July 28, 1975
Page 25412
TRIBUTE TO MAY CRAIG
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the death of May Craig was a loss for American journalism and the American people. It was a personal loss for me.
In 40 years as a reporter in Washington she became both loved and respected by the people she wrote for, and the people she wrote about.
Her schoolmarm looks cloaked a brilliant mind, a tenacious and peppery manner, and a sensitive and generous heart.
It was the very qualities of persistence and tenacity which endeared her to both her news sources and her audience. She asked tough questions, and she often got revealing answers. She was determined to know what we knew, and in the process she became a great friend.
Those of us in the Maine congressional delegation had a special relationship, and a special friendship, with May. As a reporter for Maine newspapers she was in daily touch with members of the delegation.
Our contact taught me a great deal about journalism, and as a freshman Senator, I felt I learned at least as much from her as she did from me.
I will miss May Craig, along with thousands of her friends.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that several letters from Maine people, a portion of the transcript of "Meet the Press," July 20, two newspaper articles on her death, and a series of articles which appeared on her retirement 9 years ago, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
EXCERPT FROM "MEET THE PRESS," JULY 20, 1975
Mr. SPIVAK. Before we introduce our guest, I would like to pay tribute to Mrs. May Craig who died last Tuesday. For many years before she retired in 1965, she was one of the star panelists on Meet the Press and made an important contribution to the program.
Mrs. Craig was a reporter of sterling integrity, an informed and penetrating questioner, and a fine human being. Her legion of friends won't soon forget her. I know I never will.
BOOTHBAY HARBOR, MAINE,
July 24, 1975.
DEAR ED: May Craig was known by millions of Americans as a colorful and courageous political reporter and news personality. She was recognized as a scrappy little lady who persevered in her questioning of the great and near-great until the truth emerged.
During my service as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the State of Maine, I saw or spoke to May nearly every working day and developed a great respect and warm affection for her.
It was my privilege to have her as a guest in the House dining room after she had been retired for some time. And it made me very proud to see so many members of the House stopping by our table to pay their respects to "Miss May."
She was a unique woman in many ways. May was a woman's liberation leader decades before the movement became popular. She served her newspapers and our nation with great distinction.
With best wishes.
Sincerely,
STANLEY TUPPER.
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD,
Washington, D.C.,
July 24, 1975.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR ED: The death of May Craig marks the passing of an era. She was a unique newspaper reporter.
Even though May was a North Carolinian by birth, we in Maine came to think of her as a "native." In recalling my contacts with her over the years I served as Governor of Maine, I especially remember the 1960 convention in Chicago. I never had to leave word at the hotel desk for morning wake-up calls knowing I could thoroughly depend on May to faithfully call between six and seven o'clock each and every morning to question me on the views and position of the Maine Delegation relative to candidates and platform. Soon I came to learn that she would not be deterred from her goal of securing every bit of news available. Her tenacious pursuit of the news, however, was always characterized by fairness and responsibility.
Once at a large dinner meeting at San Francisco I was truly amazed. All of the public figures and top leaders of the country were there — May knew each and every one of them and they, in turn, knew her. She had truly made her mark in the world of journalism. Her challenging and determined manner brought her instant recognition.
Maine and the Nation were fortunate to have had May Craig reporting the news and I consider it an honor to be counted among her friends in tribute to her memory.
Sincerely,
JOHN H. REED, Chairman.
FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION,
Washington, D.C.,
July 23, 1975.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR SENATOR: May Craig was a unique person, the modest possessor of a unique talent in the field of journalism. Her death leaves a void in the fourth estate of the Nation's Capitol. She was a lady dedicated to her profession who recognized and appreciated the importance of the news media.
She was unique in many ways, a lady who worked diligently gathering news for the Gannett publications of Maine. From the modest amount of news generated from the Maine State Society to the international news emanating from the Presidential press conferences, she covered them with accuracy and detail.
Truly, May Craig was a journalistic pioneer, a friend of Presidents, admired because she was always herself. She will be missed by those of us who enjoyed the genuine pleasure of her company.
With every best wish, I am
Sincerely,
JAMES V. DAY, Commissioner.
RAILWAY PROGRESS INSTITUTE,
Alexandria, Va.,
July 18, 1975.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR SENATOR MUSKIE: As per conversation, in any tribute given to May Craig, I would much appreciate any use you might give for a few humble observations from one who was privileged to know and admire her over the years.
