 |
 Murrow in a fighter plane, 1944. Photo courtesy WSU Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections.
Courage and integrity
Not long after the Murrow family moved from Ed's birthplace of
Polecat Creek, North Carolina, to the Skagit Valley of Washington,
he was threatened by an older boy who tried to scare him with a BB
gun. The seven-year-old Ed, then known as Egbert, taunted his
tormentor to "go ahead and shoot." The boy obliged, hitting him
between the eyes, giving him a scar that he carried for life.
When Murrow was 14, he began working summers in the logging
camps near his home in Blanchard. His job seemed simple enough,
riding a steam-powered donkey engine and blowing its whistle as a
signal to the timber workers for the next step in the cutting
process. But there were hidden dangers. Logs could break loose from
the flat cars, or the brakes would wear out, sending the cars off
the tracks on the curves. Yet Murrow seemed to live on the
excitement of such dangers.
It was about this time, amid the rough-cut loggers with whom he
worked, that he changed his name from Egbert to Ed, a more
comfortable fit, he thought, for the kind of person he saw himself
to be.
At Edison High School, he was persuaded to join the debate team.
Even though he sweated profusely from nervousness, his teacher,
Ruth Lawson, taught him how to overcome his fear of public
speaking. Soon, he learned to speak with conviction, earning
himself "best debater" in a state competition. Yet even after he
had reached professional levels in radio and television, he
continued to sweat.
At Washington State College, Murrow took a speech course from a
teacher who turned out to be an important mentor, Ida Lou Anderson.
(See sidebar.) There, he learned not just technique, but also
ideas. Anderson's favorite philosopher/rhetorician was the Roman
emperor, Marcus Aurelius. It is perhaps from him that Murrow
absorbed the ideals embodied in such pronouncements as "You will
find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as
though it were your last," or "A wrongdoer is often a man who has
left something undone, not always one who has done something."
Somehow, Ed had learned not to freeze up with fear or become
passive, but to find courage within himself. Courage exhibited
itself again when he found himself covering World War II in Europe
from London. Once, he reported from the rooftops there while bombs
were falling nearby, for the first time bringing the sounds of a
war to his American listeners.
Later, he persuaded the military to let him describe the war
from the air by flying in a bombing run over Berlin. Murrow not
only survived the experience, but gave a running account of the
flak exploding around him, the searchlights that found his plane,
the evasive dives the pilot made to avoid being hit, and the bombs
as they were released from the aircraft. Other journalists admitted
they would not have undertaken such a foolhardy mission, but Murrow
seemed exhilarated by such challenges. That courage would reveal
itself again, 10 years later, when he confronted Senator Joseph
McCarthy.
Even later in Murrow's career, he spoke to the Radio-Television
News Directors Association. After mentioning that what he was about
to say was probably foolhardy, he spoke of how television
"insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live."
Although he was known by many to be fearless, he said he was
"seized by an abiding fear regarding what these two instruments
[radio and TV] are doing to our society, our culture and our
heritage." Then his well-known lines: television "can teach, it can
illuminate, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the
extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends.
Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box." Some saw this
as heresy. Murrow made many colleagues angry, including the
executives at CBS. But he felt he owed a duty to his
conscience.
Murrow was known for his work ethic as well as his courage. As
vice president of CBS News, he never considered himself an
executive who let others do the work. He had come from hard-working
stock. His father, Roscoe, was a farmer in North Carolina and a
railroad worker in Washington. From age four, Ed had learned to
draw water from the well, feed the chickens, weed the garden, and
slop the pigs. His mama taught, "If you can't pay for it, you can't
afford it." When he turned 12, Murrow was hired by neighboring
farmers to drive a line horse. A Murrow did not turn down work for
pleasure. Ed later recalled, "I can't remember a time in my life
when I didn't work."
Perhaps what makes Murrow most memorable was his command of the
language and his gift for effective communication. Perhaps these
came from his hearing the Bible read aloud to him when he was
young. Mama Ethel read with theatrical flair and made the Bible
stories come alive. "The world lost a great actress," said her
other son, Dewey, "when my mother didn't go on stage." From his
mama, Ed learned the old locutions that survived in his family
since the Revolution: "ere" for "before," "commence" for "begin,"
"forth and back," "t'was"-and profound inversions like "this I
believe."
Murrow combined the dramatic flair learned from his mother and
Ida Lou Anderson with his courage and diligence as he wrote
journalistic history by bringing World War II into the living rooms
of America, laying his career on the line to battle a grandstanding
demagogue, and then doing his idealistic utmost to maintain
integrity in an industry that was largely his creation.
Val Limburg joined the WSU Communication faculty in 1967 and
retired in 2002. He taught thousands of broadcasting students,
using Murrow as the touchstone example for media credibility and
ethics.
Click here for a list of books about Edward R.
Murrow.
Page
1
2
Washington State Magazine Home
|
|
Edward R. Murrow was looking for a future when he came to
Washington State College-sophistication, an education, and a way
out of a hardscrabble life. He found it all in Ida Lou Anderson
'24.
That frail, tiny woman, just eight years his senior, was an
admired speech instructor who carried both a cane and a magnificent
voice. Beneath that, she was Murrow's guide, his critic, his moral
compass.
According to one Murrow biographer, he called her his "other
woman." She called him her "masterpiece."
Together they built a fine, unusual, and durable relationship
that guided Murrow to success and buoyed Anderson through her
physical tribulations.
Continued
| |
