Forrest Davis, RIP

Forrest Davis died last week, and the newspapers duly reported the passing of one of the great journalists of his generation. The obituaries, however, barely touched on the attainments that remained so vivid to his friends. To Senator Karl Mundt, he was the great crusader. To General Albert Wedemeyer, who had traveled with him in support of the Taft Presidential aspirations in 1952, he was the man who had tried to keep the Republican Party from committing suicide. To Willard Edwards of the Chicago Tribune, he was, even to the last Washington column he had done for his paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaperman who refused to take a handout for granted. To Alex Hillman, who had known him for forty years, he was the epitome of the best in four distinct historical periods of journalism, ending with the mellow commentary of his last years as a Washington columnist. And to the Rev. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, who had come to know him at the end of his days, he was a “roguish saint,” a P. K. (for preacher’s kid) who had returned to the fold after far wanderings that, if the symbolism of Forrest’s life be properly understood, had never been wanderings at all.

My own memories of Forrest, which date back to the days of the Scopes trial in the early twenties, are tumultuous and vivid for all that there were gaps when I lost touch with him entirely. He was courtly and genial, possessed of a wit that masked its bite in a true elegance of expression, a man of fantastic loyalties to his friends. He liked to call himself a Tory. That was part of his romanticism; in actuality, he was a Madisonian American whose cosmopolitanism derived from the freemasonry of the frontier. He associated himself with the management of several publications, but he was never management’s man.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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Forrest Davis died last week, and the newspapers duly reported the passing of one of the great journalists of his generation. The obituaries, however, barely touched on the attainments that remained so vivid to his friends. To Senator Karl Mundt, he was the great crusader. To General Albert Wedemeyer, who had traveled with him in support of the Taft Presidential aspirations in 1952, he was the man who had tried to keep the Republican Party from committing suicide. To Willard Edwards of the Chicago Tribune, he was, even to the last Washington column he had done for his paper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the newspaperman who refused to take a handout for granted. To Alex Hillman, who had known him for forty years, he was the epitome of the best in four distinct historical periods of journalism, ending with the mellow commentary of his last years as a Washington columnist. And to the Rev. Dr. Edward L. R. Elson of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, who had come to know him at the end of his days, he was a “roguish saint,” a P. K. (for preacher’s kid) who had returned to the fold after far wanderings that, if the symbolism of Forrest’s life be properly understood, had never been wanderings at all.

My own memories of Forrest, which date back to the days of the Scopes trial in the early twenties, are tumultuous and vivid for all that there were gaps when I lost touch with him entirely. He was courtly and genial, possessed of a wit that masked its bite in a true elegance of expression, a man of fantastic loyalties to his friends. He liked to call himself a Tory. That was part of his romanticism; in actuality, he was a Madisonian American whose cosmopolitanism derived from the freemasonry of the frontier. He associated himself with the management of several publications, but he was never management’s man.