The Childs Papers are organized in five series: Correspondence; Writings and Speeches; Interviews, Notes, and Other Research Files; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Files; and Miscellany. The collection was arranged originally in 1959 (in Box 1-6); additional materials received after that date were arranged separately in August 1965 (in Box 7-27) and second group of additions arranged in December 1965 (in Box 28-29). These three parts of the collection are all listed in a single intellectual order in the Container List which follows this narrative.
Each part of the collection contains chronological files of correspondence. The first sequence consists of approximately 3000 letters of which one third is general correspondence, one third is Childs' correspondence with his agents and publishers, and one third deals with Childs' organizational activities particularly the Austen Riggs Center for psychiatric treatment and research, the Episcopal Church, and the Gridiron Club (of which Childs was president in 1957). General correspondence includes letters from many people of prominence (see index in Appendix 1); letters from readers; some letters from admirers and friends and some concerning newspaper work and writing. Childs' own letters are generally brief and businesslike. They seldom reveal his own political thinking; rare exceptions are letters of Jan. 13 and 15, 1954.
The correspondence in Sequence 2 also includes exchanges with publishers and agents, letters from readers (with comments on the airline subsidy lobby in 1948 and on the John Birch Society and other right-wing groups in 1959), and correspondence with noteworthy political and other public persons (see index in Appendix 1). There is a small amount of personal correspondence, most of which occurs late in 1945 and 1946 and relates to Childs' son, Henry Prentiss, and efforts to gain his re-admission to college following naval service. In addition, there are scattered letters concerning Childs' affiliations with various organizations and boards, especially the Gridiron Club and Nieman Foundation for Journalism (Harvard).
Special items of interest are letters, 1946 Oct.-1947 Jan., concerning the alleged assertion by Karl Mundt that Childs was “pink”; letters, 1949 May-June, concerning statements by Fulton Lewis, Jr., that Childs had Communist leanings; and letters, 1950 Nov.-1951 March, concerning the affair with Miner College (Washington, D.C.) in which Childs, Pearl Buck, and Max Lerner were barred from the college's conference because of alleged Communist leanings.
There are scattered letters concerning the political situations in Europe and the United States, such as the one from Bill Matthews in Berlin (1947, July 2); from Bob Fleming of the Milwaukee Journal (1951, May 15); and from William Evjue of the Madison Capital Times (1951, June 20) concerning developments in the McCarthy situation; from Joseph P. McMurray (1951, Mar. 22) concerning FHA housing; and eleven letters (1960, July 4-Sept. 21) from W. W. Stevens in Rio de Janiero concerning the political situation in South America, especially local views and opinions of the U.S.A.
In addition to correspondence with well-known persons listed in the Appendix, single letters of possible special interest include:
- 1944, Feb. 21, “Confidential Memorandum for B.H.R.,” from Childs gives general comments on the war, appraisals of opposing strength and possible course of the war. [B.H.R. refers to Ben Reese, managing editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.]
- 1951, Feb. 1, Childs' letter to the House Committee on Un-American Activities refuting charges against Childs concerning his association with Communist organizations.
- 1957, Apr. 2, letter from Cass Canfield of Harper's Publishing Company suggesting that Childs do a book on John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's reservations are mentioned. On July 1, 1958, Kennedy's editor, Evan Thomas, re-opened the subject.
- 1960, Oct. 26, Childs' letter recommending Clifton Daniel for membership in the Century Association.
There is also correspondence in Sequence 2 between Childs and the following: Clinton P. Anderson, Pat Arnold, Hale Boggs, Charles E. (“Chip”) Bohlen, Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown, Harry Byrd, James F. Byrne, Clifford Cass, Roy Cohn, J. Lawton Collins, John Sherman Cooper, Jay N. (“Ding”) Darling, Douglas Dillon, James A. Farley, Dorothy Canfield Fischer, James Forrestal, Orville Freeman, Albert Core, James C. Hagerty, Mark Hatfield, Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., Quincy Howe, Robert M. Hutchins, James E. Jackson, Jacob Javits, Kenneth Keating, Ethel and Robert Kennedy, William F. Knowland, Alf M. Landon, Frank Lausche, Herbert Lehman, Isaac Don Levine, Clare Booth Luce, Brien McMahon, Maury Maverick, Jr., Karl Mundt, Richard L. Neuberger, Lauris Norstad, John O'Hara, Nathan Pusey, Nelson Rockefeller, Elmo Roper, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., William Scranton, George Smather, Edward Stanley, David Susskind, Raymond Gram Swing, Stuart Symington, Jerry Voohis, Theodore H. White, and G. Mennen Williams.
