Brandeis And The Modern State Inscribed to Journalist Rodney Dutcher

Description

Brandeis and The Modern State by Alphaeus Thomas Mason. National Home Library Foundation : Washington, D.C. 1936. Inscribed by editor to journalist Rodney Dutcher.

Inscribed on first free endpaper by editor Sherman Mittell to National Enterprise Association columnist and DC Bureau Manager, Rodney Dutcher . Mittell’s note sarcastically references the contemporaneous publication of “The Nine Old Men” by Drew Pearson and Robert Allen.
Dutcher , a noted D.C. circuit reporter of his day, died in 1938 at age 36. As a journalist, Rodney Dutcher is best remembered for his reporting on the Death of Huey Long, his participation in President Herbert Hoover’s 1928 Good Will Tour, and for his less than flattering appearance in the memoirs of Frances Perkins:

“I couldn’t see a different newspaper man every day for long interviews. It was really very pressing. I remember I got into great trouble. One man whom I had never heard of called up and asked for an interview. My secretary asked me about it. His name was Rodney Dutcher and he’s dead now. I’d never heard of him. I had given an interview to somebody the day before, and somebody else the day before that, this was a terrible day, and I told my secretary to say that I absolutely couldn’t do it. I had no time and it was out of the question.

He apparently went off furious. He went to the Press Club and told everybody. Ruth Finney, whom I had become acquainted with, came over to see me and said, “I don’t believe you know who Rodney Dutcher is.”

I said, “I certainly don’t. I never heard of him.”

“Wall,” she said, “don’t ever let him know that you never heard of him. He’s a very sensitive lily. He doesn’t think there could be anybody who doesn’t know who Rodney Dutcher is.”

8vo, 267pp+ 1 ad, green cloth boards. Minor soiling to front and back boards, wear to corners and spine edges. Spotting to back board. Pastedowns and endpapers toned, front free endpaper with presentation inscription in pen. Small stains to book block affecting margins p 245 on. Good condition. Lacking dust jacket.

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