Fresh out of Bates College in Senator Muskie's Class of 1936, I went with the Portland Maine Press Herald as a cub reporter starting in 1937. I shall never forget the inspiration I immediately got from May Craig, then the Press Herald's Washington correspondent. I was terribly fascinated by the columns she would send from Washington and particularly the great specific detail which embroidered her descriptions of the events she was reporting. I sensed that somehow Mrs. Craig must be a great human being to make her columns come to life with such warmth and reality.
When I came to Washington for 16 years service in the Federal Government, I came to know May personally and found my highest hopes were exceeded. As I worked for seven Cabinet officers in the years until 1965, I had frequent contact with May in helping her cover events of interest as well as backgrounding for appearances of key officials on Larry Spivak's "Meet the Press" program. I endorse with all sincerity the very warm and deserved tribute which Larry has told me he plans to use on the opening of the July 20 "Meet the Press"show. On its programs, May used to tell me she would boil her questions down into the fewest possible words which would get at the heart of the problems that the guest of the day was encountering. Every encounter with May left all of us a little richer.
My good Skowhegan, Maine-born wife, Emily, and her mother, Mrs. Eula Weston, former Chairman of the Maine State Racing Commission, always appreciated May's wonderful small dinner parties at her Rhode Island Avenue home — which she always thoughtfully concluded with grapefruit for those who were diet-minded.
I did not see as much of May Craig after she retired in 1965 inasmuch as that same year I became President of the Railway Progress Institute, the trade association of some 200 companies, representing the nation's manufacturers of freight cars, locomotives and everything railroads buy. Not seeing as much of May was a real loss.
In addition to being a great human interest reporter, she also had the sharpest political instincts of any reporter on the Washington scene during her time. She was a great lady, a great reporter. She will long be missed.
Sincerely,
NILS A. LENNARTSON.
[From the Bangor Daily News, July 16, 1975]
MAY CRAIG, 86, JOURNALIST TO STATE AND NATION, DIES
WASHINGTON.— May Craig, a familiar figure on the Washington news scene for more than three decades, died Tuesday in a Maryland nursing home after a long illness. She was 86.
"Unchangeable May," to those who knew her well, was famous for her penetrating questions at presidential news conferences and for her Easter bonnet-type hats. Until her retirement 10 years ago, she was the Washington correspondent for the Portland Press Herald and other Guy Gannett newspapers in Maine.
"The essence of femininity with an ability to get to the heart of the burning issue of the day," was how one newsman described her.
Her career spanned five administrations, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson, and her terrier-like tenacity at presidential news conference was legendary.
When President Roosevelt once described columnists as "an unnecessary excrescence on our civilization," she reminded him that he had a columnist in his own family — his wife, writer of the column, "My Day."
On another occasion, after he was asked a nettlesome question by Mrs. Craig, Roosevelt replied: "May, you must have stayed awake all night thinking up that question."
"As a matter of fact, I did," she shot back.
She gained national exposure through frequent television appearances on "Meet the Press," wearing the flowery hats that became her personal trademark.
One magazine described Mrs. Craig as "the small woman who always gets to the front row." The representative of the Maine media was also characterized as having "a mind as sharp as cider vinegar, as retentive as a lobster trap."
When not covering a war, flying around the world or over the North Pole, she did a radio program called "Inside Washington" which was broadcast over Maine stations.
Mrs. Craig was brisk in manner, and with her unbobbed hair tied in an oldfashioned knot, she looked like the stereotype of a precise school teacher.
Born Elisabeth May Adams in Coosaw S.C., in 1888, she moved to Washington at the age of 12. Eight years later, she married Donald A. Craig, then Washington bureau chief for the old New York Herald.
Mrs. Craig began her news career in 1924. In addition to the Maine newspapers she worked for, she wrote pieces for the old New York World and newspapers in Montana, and North Carolina,
At the time of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, she marched in a suffragist parade, and she continued to be a strong feminist who believed in equal rights for men and women.
She protested that dues-paying women members of the White House Correspondents' Association were not permitted at the organization's stag dinners traditionally attended by the president.
As a founding member of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt's press conference association, limited to women, she was the only one to vote approval of a man's application to attend the former first lady's White House news conferences.
Mrs. Craig was exceedingly proud of her firsts as a newspaperwoman.
