Binder, Carroll, 1896-1956

Newspaper correspondent, editor, and editorial writer.

Abner Carroll Binder was born on February 20, 1896 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, to James I. and Emma Flohr Binder. Binder began his newspaper career covering labor issues. He helped launch the Minnesota Daily Star, a paper organized by labor unions and non-partisan league farmers. Throughout 1920 he wrote for the Courier News in Fargo, North Dakota and for the Federated Press, a co-operative, labor oriented newsgathering association. He joined the Chicago Daily News staff in 1922 as a reporter on industrial relations and sociological topics and in 1925 and 1926 was assigned his first foreign stories covering the Nicaraguan revolution and other Latin American developments. In 1927 he was permanently appointed to the Chicago Daily News foreign service and worked as a correspondent in Italy, Russia and England until 1931. Upon Walter Strong's death in 1931, Binder was called back to Chicago to become editorial assistant to new Daily News publisher Frank Knox. In 1936 Binder became director of the Daily News foreign service, and for the next eight years he oversaw worldwide, award winning news coverage leading up to and during World War II.

In 1945, amidst another change in ownership, he left the Chicago Daily News to become editor of the editorial pages of the Minneapolis Tribune. He also wrote a regular column on world affairs and visited both the Pacific and European war theatres to cover the war firsthand. He lectured extensively at universities and colleges on world affairs and freedom of the press, and became especially impassioned about the Zionist movement which he opposed. In 1949 he was appointed to the United Nations Subcommission on Freedom of Information and the Press. He often appeared on radio as a commentator and in 1952 contributed a particularly popular segment to Edward R. Murrow's This I Believe radio program.

He married wife Dorothy Walton Binder in 1920 and they had four children, Carroll Binder, Jr., Mary Kelsey, and twins David and Deborah. His son Carroll Jr. was killed in action over France during World War II. His death was the source of considerable despair for Binder and his wife as governmental bureaucracy prevented him from being declared dead for several months. Binder never truly recovered from the loss. He succumbed suddenly to leukemia at age 60.