Royce Howes
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Royce Bucknam Howes (January 3, 1901 – March 18, 1973[1]) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer who also published a biography of Edgar A. Guest and a number of crime novels. He worked for the Detroit Free Press from 1927 to 1966 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for an editorial on the cause of an unauthorized strike by an autoworkers local that idled 45,000 Chrysler workers.
Writer and editorial director
Born in 1901 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Royce Howes moved to Detroit and began a long career with the Detroit Free Press in 1927. He remained with the Free Press for 39 years until his retirement in 1966. Howes eventually served as the editorial director of the paper.[2][3] In 1955, Howes wrote an editorial that was covered in other papers about the role of the newspaper in American society. He began with a dissection of the tangible things in a newspaper—paper and ink. But he concluded that news "is all things to all men. What it is depends on who is defining it. And it is YOUR definition, not the editor's, which matters."[4] Howes's colleague at the Free Press, columnist Malcolm Bingay, said of Howes: "My friend and colleague, Col. Royce Howes, knows a great deal about a surprising number of things that ordinary mortals never think about. That is why he is such a successful novelist and short story writer."[5]
Pulitzer Prize
Howes received the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for an editorial published July 16, 1954, titled "An Instance of Costly Cause and Effect Which Detroiters Should Weigh Soberly".[6] He also won the National Headliner Award for editorial writing.[2] Howes's award-winning editorial concerned an unauthorized July 1954 strike by a local of the United Automobile Workers' union. The strike shut down production at Chrysler Corporation and put 45,000 Chrysler workers out of work.[6] In awarding the prize to Howes, the Pulitzer organization noted that Howes's editorial impartially and clearly assessed the shared responsibility of both labor and management. The Pulitzer Prize organization found that
the editorial made a notable contribution to public understanding of the whole program of the respective responsibilities and relationships of labor and management in this field.[6]
Military service
Howes also served in the U.S. Army during World War II, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and receiving the Bronze Star. He was an editor for the Army newspaper "Stars and Stripes."