She was the only woman to go with President Harry S. Truman's party to conferences in Mexico City, Ottawa and Rio de Janeiro in 1947. But she lost her battle to return from Rio with male reporters aboard the battleship Missouri because of the "no women" Navy regulations.
One of her victories in the first for equality for women came after the Senate Rules Committee heard her demand for a powder room to be used by female reporters in the congressional press gallery.
Mrs. Craig held numerous honors in her profession, and was a former president of the Women's National Press Club.
She is survived by two children, Betty C. Clagget of Wheaton, Md., and Don Craig of Bethesda, Md., four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
[From the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, July 18, 1975]
NATION'S LEADERS PAY TRIBUTE TO MAY CRAIG
(By Donald R. Larrabee)
WASHINGTON.— President Gerald Ford and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller led a chorus of official tributes Tuesday to May Craig, recalling her dogged questioning at press conferences and her peppery dominance of Washington journalism for four decades.
The President, calling her a "pioneer in American journalism," said he was saddened to learn of her passing.
"A reporter for some 40 years, Mrs. Craig spent most of her career here as a respected Washington correspondent," the President said. "Although Mrs. Craig was retired for a number of years, her influence on national and local journalism will not be forgotten. She will be remembered for her integrity and dedication to her profession.
"Mrs. Ford and I offer our condolences to her family."
Vice President Rockefeller said May Craig'sdeath "Is a loss to journalism and to the American scene." He added: "She was a reporter of high integrity and skill. Moreover, she was for decades a newsworthy figure in her own right, remembered with affection by all who knew her."
Mrs. Craig died early Tuesday at a Silver Spring, Md., nursing home. She was 86.
Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana paid tribute to May Craig as "one of a vanishing breed."
"I knew her and admired her. I had great affection for her. She was a real pro. She asked the questions that had to be asked and she got the answers or knew the reason why. I feel a sense of deep loss, professionally and more important, personally. She was a great lady," said Mansfield.
Sen. Edmund Muskie, who knew her best among the Maine delegation, recalled Mrs. Craig as "one of the most alert, persistent and visible reporters on the Washington scene, widely respected and loved by the great and the small."
Muskie added: "Her personal characteristics were annoying and endearing at one and the same time. She was peppery, undaunted in her questioning and yet one never really resented it. She had an eye for the great issues and the key figures in the unfolding scene.
"She was everywhere," Muskie continued. "She was determined to know what we knew and in the process became a great friend."
Sen. William D. Hathaway remembered May Craig for her "sense of humor" as well as her fairness and accuracy as a reporter.
"I have a lot of fond memories of her," said Hathaway. "One of the last times we were together I remember sitting on a couch in the speaker's lobby of the House when an intruder gained entry to the House floor and went racing past us through the lobby.
"May asked me if I saw what happened," Hathaway recalled. "And that ended the interview. She had a better story then."
Former Maine Governor John Reed said she had a "unique ability to secure all the facts and write them in an interesting manner."
"Her early morning telephone calls to public officials were her trademark," said Reed, "and Maine readers were better informed because of her tenacious pursuit of the news. She truly made her mark in the world of journalism."
Federal Maritime Commissioner James V. Day, a Maine native, called May Craig a "competent reporter" and said she was highly regarded by her colleagues here. "She was truly a great lady," said Day.
In more than three decades as a Washington correspondent, Mrs. Craig covered the activities — and often forthrightly criticized the actions — of five presidents, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. She kept in daily touch with the Maine delegation, whose work figured in her "Inside Washington" report, and though she occasionally socialized with them in her red brick home in the capital, she didn't allow friendship to affect her objectivity about them.
Oddly, the spunky little lady who served the Guy Gannett publications came to be so uniquely identified with Maine that a 1955 magazine article described her as having "a mind as sharp as cider vinegar, as retentive as a lobster trap." But May Craig wasn't a native, and never had a home in Maine.
Elizabeth May Craig was born Dec. 19, 1888 on Coosaw Island, near Beaufort, S.C. Her father was a mechanic employed in the Charleston Navy Yard, The family moved to Washington, D.C. when May was 12. Her formal education was completed with graduation from Washington High School though 40 years later she was to receive an honorary degree from the University of Maine. At age 20 she married Donald A. Craig, then Washington bureau chief of the old New York Herald.
