It told how U. S. Business had swung in behind President Roosevelt's program for fear of something more drastic. After lunch, Correspondent Gilbert went downtown, called on his good friend Joseph Patrick Tumulty, Wilson secretary. While there he was seized with a chill. At home during the night he developed double pneumonia. Two days later he died, aged 61.

The death of Gilbert was a political event because by his writings he helped more than most politicians to make politics. Among the Washington correspondents he was an "elder statesman," a peer of New York Herald Tribune's Mark Sullivan, Baltimore Sun's Frank Kent, New York Times's Arthur Krock. Catching the backstage whispers that made tomorrow's news, he interpreted the national scene in human values. From Paris in 1919 he was one of the first to tell his readers that the Senate would reject the Treaty of Versailles. From Chicago in 1920 he had a long lead on his colleagues in predicting the Harding nomination.

A large-framed, stooping man with a sad, heavily-lined face, Correspondent Gilbert had none of the swaggering, hard-boiled mannerisms of the fictionized newsman. He was shy and reticent. He never hurried. His voice was almost a whisper. He kept picking his left thumb pad with his nails. Even more through his talk than through his writing ran a vein of weary cynicism. His private regard for public men was much lower than his readers suspected. Twice married, he left four sons, three daughters.

His newspaper career began on the old New York Press. Under him as associate editor (1913-18) the New York Tribune was revitalized by the hiring of Columnist Franklin Pierce Adams ("F. P. A."), the late Cartoonist Clare Briggs, Sportswriter Grantland Rice, War Correspondent Frank Simonds. When he went to Washington for the Curtis papers in 1918, Gilbert had to learn the job of political correspondent from the ground up. When he died last week, he was top.

Principal author of the highly successful Mirrors of Washington (1921), Gilbert carried this type of political gossip over into his newspaper work. Written in an easy, limpid style, his "Daily Mirror of Washington," widely syndicated, ranged from a discussion of the gold embargo to the U. S. Ambassador who, after making an English speech abroad, ignorantly applauded its translation; from foreign trade problems to Secretary Woodin's courtesy in refurnishing the Treasury Department's press room.

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