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User:Nvss132/sandbox/Josiah W. Gitt

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Josiah William Gitt (-October 7, 1973) was an American newspaper editor known for editing the Pennsylvania paper The York Gazette and Daily.

Biography

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Gift was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, the son of Clinton Jacob Gift and Emma Koplin.[1] His maternal grandmother, Harriet Custer, was a cousin of George Armstrong Custer.[2] Around 1917, Gitt purchased the Gazette and Daily after its former owners declared bankruptcy.[3] Gitt was a Pennsylvania delegate to the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, casting the state's sole vote for Samuel Huston Thompson.[4] In 1944, he ran as the Democratic candidate for Congress from York County.[5] He lost the election to Chester H. Gross.[6]

Gitt served as the Pennsylvania state chairman of the Progressive Party in 1948, turning the Gazette into the only daily newspaper in Pennsylvania to support Henry Wallace.[7] Under his editorship, the newspaper was likely "the only daily paper in the United States that consistently opposed postwar American foreign policy."[8] It also published articles by progressive and leftist writers such as Howard Fast, who were rejected by more mainstream papers.[9] Nevertheless, Gitt rejected accusations that he was a Communist or radical, telling an interviewer "I believe in progressive capitalism. I am not a materialist and in no sense am I a Marxist."[10] Gitt and Louis Adamic warned Henry Wallace that they thought the Communist Party was attempting to embarrass the Party's non-Communist supporters into abandoning it, allowing the Communists to control the organization.[11]

Image[12]

References

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  1. ^ Hamilton, Mary Allienne (2007). Rising from the Wilderness: J.W. Gitt and His Legendary Newspaper : the Gazette and Daily of York, Pa. York County Heritage Trust. p. 3. ISBN 9780979291517.
  2. ^ "Plaque to General Custer Dedicated at Hanover". The Gazette and Daily. July 28, 1948. p. 8.
  3. ^ "Gazette with an Ayer". Newsweek. April 12, 1948. p. 58.
  4. ^ "Pennsylvania Votes 70 1-2 For Smith in Houston Balloting". New Castle News. June 29, 1928. p. 18.
  5. ^ "Ballots Ready". Gettysburg Times. April 10, 1944. p. 2.
  6. ^ "Chambersburg: County Remains in GOP Column". Harrisburg Telepgraph. November 9, 1944. p. 23.
  7. ^ McDaniel, Charles-Gene. "Daily, Founded in 1795, Thrives on Liberalism". The Quill. 44 (3): 12.
  8. ^ Walton, Richard J. (1976). Henry Wallace, Harry Truman, and the Cold War. The Viking Press. p. 149.
  9. ^ Jenkins, Philip (1999). The Cold War at home : the Red Scare in Pennsylvania, 1945-1960. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 38.
  10. ^ Hodge, Carle (October 9, 1948). "Gitt Ignores 'Radical' Label, Backs Wallace". Editor & Publisher. p. 7.
  11. ^ Shannon, David A. (1959). The Decline of American Communism: A History of the Communist Party of the United States since 1945. New York: Harcourt and Brace. p. 177.
  12. ^ The Gazette and Daily. November 2, 1944. p. 24 https://newspapers.com/image/66086277. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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