As editor of the Sacramento Bee, C. K. McClatchy expressed his independent and outspoken views for over fifty years. Relying solely on his paper for his platform, he was known as one of the leaders of the progressive movement in California politics. He was also recognized as a regional spokesman who helped shape the development of California's capital city and the Sacramento Valley. He founded the McClatchy chain of newspapers which circulated his commentary on regional and national affairs throughout California's great central valley. A lifelong progressive, McClatchy belonged to an era of spirited personal journalism and had much in common with the famous editors he admired: Fremont Older, Henry Watterson, and Josephus Daniels.

Charles Kenny McClatchy was born in Sacramento on 1 November 1858, the year after his father, James McClatchy, founded the Bee. James McClatchy arrived in New York from Ireland at the age of eighteen in 1842 and...