William Allen White was the best known newspaper editor of the first three decades of the twentieth century in America. He chose always to work with the Emporia (Kansas) Gazette, where he had begun his career, but achieved a national reputation, through his books, and articles in the magazines Atlantic and Harpers. This book is concerned with small-town values and achievements in turn-of-the-century America when the nation was changing dramatically. The author's dissertation, on which this book is based, won the Allan Nevins prize of the Society of American Historians.