Some years after the arrival of their two children, Betty and Donald, Mrs. Craig broke into newspapering with a feature for the old New York World on how reticent Calvin Coolidge, then president, dictated his correspondence. Payment for the article was $2. She then began capitol coverage for the same publisher's North Carolina and Montana papers, pitching in to help with the Maine news, which her husband was then handling.
After Don Craig's death in 1935, she approached Guy Gannett, late publisher of the Portland Press Herald, Evening Express, Kennebec Journal and Waterville Sentinel. They reached an agreement. Mrs. Craig would carry on, but would devote her time exclusively to her Maine assignment.
Though her column was not widely read outside Maine, it was her pert and peppery appearances on Meet The Press that gave Mrs. Craig — and the Maine newspapers — national exposure.
In that showcase where the petite reporter always appeared with her trademark, a flowery hat, she went into verbal combat with ambassadors, cabinet members and presidential candidates. Tabbed by Time Magazine as "the small woman who always gets to the front row," she posed her nettlesome questions with a terrier-like tenacity. She herself called her queries "dodge-proof questions" and many a notable squirmed before the onslaught.
In her 33 years, she covered wars, legislative sessions, conventions and presidential campaigns. Her travels girdled the world, and individual junkets — often as a guest of the U.S. Air Force — took her to the Pacific and Japan, the Middle East and North Africa, to Canada, Mexico and Brazil.
Though her syntax was sometimes thrown to the four winds, May Craig was the indefatigable newshound who conveyed her thoughts and feelings succinctly and with candor.
She was far ahead of her time in her struggles for women's rights, and she did valiant battle in her chosen field, of newspapering, one of those most reluctant to accept women on an equal footing. She often credited Guy Gannett with giving her a foothold in the profession, but the day-to-day slogging Mrs. Craig sturdily did for herself.
She was to be "first woman" in many other areas in connection with her work. Among them: first woman to fly over the North Pole, first woman to cover the London buzz bomb raids, the Normandy campaign and the liberation of Paris, first woman to fly the Berlin airlift, first woman correspondent accredited by the U.S. Navy and first woman reporter to cover the Korean truce talks.
Her honors were also numerous. She served as president of the Women's National Press Club, received the Business and Professional Woman's Association award for distinguished service in 1952, was named for the 1956 Woman of Achievement award fromthe American Federation of Soroptimist Clubs, the Big M Award from the Maine State Society in Washington, the first non-Mainer so honored, was cited by the GOP National Women's Committee in 1962 for covering every GOP women's conference to that date, and was made Headliner of the Year in 1952 by Theta Sigmi Phi, professional journalism fraternity for women.
Mrs. Craig was a member of the Women's National Press Club, the Overseas Press of America and Theta Sigma Phi.
She is survived by a son, Donald Alexander Craig and a daughter, Mrs. Albert (Betty) Clagget, and four grandchildren. Funeral services will be private.
[From the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, Dec. 4, 1965]
NEWSWOMAN MAY CRAIG SLATED TO RETIRE DECEMBER 31
WASHINGTON.— May Craig, one of America'smost famous newspaperwomen and for more than 30 years the capital correspondent for the Guy Gannett newspapers of Maine, will retire at the end of the year.
Mrs. Craig, who combined penetrating questions with pert hats, for more than 3 decades has been the most widely read columnist in Maine. She covered Washington and the world for Guy Gannett newspapers in Portland, Augusta, and Waterville.
For thousands of Maine families her daily column "Inside in Washington" was must morning breakfast table reading. Although little read outside Maine, Mrs. Craig became nationally famous as a panelist on the radio and television program "Meet the Press."
Millions of Americans came to know her as the Washington reporter who could be counted upon to enliven Presidential press conferences with the pointed question, the incisive query.
Yet, though her questions occasionally rankled the famous, she was a close friend of every President from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon Baines Johnson.
And, though she asked literally thousands of questions, "I never asked a question I later regretted," she noted as her retirement neared.
Her column reflected the same penetrating quality that punctuated her questions. One column in 1964, "Decline of the United States — And Fall"attracted nationwide attention, was reprinted in U.S. News & World Report as well as newspapers throughout America.
Her travels in search of the news took Elizabeth May Craig around the world, as a war correspondent in World War II, as the first woman to fly the Berlin airlift, as a correspondent during the Korean war, and to Africa as the continent merged during the early 1960's.
Maine readers followed her byline around the world as she reported the great events of more than 3 decades.
