All About Byron Price

By: Karen Zach

Always fascinated with newspapermen, I ran into this one the other day and thought, “He would be great to share with my readers.” Hope you enjoy!

Meet Byron Price, who was born 25 March 1891 in Topeka, Indiana and has such a wonderful story about how he became interested in what would become his life-long career and work that began at about ten years old when he became a newspaperman, publishing a paper centered upon the happenings of the family farm. Everyone enjoyed the humor, statistics and such written in pencil on used wrapping paper, until the boy started telling secrets on his sisters and this was his first brush with censorship as his father (John and mother, Emmeline Barnes) put a stop to the creative little issues.

Byron was a farm boy where he did much hard work (plowing, planting, milking…). He attended a country school in LaGrange County where he learned the basics, then graduated from Topeka, HS. Each day, he hitched his horse to a two-wheel cart and headed to learn. He kept that love of newspapering alive being the editor of the Topeka HS “Index.”

His appetite for learning never seemed to stop. He headed to Crawfordsville, Indiana to Wabash College where he began his four years there, buffed from farm work, determined to complete college with a good standing, a way with words, but barely a nickel in his pocket. (Indianapolis Star 3 Jan 1937 p 39). Immediately, he got a job with the Journal, writing a column (as well as one for the Indianapolis Star) about college life and happenings. Oh and he edited the twice-a-week Bachelor for two years. Impressive! But, wait! He also got a job with the Journal delivering the newspapers his articles were in. Wait! While delivering the papers, he stopped at three homes (Peck, Merrill and Voorhees) and fired-up their furnaces each morning. Wait! In the evenings during his time at Wabash, he worked behind the counter and on weekends, cooked at the Ben Hur Dairy Lunch café. Yet, there is more as he swept the floors of several local businesses, including Otto’s Jewelry store. Then in his junior and senior years, he served as secretary to President (George) MacKintosh. Dr. Mac was pleased to hire a student; however, Byron was lacking shorthand and his typing skills left something to be desired. This young man was amazing! He attended night school at the Crawfordsville Business College which would serve to be helpful in his chosen career in life and got him his job with President Mac! He lived at the Merrill home most of his college days. A member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, he was also in a literary society group and in Feb 1911 (Greencastle Herald 25th p 2) he was the representative from Wabash in the State Oratorical Contest. Natural Forces in the Development of World Peace was his topic and he won! Ironically, it was the only first win for the Giants in 27 years, President MacIntosh himself winning the honor in 1884. (Greencastle Herald). Unbelievable that he was so involved in all these activities, yet still found time to be active in YMCA plus he had such high grades he was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Key. (Greencastle Herald).

Lawyering was his chosen field, and after leaving Wabash, he was offered a teaching job and planned on doing that while studying to become an attorney. However, during that summer he worked in the United Press Bureau at Chicago. Newspaper work was his love forever after! Next, he took a position with the Associated Press. 1914 brought him a summer job on the AP Washington Bureau staff assigned to the Senate, White House, State Department. From this job, he took a leave of absence to go to the service where he was an Infantry Captain (Co F 52nd Inf). On his WWII Army card he was described as being 5’10”, with blonde hair, gray eyes and weighing 190# with ruddy complexion. Upon his return he went back to Washington and was involved with interesting assignments, including travelling with President Wilson, followed Harding’s “Front Porch Campaign”, (Indy Star 3 Jan 1937), covered the Leo Fran murder case; attended the 1930 naval conference in London; plus 11 Republican and Democratic National Conventions while working in many AP cities (New Orleans, Washington, NY and Atlanta mainly).

With the Associated Press for 29 years, President Roosevelt chose Byron Price as the Director of Censorship during WWII. Although he accepted the job, he owned serious misgivings about the whole affair. “The word censorship arouses instant resentment, distrust and fear among free men,” he noted. Yet, he forged ahead and did an amazing job with the distinct purpose “of keeping dangerous information from the enemy.” His staff was between 12-14,000 workers who examined letters, cables, radiograms, films, monitored overseas telephone calls and checked documents carried by foreign travelers. (Jacobs, Harvey. Indianapolis News 5 Sept 1981 p 4).

In 1920, he was married to Priscilla Alden Brown on the 3rd of April at the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church in NY city. She was a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden and active in various related groups but her big thrill was to christen the ship, Priscilla Alden when it was launched in 1943 at Fairfield, Maryland. She passed away in 1978 after having been married to Byron for 58 years; he died 6 August 1981 at age 90 in their final home in Caroline Village, (a retirement community in Hendersonville, NC) after wrapping-up his career as assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, a true “American,” who loved his country immensely and who was a Montgomery Countian briefly – glad we got him for a few years, at least!

Thanks to the Indianapolis News Wed 5 May 1948 p 11 for the photo

– Karen Zach is the editor of Montgomery Memories, our monthly magazine all about Montgomery County. Her column, Around the County, appears each Thursday in The Paper of Montgomery County. You can reach her at [email protected].