Will Irwin, one of the great reporters of the twentieth century, began his long and varied writing career as a newspaperman. He was later also a magazine writer and editor, novelist, playwright, poet, and propagandist. Upon his death, Time aptly called him a "Jack-of-all-letters." The New York Times, for which he had occasionally written, described him in this way: "Wide ranging, versatile, personally genial, a story-teller who delighted his cronies, he searched and wrote in just about every field available to an extraordinary curiosity." He was a close friend and the official biographer of Herbert Hoover and the author or coauthor of more than thirty factual and fictional books. But it is as a reporter that he is best remembered.

William Henry Irwin was born 14 September 1873 in Oneida, New York, and spent his early childhood in the Finger Lakes region. His mother, Edith Greene, the daughter of a...