Yet May Craig also kept a close finger on the pulse of the Maine delegation in Washington as she furnished readers with the news that most closely affected them.
Mrs. Craig said that, when she retires at the end of the year, "I'm going to take a little time off to do nothing," but few readers will believe that she'll remain inactive long. She's been under contract for some time to write a book, so there's the strong likelihood that the typewriter, which for a third of a century had recorded the events that shaped the world, will not long be stilled.
Millions of Americans who have seen Mrs. Craig on "Meet the Press" and at Presidential press conferences, have come to think of her as a Maine native. It comes as a shock to learn that she's a native of Coosaw, S.C., who moved to Washington as a young girl.
No matter. She remains Maine in Washington. to many. She knows Maine intimately and news of a postmaster's appointment in Waterville received the same close attention as a Washington national story.
Now in her seventies (although she maintains that she'll be 50 until she dies), Mrs. Craig never slowed down. Her columns from the beginning reflected her intense interest in almost everything and anything, from renovations of the White House to the war in Vietnam.
For years she was up and on the go at 6 a.m., and Maine Senators and Congressmen quickly learned to become accustomed to a telephone call from May Craig long before they had risen from bed.
She became in time almost as famous as some of the officials she covered; more famous than most.
Married to a newspaperman, the late Donald Alexander Craig, the Washington bureau chief for the New York Herald, as well as for the Guy Gannett newspapers, Mrs. Craig became the Washington correspondent for these newspapers in the early 1930's after the death of her husband. She has two children, a son and a daughter, and several grandchildren.
She maintains a home in Washington close to the Capitol.
During her career Mrs. Craig covered the V-bomb raids in London during World War II, the Normandy campaign, the liberation of Paris, and the Korean war. Her travels for these newspapers have taken her to almost every point on the globe.
She was made a doctor of human letters by the University of Maine in 1946. She is a member of the Women's National Press Club, the Overseas Press of America, and Theta Sigma Phi.
PRAISE FROM L.B.J.
President Johnson, learning in Texas of May Craig's retirement, sent her the following telegram Friday:
"It's a long time from May to September, but May will always be May to me."
[From the Portland (Maine) Evening Express, Dec. 3, 1965]
TRIBUTE FROM PUBLISHER
Mrs. Jean Gannett Arnzen, president and publisher of the Guy Gannett Publishing Co., issued this statement of tribute to May Craig:
"May Craig has for many years been as inseparable from our parents as their nameplates. She has made them known, not only in Maine but in the Nation. Competing in an environment of top talent and strong personalities, she has had the vigor and the ability to be outstanding.
"Obviously her retirement, so richly deserved cannot be treated casually. It will leave a lonesome place in our columns. Her departure is too close to me, personally, to be dismissed in the course of business.
"She was employed by our papers by my father, the late Guy P. Gannett, when he was establishing them and laying the foundations for their success. He always believed that one of the most important contributions was employing May Craig to represent his papers in Washington.
"I shall always remember my father's great pride in his Washington correspondent and the delight he had in her success."
[From the Portland, Maine, Sunday Telegram, Dec. 19, 1965]
"NATION IS BETTER FOR THIS OUTSTANDING WOMAN" — FROM PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S TRIBUTE TO MAY CRAIG
(By Donald E. Hanson)
To imagine a Presidential press conference without May Craig is like imagining the Capital without the Washington Monument.
For May Craig, to thousands of Maine newspaper readers, is Washington. For more than three decades she's been an indelible fixture on the Washington scene.
Presidents came and went. Elections changed the faces in the city and altered the complexion of the Nation. May Craig remained.
Now that too changes, for May Craig, who with pert hat and pointed questions became one of America's most famous newspaperwomen, retires at the end of the year.
Presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Lyndon Baines Johnson came to know and respect — and occasionally chafe at one of her barbed questions — the little and unquestionable First Lady of the Washington press corps.
Although for thousands of Maine readers her column "Inside in Washington" has been daily must reading for years at the breakfast table. Elizabeth May Craig was comparatively unread outside the State, except on occasions when her comments were reprinted in other newspapers and magazines.
Her face, however, became almost as famous as those of the personages she covered.
Visitors to Washington have, after viewing the landmarks of the city, often inquired of their host:
"All this is fine, but where's May Craig?" And a Sunday Telegram reporter, traveling in California, had only to mention that he worked for the Portland papers to receive the reply, "Oh, you mean May Craig's papers."
