Wake County, NC - Obituary of Josephus Daniels, 1948

Raleigh, Jan. 15

Daniel's Death Ends Career as Editor, Politician, Envoy

Josephus Daniels, 85, who was World War I Secretary of the Navy was
Franklin D. Roosevelt's boss and two decades later was Roosevelt's
"good neighbor" Ambassador to Mexico, died of pneumonia Thursday
afternoon.

The stout heart of the editorial and political fighter finally gave
way to the onslaught of disease and age. He was forced to bed Jan.
4 by a severe cold. This developed into bronchitis which worsened
into pneumonia. He spent the last nine days of his life in an
oxygen tent.

Daniels was primarily a newspaperman, althought he held office under
all the national Democratic Presidents of his lifetime. He bought
the Raleigh News and Observer in 1896 and still was it's publisher
and editor when he died. His four sons were at his death bed. His
wife died in 1943.

The self-styled "old war horse" would have been eighty-six on May
18, but he always scoffed at the idea of retiring. "When I retire
it will be under six feet of ground," he said.

His office at the News and Observer always had its door open so
anyone could walk in.

He worked there until Jan. 2, actively editing his paper. By old
newspaper custom, the News and Observer turned its column rules
for Friday morning's paper.

Daniels, a lifelong Democrat, never ran for office. He was Democratic
committeeman from North Carolina for twenty years. He worked for the
nomination and election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912, and Wilson 
appointed him Secretary of the Navy.

The nation ridiculed the "country editor" when he abolished the
terms "port" and "starboard" and banned liquor from naval vessels,
but he won friends as he piloted the navy through the uneasy days
of Wilson's first administration and then through World War I.

His assistant secretary was a young Harvard man, Franklin D. Roosevelt, 
who called Daniels "Chief" the rest of his life. When Roosevelt became
President in 1933 he made Daniels ambassador to Mexico. Mexicans
recalled that the navy shelled Veracruz while Daniels was Secretary
of the Navy, but he had nothing but friends below the border.

Daniels called himself the "managing editor of the navy" and "foreign
correspondent in Mexico."

He was born in the little river town of Washington, NC while Union
gunboats were shelling the town.

He became editor of the Wilson, NC Daily Advance at eighteen, and
later came to Raleigh as editor of the State Chronicle, which he
soon merged with the News and Observer.

Funeral services will be held Saturday at Edenton Street Methodist
Church here of which Daniels had been a member for many years.
Burial will be in the family plot at Oakwood Cemetery, where his
wife is buried.

Survivors include his sons and nine grandchildren. One son, Jonathan
Daniels is an author and exective editor of the News and Observer.
He was a wartime special assistnt to President Roosevelt.

Another son, Frank, is general manager of the paper and Joseph
Jr., is business manager. The fourth son is Dr. Worth Daniels of
Washington, NC.

Source: Dallas Morning Herald - January 16, 1948

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Connie Ardrey
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