The short retirement of our most durable editor
by Jack Neely
When Capt. William Rule finally took a vacation, 75 years ago this summer, "radio bands" packed the Riviera Theater, cars were all over the place, airplanes droned overhead, and there was a fresh new plan for downtown.
When you think about the Jazz Age, you don't think about men like Capt. Rule. He carried a cane and wore a black ribbon tie and starched collar beneath his white goatee. He was the sort of guy you might be tempted to call colonel; many Southern non-combatants answered to that title. But Capt. Rule was content with his rank. Calling him colonel was one of the few things you could do to annoy him.
He was editor of the progressive Republican daily, the Knoxville Journal. He had held the same job for 58 years. At his last birthday, in May, William Rule had turned 89. But his eyes were clear and blue. Many who met him, including President Harding, took him for a man a quarter-century younger than he was. What always betrayed him were his memories.
Born in South Knox County during the Jacksonian era, he had failed as an antebellum merchant on State Street before Parson Brownlow hired him to set type and sometimes write for the incendiary anti-Democrat paper, the Knoxville Whig, in 1860. After the Civil War broke out, the 23-year-old enlisted with the Union infantry, and marched with Sherman. He returned to become, at 27, the city editor of the Whig.
Later he started a paper called the Knoxville Chronicle. He was proud to be the only Republican editor in the entire South. However, by some accounts, he also introduced the idea of objective journalism, which was in the 1870s an exotic new doctrine.
A civil-rights advocate and hater of backroom politics, Rule was, maybe, Knoxville's first modern man. In 1873, a Memphis businessman offended by a Rule editorial challenged the Knoxville editor to a duel. Rule refused in a published statement: "I am opposed to dueling for the reason that it is contrary to the enlightened age in which we live." Some credited Rule with making dueling unfashionable.
One of his hires had been a 15-year-old called "Muley" who worked as Rule's office boy, then as a typesetter. He showed unexpected promise, and when he left town at 17, Rule wrote him a letter of recommendation: framed, it would later hang on the wall of the publisher of The New York Times.
Early that July, a couple of weeks before his vacation, Rule was a guest of honor at a banquet in honor of the great publisher Adolph Ochs in Chattanooga. In his speech, Rule remembered a kid who'd been "hungry for work."
In 1928, Rule was still editor of the Chronicle's descendent, the Journal. In between, he'd been Knoxville's postmaster and, twice, its mayor. He compiled the first comprehensive history of the city. Now he was, in fact, the oldest active editor in the United States.
Every day before 8 a.m., Capt. Rule was at his sunlit office in the Journal Arcade building on Gay Street. He'd work until noon, mostly reading mail and periodicals, then go out for an hour or two, sometimes walking as much as two miles on downtown's busy sidewalks. Maybe three days a week he'd golf. Then he'd return to the office and work at this typewriter until 6. At 89 he was still writing two political columns a week, plus various other unsigned pieces. Then he'd walk to his Clinch Avenue home to have supper with his wife, Lucy, who was 90. Often she'd try to keep him home. "Somebody has got to save the country," he'd respond. Then he'd walk back downtown, work until 9 or so, whereupon he'd walk home to spend the rest of the evening reading current books and periodicals.
He worked 10 hours a day in his mid-80s, and he claimed he'd taken only a month of vacation in his 60-year career: an average of one day every two years. He said he didn't want to "rust." But he was in his late 80s now, and somebody convinced even Capt. Rule that it was time to relax. He told his colleagues he was going to take a month-long vacation during the dog days of summer.
He wrote an editorial that Wednesday, speculating that the new Republican nominee for the presidency, Mr. Hoover, seemed qualified for the job. He walked home. The summer days were hot, highs in the 80s and low 90s. Knoxvillians sought refuge in movie theaters. The Riviera was advertising the breakthrough sound movie, The Jazz Singer. The Queen was showing a Gene Tunney boxing match.
He was able to stay home only a couple of days. No one was really surprised, the first Monday of Capt. Rule's vacation, when he appeared on Gay Street, once again in his swivel chair. He couldn't stay away.
Co-workers noticed he wasn't well, though, suffering fever and chills, seeming for a moment "delusional." They escorted Capt. Rule home, where he had some pain in his abdomen that came and went.
The following day it was much worse. He went to the new Fort Sanders-Riverside Hospital, where doctors determined he had an ailment common to many 70 or 80 years younger: appendicitis. On Wednesday he went in for an operation. Doctors said it would be a long shot, and it was. He died Thursday morning.
Adolph Ochs, who would later visit Capt. Rule's grave at Old Gray, remarked, "He was Knoxville's grand old man.... I hope something will be immediately done to make secure the perpetuation of his name and his public service, that future generations may ever be reminded of one of the city's staunchest friends...."
We did. But Rule High closed a few years ago.
July 17, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 29
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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