To millions of Americans she became famous as a fixture on the radio and television program "Meet the Press." She once made President Jim Carey, of the Electrical Workers Union, gulp visibly by asking: "Don't you think it un-American for a man to have to belong to a union to earn a living?"
NO ONE IMMUNE
No President was immune from the sharp May Craig question. President Roosevelt, after fielding a sharp one on three hops, asked May if she stayed awake all night thinking it up, "As a matter of fact," shot back May, "I did."
Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all come to expect the unexpected from May. President Kennedy was wise enough to realize that when a press conference began to take a dull turn that it was probably time to recognize Mrs. Craig.
Yet, if Presidents occasionally rankled at a May Craig question, none was ever able to harbor a grudge.
She was often a visitor at the Hyde Park home of President and Mrs. Roosevelt. President Johnson, perhaps better than most, came to realize the many facets of May Craig. In 1956, when the then Senator Johnson suffered a severe heart attack, each day to his hospital room was delivered a private letter from May, cheering him and informing him of the activities in the Senate.
If the pointed questions, the unusual hats or the familiar features made May Craig a celebrity, they may also to some extent have obscured her real ability as a member of the Washington press corps.
Eisenhower's press secretary, Jim Haggerty, ranked her equal to any reporter he, knew, man or woman. Pierre Salinger, George Reedy, and Bill Moyers also learned she was a press correspondent to be reckoned with.
May seemed to have a knack for knowing where a story was; if she didn't intuitively know, her apparently insatiable curiosity about nearly everything and everybody led her to it.
She wrote for more than 30 years with an unmistakable crisp style that occasionally crackled with brilliance. A 1964 column on the "Decline of the United States — And Fall" became an overnight sensation, was reprinted in U.S. News & World Report and many newspapers. Thousands of readers throughout the United States sought reprints.
After an early interview with Cuba's Fidel Castro, May rightly presaged that "Pistol packin' Fidel Castro will have to lay his pistol down if he is going to do the administrative job that lies before him. He is apt to find being a statesman is more difficult than fighting."
WITH THE TROOPS
Although based for most of her newspaper career in Washington, May Craig's byline appeared over datelines from throughout the world.
She was a tenacious war correspondent in World War II, heard the deadly buzz of the V-bombs over London, later was present at the allied liberation of Paris and became the first woman to ever fly the Berlin airlift.
She was in Korea during that war; in the early 1960's toured Africa as that continent emerged.
She went where the news took her, and diplomatic doors around the world opened to let her in.
Most readers think of May Craig, who incidentally is 77 years old today, as a Maine native, yet she was born in Coosaw, S.C., one of a family of nine children.
She moved to Washington, D.C., as a youngster and high school officialdom was the first to quail before her pen. She was suspended from high school for 3 days after a piece she wrote for the school paper was judged to be disrespectful of the faculty.
She later married Donald Alexander Craig, himself a top-drawer newsman who was the Washington representative of the New York Herald in addition to the Maine newspapers.
May's Maine newspaper career was launched when she began substituting for her husband, who was ill for a time before his death. In the early 1930's after her husband's death she agreed to continue as the Guy Gannett correspondent in Washington.
Since then May's working day has begun at 6:30 a.m. and Washington officials long ago became accustomed to being awakened by an early query from May. By 8:30 a.m. she was heading toward the Capitol, the White House, or some other Government agency in search of news.
"Miss May," as President Truman called her, for years wrote her personal column "Inside in Washington" six times a week, a chore in itself. In addition, she daily covered the major breaking news as well as the more local stories from Maine's delegation at the Capitol.
Although she is retiring, she's reluctant to decide whether to retain her red brick home close to the Capitol she is so much a part of, or move nearer her son and daughter who live in Maryland.
As a woman reporter, May fought, hard for the same privileges as her male colleagues, but never used her sex as a plea for special consideration. She's long argued that women should be accepted for membership in the National Press Club in Washington.
In 1947, while accompanying President Truman on a trip to Brazil, the press corps was scheduled to return to the United States with the Chief Executive aboard the battleship Missouri. May, barred because the Navy argued they had no facilities aboard for ladies, gave the Navy something to ponder and 2 years later was its guest on a cruise.
Once dubbed "Dynamite in the blue dress" by a fellow journalist (she customarily wears blue) , it's a description that somehow doesn't quite fit. For if May Craig's questions could be sharp or her battles with officialdom blistering, her underlying personality is far more pixieish than vindictive.
