Maury, Reuben

Reuben Maury (1899-1981) was born in Butte, Montana and studied law at the University of Virginia, where he was editor of the school newspaper. He returned to Montana to practice while freelancing articles on the side. He launched his career as an editorialist by penning a response to H.L. Mencken's claim that Montana was one of eight states he considered a literary wasteland. After reading the rebuttal, New York Daily News founder and publisher Joseph Medill Patterson wrote Maury and asked him to write for the News, where Maury went on to write conservative editorials for forty-six years from 1926-1972. Conversely, he also wrote weekly liberal editorials for Collier's Weekly magazine. Maury was awarded the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for a series of six editorials in the Daily News .