Lewis Beck Sebring Jr., journalist, war correspondent, lecturer, and historian, was born January 20, 1901, in Schenectady, New York. Educated in the local public schools, Sebring received an A.B. degree from Union College in 1923. In 1938 he received an honorary Master of Letters from his alma mater.
Sebring began his newspaper career when he was hired by the Schenectady Gazette. From 1923 to 1928 he worked as legislative correspondent for the Associated Press in Albany. In November 1928, he resigned that position to work for the Association of Life Insurance Presidents in New York City. The following year, however, Sebring resumed his career in journalism when he was hired by the New York Herald-Tribune as a political reporter. In 1931 he was promoted to assistant night city editor; in 1935 he became night city editor, a position he held for the next five years.
In 1940 Sebring began that phase of his career for which he was best known when he was assigned as a reporter to cover pre-World War II military maneuvers. From March 1942, to June 1944, Sebring was the Tribune's war correspondent covering General Douglas MacArthur's SWPA headquarters in Australia. In this capacity Sebring covered the Allied war effort in the Southwest Pacific, reporting on wartime conditions and the defense of Australia in 1942, and later on the fighting in New Guinea and New Britain. During the fall of 1943 he covered Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to Australia.
In June 1944, Sebring was reassigned, and from his return from the Pacific until September 1945, he was in charge of all Pacific war news at the Tribune's home office. He also covered the political campaign of John W. Bricker, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1944. Sebring also devoted much of his time during this period to the preparation of a book-length manuscript, “The MacArthur Circus.” Rejected by two publishers because of fears that the book might be libelous, the manuscript was based upon Sebring's observations of General MacArthur's relations with the press. In May 1947, Sebring was transferred to the Tribune's telegraph desk, where he handled political and domestic news as assistant telegraph editor. In June 1949, he resigned to become director of public relations at Union College and to edit the school's alumni magazine.
In 1953 Sebring resigned that position and in subsequent years he returned to journalism only to write a bi-weekly column, “On Second Thought,” for the Schenectady Union-Star and the Winter Park (Fla.) Sun-Herald after his retirement to Florida in 1966. Sebring's retirement was, nevertheless, an active one devoted to a host of interests which included photography, travel, local history, genealogy, and philately. Lewis Sebring died on January 13, 1978.
