ST. CLAIR, Labert Sprint
Photo from Ancestery - Susan-Neikirk
Sprint St. Clair is married. Everybody of the newspaper guild in Danville remember this brilliant young newspaper man, who began his career as a reporter for the Commercial News and whose meteoric rise in the newspaper world has been a source of great pleasure to his friends. The Chicago Tribune of Tuesday mroning reproduces the painting of the "lark girl," with the following story. "A midnight automobile dash to Wheaton, a bride-to-be, roused protestingly from her slumbers, an early morning service before a justice of the peace, that's how the "lark girl," was married yesterday. The "lark girl," to be explicit was Miss Mae G. Dirks, a sister of Rudolph Dirks, creator of the Katzenjammer Kids, who draws Hans & Fritz for the Sunday Tribune. Miss Dirks, a former school teacher won her sobriquet by posig for a remarkable faithful production of Jules Breton's famous painting, The Song of the Lark. A year or two ago Labert St. Clair - better known in newspaper circles as "Sprint" St. Clair - was hunting bear in the WIsconsin woods. St. Clair has been handling "big" stories for the Associated Press for some time now, but in this instance he was trying to forget that work existed. One afternoon a pelting rainstorm drove him to shelter of an old time log schoolhouse, and as he himself put it, "Bing! Zowie! Biff! There was the girl." The romance began right there. Correspondence fostered it when Miss Dirks went abroad, but the wedding date was never set. Late Sunday night St. Clair arrived unheralded in Chicago. He made a dash for Miss Dirk's home, woker her up, roused Judge W.H. Johnson of Wheaton and before she knew it, the gasping bride was greeted as Mrs. St. Clair. An hour or two later the couple left Chicago for an impromptu wedding trip to Bermuda. ON their return they will live in Washington where Mr. St. Clair is an importnat member of the Associated Press staff at the capital.
Source: Dec 22, 1949 - Wheaton Illinois News
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon St. Clair of Glen Ellyn have just returned from the funeral Tuesday of Labert St. Clair in Washington DC. Labert St. Clair, 62, publicist, writer and former Chicago newsman died suddenly Saturday morning near Vienna, VA. Services were held at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Washington where he made his home. Death was caused by a heart attack. Mr. St. Clair had been a frequent visitor at the home of his brother, Gordon St. Clair of 751 Riford Road and had many friends in Glen Ellyn and Wheaton Born in Veedersburg, Ind Mr. St. Clair began his newspaper career as a reporter for the Danville, Ill Democrat and the Danville Commercial News. In 1907 he joined the staff of the Chicago Inter-Ocean. Later, he served as traveling correspondent for the Associated Press as night city editor of the AP Chicago bureau, and manager of the AP Bureau in Albany, NY. From 1909-1917 he was head of the AP House of Representatives staff in the nationals capital leaving that position in 1917 to serve for two years as director of a newspaper and magazine publicity for the war-time Liberty Loan drive. In 1933 he helped organize the publicity bureau of the NRA and the Federal Housing Administration in Washington and served from 1935-1937 as transportation assistant to Secretary of Commerce Roper. Since 1937 he had engaged in private practice as a public relations counselor. Among his writing are two books, Transportation Since Time Began, a historical survey and I've Met the Folks, his reminiscences of a news career. His other writings include The Story of the Liberty Loans, Getting the Public Eye and Ear, Juggling the Heavyweights, and a newspaper column syndicated from Washington in 1919-1920. He was also the author of various magazine articles, published most frequently in Nation's Business. In 1916, he was married in Wheaton to Miss Mae G. Dirks, then of Chicago. Surviving are his widow and two daughters.
Source: Attica Daily Tribune 12 Oct 1918 p 1
When the big news comes out from Washington each night of how the country is snatching up the liberty bonds – the news of countless numbers of cities going over the top with over subscriptions – it’s an Indiana man speaking. He’s the spokesman for the US Treasury Department in giving out the national news of the Liberty loan’s daily progress throughout the country. This Hoosier is LaBert St. Clair, popularly known among hosts of friends in Washington as plain Bert. Veedersburg is the proud Indiana town which claims him as his own. When the war broke out St. Clair was a member of the Washington staff of the Associated Press. The Treasury Department with preparations under way for the first Liberty loan cast about for a live wire newspaper man to help it with its big job. It found St. Clair. The Associated Press agreed to “lend” St. Clair for this national service and so it came about that this Indiana newspaper man who is just as proud of Veedersburg as Veedersburg is proud of him has had a big part in floating the first, second, third and now the fourth Liberty loan. St. Clair has two titles. He is both the chief of the news division and assistant director of publicity of the National Liberty Loan Publicity Bureau. This bureau has general charge of all national news and publicity for each loan. The district bureaus work under it. It was 13 years ago that St. Clair developed a “nose for news” (an instinct that a newspaper report is supposed by the layman to possess) and since that time he has been chasing the elusive and festive item from one end of the country to the other. But the story of his newspaper experience is best told in his own language. “In 1905, while I was busily engaged in my home town of Veedersburg, Indiana, aiding my father by painting buggies, shining stoves, selling hardware and doing a little odd deviling for the weekly newspaper, I wrote a murder story for the Indianapolis Star and was paid $6.40 for the job,” said St. Clair in a reminiscent mood. I was so amazed to find that this much money could be earned in one evening that I immediately began to bombard newspaper offices with choice pieces and items and every now and then somebody printed one. A story that I wrote for the Danville, Ill Morning Democrat which was full of tragedy, love and perhaps a bit of imagination brought me an offer of a reporter’s job. I demanded $7 a week got it and reported about sunup the next day for the job on a morning paper. The ensuing 24 hours, bringing as it did my initial introduction to a typewriter and the knowledge that morning newspapermen work almost all night, were quite nerve racking and I wondered many times if I were not moulded for the paint and the stove brush. The second week I received $8 and from that moment my soul has belonged to the newspaper game. Subsequently, I worked for the Danville Commercial News for a year and then in 1907 went to Indiana University for a pit of polish. Professors, I fear will remember me as the youth who failed in almost everything except public speaking and residents of the Brown, Monroe and Orange counties may still connect me with a certain patent weather strip which stripped and failed to weather with great regularity.” St. Clair as one means of getting through school, peddles a patent weather strip on Saturday in counties adjacent to the university city. “In 1908 I joined the staff of the old Chicago Inter-Ocean and for a year wrote everything from murders to marriages. Then in 1909 I joined the Associated Press and during the next four years worked in Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City and San Francisco offices. In 1913 I came to Washington to press agent Frank T. O’Hair who beat Uncle Joe Cannon for one lone term in Congress. Then I went to New Albany NY to manage the Associated Press and two years later I was transferred to Washington to direct the House of Representatives staff of the AP. But while my work has taken me away from Veedersburg there is nothing that I am prouder of than the fact that I was Hoosier born. I’m strong for Indiana.” Mr. St. Clair is chairman of the entertainment committee of the National Press club of Washington and when there is singing on any Press Club program he as a proud Hoosier sees to it that On the Banks of the Wabash is sung. He presided at the Press Club’s Liberty Loan meeting a few nights ago when Vice President Marshall was a speaker and Geraldine Farrar was a singer.
Thanks so very much to: Susan Neikirk Grovetown, IN for these nifty pieces :) kz