"It hurts me," she once confessed, "to be thought of as a wisecracker. Actually, I never ask a question for any other purpose than to bring out something important."
And only recently she declared that she'd never asked a question that she'd later regretted. May has always taken time phrasing her questions, mentally closing loopholes through which the answerer might escape.
Although she has described herself as 75 percent in favor of the New Deal, May Craig has always prided that she belongs to no political party. No matter who was in office, May was after the news.
She clashed occasionally with public officials that she covered; most recently with Maine's other famous lady in Washington.
GOP U.S. SENATOR MARGARET CHASE SMITH.
But such clashes are usually short lived.
Her century-old Washington home is crammed with mementos of a rich Washington life and frequently she hosts intimate dinner parties for a small group of friends and dignitaries.
The menu is invariably the same, half a broiled chicken, sliced peaches soaked in brandy and a green vegetable for color contrast. And the after-dinner conversation, like May's writing, is never dull.
Few Washington correspondents have traveled as widely or interviewed more foreign officials than has May Craig. From Germany's Adenauer to the Congo's Kasavubu, to Cuba's Castro, May Craig has talked to them all. Thirty articles on her tour of Africa were inserted in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD at the request of U.S. Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
She's been behind the Iron Curtain into Russia twice, has toured Latin America, flown over the North Pole, has been to Korea and South America.
Yet, Washington remained her beat and her home and to many Americans she and the capital became inexorably entwined.
To these, a Washington without May Craig just won't be the same.
TRIBUTES
Since the announcement of May Craig's retirement, letters of tribute have been pouring in. In addition to the President Johnson tribute, others have been received from:
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, former President Harry S. Truman, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, Thomas E. Dewey, Barry Goldwater, Senate President Carl Hayden, Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, House Speaker John W. McCormack, House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford, U.S. Senators Margaret Chase Smith and Edmund S. Muskie, U.S. Representatives Stanley R. Tupper and William D. Hathaway, former U.S. Representatives Robert Hale and Clifford G. McIntyre, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Interior Stewart L. Udall, Secretary of Labor William Wirtz, Secretary of Commerce John T. Connor, and Secretary of Agriculture Orville L. Freeman.
THE WHITE HOUSE,
Washington, D.C., December 4, 1965.
May Craig was not only one of the first women reporters in Washington, but from the first she was one of the best.
As Congressman, Senator, Vice President, and President, I have always found May Craig to be a help and an inspiration to me.
She knows the world. More importantly, she seems to hold a stethoscope to the heart of mankind. I think she does so because she cares deeply for people and she is concerned with decency and justice.
The Nation is better for having had this outstanding women on the scene to help chronicle the events of our day.
Her friends will not forget her, and her influence will remain.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON.
[From the Portland (Maine) Sunday Telegram, Dec. 5, 1965]
L.B.J. LEADS IN HONORING MAY CRAIG
Tributes from some of the Nation's leading citizens were pouring in Sunday for May Craig, Washington correspondent for the Gannet newspapers.
The guests enjoyed a lavish buffet from a table which featured Mrs. Craig's famed hats in a symbolic centerpiece. Topping a floral arrangement was a huge hat made of shredded newspapers and teletype tape. Lifesize photographic portraits of Mrs. Craig in familiar press conference poses, including a famous Life magazine action picture last year, were on display.
The entertainment feature was a 10-minute film, prepared by NBC, highlighting some of Mrs. Craig's appearances on the "Meet the Press"television show. Veteran United Press International White House correspondent, Merriman Smith, narrated and the show's producer, Larry Spivak, added his own tribute.
President Johnson's former press secretary, George Reedy, was there; also, Jim Hagerty, a vice president of ABC, who was President Eisenhower's press chief; Mrs. Elizabeth Carpenter, press secretary to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson; and assistant to the President, Douglas Cater, and Mrs. Cater.
From Capitol Hill came Senator and Mrs. Ernest Gruening, of Alaska; Senator Joseph Tydings, of Maryland; Senator and Mrs. Stuart Symington, of Missouri; Senator and Mrs. Frank Carlson, of Kansas; Senator Eugene McCarthy, of Minnesota; Representative and Mrs. Howard Smith, of Virginia; and Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hudson. Mrs. Hudson, the former Blanche Bernier, has served for many years as secretary to Senator Smith.
