E. T. Leech

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"B. U. L. Conner" redirects here. For the former Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety, see Bull Connor.

Edward Towner Leech (born June 17, 1892 in Denver, Colorado; died December 11, 1949 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania} was a newspaper columnist and editor who sometimes wrote under the psuedonym Dr. B. U. L. Conner, a comic character who also appeared in cartoons as a small man with a large nose.

Leech graduated from the University of Colorado in 1914 and was a Delta Tau Delta. He married the former Pauline Bohanna, but they divorced in 1929 after having two children.

Leech spent his entire career with the Scripps-McRae and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains, beginning with a job with the Denver Express in 1912. While Leech was editor of The Memphis Press, he was jailed for 10 days in 1918 for contempt in relation to his editorials lambasting the political machine headed by Mayor E. H. Crump. That sentence brought the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was transferred to the Birmingham Post by 1923. A Post story that May about a defendant on trial for murder earned him another brief stay in jail, along with reporters Jack Bethea and Lew Robinson. In the Summer of 1926 Leech, writing as Conner, authored a fanciful series of columns entitled "A Love Story of Vulcan and Electra", narrating the romantic involvement between the Vulcan statue and his newly-installed counterpart, Electra. Leech was also credited with leading a media campaign against the Ku Klux Klan of the era.

Leech joined the staff of the El Paso Herald Post by 1931 and was soon the editor of The Pittsburgh Press, where he spent the remainder of his career. While there he was known for championing environmental efforts in the industrial metropolis and for publicizing child labor and "sweatshop" conditions. He also hired noted illustrator Nat Youngblood. During he tenure he helped the Press rise to a circulation of over 265,000, making it the most profitable daily in the Scripps-Howard chain.

Leech died at age 57 from complications following a surgical procedure at Pittsburgh's Mercy Hospital. He is buried at the Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He was inducted into the Pennsylvania Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1973.

The Dr. B. U. L. Conner name lived on in the Scripps-Howard Chain as a local columnist for the El Paso Herald Post. A 1952 column under that by-line recommended independent candidate Anita Lee Blair, a blind woman who lectured on safety issues, for the Texas State Assembly. She won the seat.

Publications

  • Leech, Edward T. (1918) What Next?
  • Leech, Edward Towner (1949) Utopia on the Rocks : A Report on British Socialism in Action. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh Press

References

  • French, Paul Comly (May 31, 1933) "Children on Strike." The Nation. Vol. 136, No. 3543, p. 611
  • "Edward T. Leech" obituary (December 12, 1949) El-Paso Herald-Post
  • "Ten journalists elected to Hall." (September 6, 1973) New Castle News
  • Nunnelly, William A. (1991) Bull Connor. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817304959

External links

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