James Russell Wiggins Papers

James Russell Wiggins was born in 1903, and grew up in the rural Midwest, in southern Minnesota near the South Dakota border. His agricultural roots and the circumstances of the national economy affected his entire life. High school dramatics, the school newspaper and debating society also set his path. He took as his role model Rudyard Kipling, the talented and well-spoken Englishman who started his journalistic career at the age of seventeen and went on to become an important writer as well as an influence on British political history. [High school term paper, 1918]

As a reporter and editor of a rural newspaper during the depression years Wiggins developed a keen interest in the pressures placed upon politicians in setting economic policies. He witnessed the debates and disturbances caused by expanding influences of trade unions, and he vigorously supported the agricultural reconstruction programs of the 1930’s. He wrote editorials, a daily column, and “occasional verse,” and he began his life-long habit of reading a book every day. He went to Washington, D.C. as a correspondent for the St. Paul newspapers in 1933, and landed in the center of the very controversies he wrote about. He made friends and contacts, and he developed a new and passionate love for American history.

Five years later he returned to St. Paul as the managing editor of the Dispatch and the Press. He renewed his vigorous quest for honest and open government and developed uncompromising standards for his reporters. He wrote and spoke on behalf of Allied resistance to Hitler, and became an active supporter of American aid to the Allies. A month after Pearl Harbor he asked to be drafted, and at the age of 39 was given a commission in the Army-Air Force Intelligence Service. Wiggins served for four years in Washington, North Africa, Florence and England, and returned to St. Paul in 1946. He had made a new circle of influential friends and had developed a deep distrust of the Soviet Union.

After returning to his position as managing editor for the St. Paul Dispatch, Wiggins was fervent in his quest for access to public meetings and total freedom of the press. “I believe that what God permits to happen we have an obligation to print.” [Letter to Alan McIntosh, 1946.] B.H. Ridder, owner and publisher of the Dispatch and wartime isolationist, did not agree with such a forceful declaration and fired him. Arthur Ochs Sulzburger, owner and publisher of the New York Times immediately hired him, but the position reported to Sulzburger and provided no personal forum for Wiggins’ ideas. Within a year Phillip Graham asked Wiggins to accept an editorial position at the Washington Post.

For the next twenty years Wiggins made connections and influenced public policy in Washington, D.C. Through both his management style and voracious appetite for information he used the Post as a forum for his opinions and transformed an ordinary newspaper into an important force on the national scene. He was an authoritarian and uncompromising boss who made demands on his employee’s work schedules and personal habits. He insisted on complete honesty and accuracy. (In later years Wiggins would say that even though the information was essential for the public good, because the papers were stolen, he would not have published the Watergate Papers as his successor Ben Bradlee had.) He took a lead in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, and never bowed to political pressure to compromise the news. In 1959 Wiggins became president of the Association of Newspaper Editors (A.S.N.E.). He also belonged to and served as president of the Gridiron Club, served on the board of the National Press Club, and belonged to several private social clubs in Washington. He was instrumental in obtaining passage of the Freedom of Information Act in 1966, and was honored by receiving both the Zenger and Lovejoy journalism awards.

Wiggins remained a life-long cold war warrior - he was a friend and supporter of President Johnson and the administration’s Viet Nam policy. As Wiggins was about to retire from the Post in 1968, Johnson named him Ambassador to the United Nations for the remaining four months of the term.

Wiggins received many honors and awards, including ten honorary college degrees. He was president of the American Antiquarian Society from 1970 until 1977, and beginning in 1983, sponsored an annual lecture at the Society in his name, the “Lecture in the History of the Book in American Culture.” He was a Freemason, a member of the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and several Maine historical societies.

The last thirty years of his life were dedicated to “quality of life” issues for the state of Maine, and particularly for the coastal downeast area. During these years he turned an ordinary weekly, the Ellsworth American, into an award-winning newspaper. He maintained rigorous control over everything from editorial content to advertising accounts, and he was formidable in his pursuit of local government accountability. Unfortunately, the two issues that consumed years of his life, Indian land claims and the state lottery, were enacted despite his intense opposition.

In his retirement years (perhaps after his eightieth birthday) Wiggins continued to rage against the lottery and gambling. He corresponded with old friends from the Antiquarian Society about his belief in the Jefferson of the “old school” (no Sally Hemings affair), fought a vigorous battle with Maine government officials over expungement laws, began a new interest in ecological issues, and continued to respond to virtually all of his mail with politeness and directness. He thoroughly enjoyed friendships with his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He corresponded with them, gave advice and occasional financial support.

Throughout his life Wiggins remained in close contact with his Minnesota family, friends and journalist colleagues. Mabel Wiggins was the genealogist, but J.R. Wiggins also placed great importance on “roots.” In 1979 the Ellsworth American published Mrs. Wiggins’ Begats: A Chronicle of the McMillan, Preston, Wiggins and Binford Families. Her nine-page biography of her husband begins on page 316. The book is also useful for identifying many of Wiggins’ relatives and correspondents. Russell and Mabel Wiggins were married for seventy-three years and they had four children - William, Geraldine, John and Patricia. Mabel Wiggins died in 1990, Bill died in 1992, Gerry died in 1994, and Jack died in 1996. Patricia (Mrs. Thomas Schroth) survived her father.

On November 20, 2000, the Washington Post included three articles on Wiggins, an obituary by J.Y. Smith, a remembrance by Katharine Graham, and the lead editorial. Smith called him “an America primitive” who defined all issues as either right or wrong. Graham remembered him as a seven days-a-week “blood and guts” editor and “a thoughtful and sensitive hawk.” Senator William Cohen called him a man of the greatest intellectual curiosity, a man of civility with a gift for classical rhetoric. The Ellsworth American carried a special four-page supplement to his memory.

1903

Born to James Wiggins and Edith Binford Wiggins in Luverne, Minnesota.

1922

Reporter for the Rock County, Minnesota Star.

1923

Married Mabel Preston.

1924

Purchased the Star and became editor and publisher.

1930

Sold the Star, became editorial editor for the St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press.

1933

Washington correspondent for the St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press.

1938

Managing editor of the St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press.

1942

U.S. Army-Air Force intelligence officer.

1945

Managing editor of St. Paul Dispatch-Pioneer Press.

1946

Assistant to publisher of the New York Times.

1947-1955

Managing editor of the Washington Post.

1953-1960

Vice-President of the Washington Post.

1954

Lovejoy award and honorary Doctor of Laws from Colby College.

1956

Wrote Freedom or Secrecy, Oxford Press.

1957

Received Zenger award from University of Arizona School of Journalism.

1960-1968

Editor and Executive Vice-President of the Washington Post.

1968

Retired from the Washington Post.

1968-1969

Ambassador to the United Nations

1969

Purchased the Ellsworth American in Ellsworth, Maine.

1989

Sold the Ellsworth American, but remained executive editor.

1990

Mabel Preston Wiggins died.

2000

Died in Ellsworth, Maine, of congestive heart failure at 96 years.