Crusade Ended

Portly, farm-born Grover Cleveland Hall had long been known in the South, had got himself a nationwide reputation as a fighting newspaperman. Editor (since 1926) of the small but potent Montgomery Advertiser, he was reportedly one of the best-paid editorialists in the South (TIME, Dec. 16).

It was Grover Hall who broke the power of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. Back in 1927, when both Alabama Senators were members of the Klan, and Governor Bibb Graves was inclined to ignore frequent floggings, Editor Hall tore into the Klan tooth & nail, ended by forcing Klansmen to unmask. For his attacks on racial and religious intolerance he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1928.

A loyal friend of Franklin Roosevelt was Editor Hall. When Willkiecrats goaded him last summer, he would cry: "Why, Roosevelt built the house I live in!" From that same house last week Grover Hall was taken, stricken with a hemorrhage from stomach ulcers. When transfusions were needed, Alabama's Governor Frank Dixon, Advertiser employes, hundreds of Editor Hall's friends offered blood. They were too late. Two days before his 53rd birthday Grover Hall died.

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