The Writings and Speeches series includes articles, book reviews, addresses and lectures, radio broadcast scripts, and material concerning books and other long works, both published and unpublished. Again some of these materials were present in each of the three parts of the collection. Some of the subjects in Sequence 2 include Robert S. Kerr, Eisenhower and the Pentagon, the Republicans in the 1946 election, India, curtailment of freedom of the press, speech, and religion, rural electrical cooperatives, Franklin Roosevelt, and Walter Lippmann, Sweden, and Elmer Davis. Sequence 3 contains an address for the 1962 Workshop on Liberal Arts Education, an excerpt from a talk on “managed news,” the draft of an introduction for a book on the powers of the Presidency, and an excerpt from a talk on the inadequacies of education in underdeveloped countries. The radio scripts include programs for ABC (1950), substitutions for Raymond Gram Swing (1946), Washington Spotlight (1950-1952, and Washington Story (1945?). The “Lectures” folder contains typescripts of seven lectures on freedom of the press, American foreign policy, and American politics. Though one folder of clippings of newspaper articles is present, most clippings originally in the collection were not retained because the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Washington Post contain most of Childs' syndicated articles and are available on microfilm in the Historical Society Library.
Interviews, Notes, and Other Research Files include in “General” an interview with Governor Alfred Landon (ca. 1936), report of a conversation with Franklin D. Roosevelt, April 7, 1944, interviews with Winston Churchill (ca. June 18, 1943) and Mrs. Joseph P. Kennedy (post 1952), and an interview with Childs (Jan. 8, 1958) by Donald Shaughnessy about Roosevelt.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Files are arranged chronologically. Because many of the memos would have been entirely meaningless if they were not left clipped together, items were separated only when they had some meaning standing alone. For example, if a series of letters and answers came up, these were usually separated, but if a series of memos concerning the development of a story occurred, they were left together, and were arranged according to the date on the top piece. So, a “piece” can consist of a single letter, telegram, memo, or note, or after 1952, a sheet from the teletype on which items are typed in series; or it can consist of a group of memos, memos and letters, memos and teletype sheets clipped together.
Childs is directly concerned in about 10-15 percent of them. Most of the time, items are written by or to Raymond P. Brandt, head of the Washington Bureau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch until 1961, and Benjamin Reese, an editor of the Post-Dispatch in St. Louis. Files relating to Childs appear mainly in the period 1938-1941 in connection with a controversy arising from the fact that some Americans were selling oil to the Nazis through Mexico. Childs eventually filed suit against Senator Guffey who was involved in the matter.
From 1941 to 1946, the files are concerned primarily with World War II, in all its phases. There are a few items from Post-Dispatch men overseas. There follow, in normal sequence, groups of materials on the main stories in the news for next years: Deteriorating Russian-American relations, European recovery, the Korean War, and Senator McCarthy. There is a great deal of material on national elections from 1940 on, concerned primarily with the physical arrangements a newspaper must make to cover such events. There is much on the obtaining of hotel space and space on the convention floor, but little on what actually happened. All though the files are materials on stories of interest in Missouri or the St. Louis area.
The final series of Miscellany contains two photos of Childs taken with John Dorsey of Wayne State University in 1964; business papers including statements of payment for Childs' syndicated newspaper column and lists of newspapers carrying the column, expense accounts, and contracts; copies of Fulton Lewis' broadcasts concerning Childs, and memorabilia and other items of primarily biographical interest.
