SOURCE: Kirchwey, Freda. “Oswald Garrison Villard.” Nation 169, no. 15 (8 October 1949): 340.

In the following essay, Kirchwey provides a brief history and assessment of Villard's influence on journalism.

Applied to Oswald Garrison Villard, the word “liberal” never carried a connotation of mildness or indecision. Instead it called up the image of a crusading reformer, animated by strong convictions and fierce indignations, moving in to battle against the many varieties of social and political sin with which his time was so heavily afflicted. He titled his autobiography Fighting Years, and it was an accurate summing up of his public career. His liberalism lay in his devotion to freedom; it included little tolerance for political or other views which differed basically from his own. He would never have disputed another man's right to disagree with him about peace or racial equality or free trade; but it was hard to persuade him that such...