Word: pegler
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich, an egg-bald Russian with a twin-pronged beard, spent a lifetime seeking peace and, somehow, disturbing everything he touched. Devoted followers thought he was a genius who could unify humanity through art. Loudmouthed Westbrook Pegler thought he was a quack who wanted to become "head" of Siberia...
...crown was jolted further askew by Hearstling Westbrook Pegler, who dug up more ancient scandal. It was common knowledge that Rocky was a reform-school graduate, but his defenders argued that Rocky had gone right since then, and why pick on the kid? Pegler said he was later accused of: armed robbery in 1939, an assault on a 15-year-old girl in 1941. (Both charges were later dismissed...
...humid humor, Westbrook Pegler, who writes for Hearst, teed off on Ed ("Little Old New York") Sullivan, who writes for the tabloid New York Daily News. One of Ed's columns had caught Peg's bloodshot eye. It "consisted of an open letter to his secretary," wrote Pegler. "This was an unusual device. Usually his secretary writes to him and in this way is able to congratulate him on remarkable feats of exclusive journalism and prophecy and thank him for kindnesses to others which he might not have the indelicacy to mention, although modesty is not his worst...
...Sullivan has long seemed to me to be willing to go to the gutter to find a hero." To prove it, Peg unwrapped a 1929 Sullivan column eulogizing Frank Marlow, a murdered Manhattan mobster ("Goodbye, Frank, and God bless you."). Pegler's verdict on Sullivan: "A prideful intimacy with many of the worst gangsters ... a professional name-dropper, a grown-up but still callow Saturday night sport...
Sullivan's answer was in character. In a column addressed from Hollywood to "My Secretary, Africa," he asked: "What was the reaction in N.Y. to the Pegler smear? Out here . . . the reaction was boredom. He's dangerously clever, though...