The Press: Wyoming's Mr. Big

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One-Party Press? McCraken got his first newspaper training as a newspaper delivery boy in Evanston, Ill. His father died when he was a child and McCraken worked after school in a wide variety of jobs, such as making handles for caskets and stays for corsets. He started as a part-time reporter in high school in Illinois, worked his way through the University of Wyoming working on the local paper. During World War I, he was an infantry lieutenant, came back and got his first taste of Democratic politics as secretary to the state's Democratic Governor William B. Ross and later as assist ant to Democratic Senator John B. Kendrick. He has been in politics ever since, and is often accused of running a "one-party" (i.e., Democratic) press. To that he has an answer: although five of his seven dailies are proDemocratic, in the last election, despite his influence, the state went almost 2 to 1 for Ike.