Representative William D. Hathaway was unable to attend. His office said he is under doctor's orders to restrict his social activities because of a recent leg injury. Representative Stanley Tupper is in Las Vegas, Nev., on a speaking engagement and also sent his regrets.
Other longtime friends from officialdom who attended included Adm. and Mrs. W. A. Reborn (the heads of CIA) ; Roosevelt, Director of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity; Prof. Albert Abrahamson, of Bowdoin College; Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Comee (he is a former Gannett papers. editorial writer, now with the Agency for International Development) Maritime Commissioner and Mrs. James V. Day, of Kennebunk; former Maine U.S. Representatives Clifford G. McIntire, and Mrs. McIntire; and Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Leo. Leo is a former political writer for the Gannett newspapers and former Government official, now in private business here.
U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, who couldn't come, sent May warm greetings and said he was going to "miss you and your extremely able and discerning reporting — as well as your unfailing sense of humor and other fine qualities. We treasure our association with you on the Washington scene."
He said he'd been trying out "the muse" and sent a long poem dedicated "To May" written by Mrs. Steven Goldstein of New York, who was not further identified. It went:
"To May — who's retiring much too young,
I join the chorus of praises sung.
Since first you started back with Hoover,
You've been the press corps' primest mover.
You've livened Presidential chats.
You've made us buy our wives new hats.
You've caught us blushing, you've caught us wincing.
You've caught us when we're not convincing.
But on each story that you file,
You never fail to make us smile.
Oh, don't leave future press conferences waiting.
They depend on you for their Neilsen rating.
For you've made the toughest hem and haw
Thank God you didn't take up the law."
[From the Washington (D.C.) Post, Feb. 15, 1966]
WINTER TRIBUTES ARE WARM FOR MAY
(By Dorothy McCardle)
For years, Washington newspaperwoman May Craig was famous for two things — her flowery hats and her prickly words. Millions of Americans laughed or gasped at the words and gawked at the hats on TV's "Meet the Press" and televised Presidential press conferences.
Last night at a reception in honor of Mrs. Craig, she wore one of her famous hats, but she hadn't a single astringent word left in her. She was so touched by all the tributes paid her that she was close to tears.
The first moment of emotion came when President Johnson arrived unexpectedly during the reception given jointly by the National Press Club and the Women's National Press Club.
As he entered the clubrooms of the NPC, he embraced Mrs. Craig and whispered at length into her ear. She was already wearing a white orchid corsage which he and Mrs. Johnson had sent her.
"What did he say to you?" she was asked. "It was just for me," she said, and her voice quivered.
A White House aid revealed how the President had spoken warmly of Mrs. Craig on his drive over from the White House. The President told his associates that he would never forget how thoughtful she had been to him when he had his heart attack in 1955.
"She wrote to me or sent me a poem or a book every single day," the President recalled.
May said later, "I have known him for 30 years, first as a Congressman and a Senator and Vice President. I never thought of him as the President. I worried about him when he had that heart attack, just lying there."
The President produced an even more tangible gift as he walked with Mrs. Craig among the 400 guests in the crowded club ballroom. He reached into his pocket for small gold-wrapped box. "I brought you this," he said.
Mrs. Craig was so undone as the crowd surged about her and the President that she handed it back to him to open for her.
The President fished in his pocket for his glasses so he could see to unwrap a gold bracelet, bearing a single charm embossed with the Presidential Seal. The opposite side was blank, and the President noted that it should be engraved with the date. "You'll have to pay for the date," he quipped to her.
After a 10-minute round of the ballroom with Mrs. Craig on his arm, the President left before the formal tributes began. They came in the shape of roses and hats presented by Mary Gallagher, president of the Women's National Press Club, Windsor Booth, president of the National Press Club and Jean Gannett Arnzen, president of the Guy Gannett Publishing Co. of Maine, for which Mrs. Craig was a correspondent for 35 years before she retired in December. A poetic tribute was read from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Arthur J. Goldberg.
Called upon for a speech, Mrs. Craig, wearing a Valentine red lace dress with matching hat of red velvet bows, said, "This is the loveliest thing that ever happened to me."
But there was more fun to come with a 12-minute film put together by Lawrence Spivak, producer of "Meet the Press," and selected from Mrs. Craig's more than 250 appearances on that TV show. Her hats and her hatpin sharp questions were on parade again, and she laughed as heartily as every one else at her reruns.