Frazier Hunt

I wanted only the beckoning world.

Frazier Hunt (December 1, 1885 – December 24, 1967) was an American radio announcer, writer and war correspondent during World War I and World War II. He wrote several books about his experience during both World Wars as well as historical biographies on famous Americans such as George Armstrong Custer, Billy the Kid, and Douglas MacArthur.

In this man is the uncompromising will to win, and the character and integrity to lead his country to victory on the battlefields of the world. The respect of the world is his. Men and nations know that when others may fail they can always turn to him for leadership and victory.

Quotes

1930s

One American (1938)

• ...the dreams of simple human beings striving for some little happiness and understanding in a world that is largely cruel and intolerant.
  • p. 307

• I wanted only the beckoning world.
  • p. 330

• I am fully suspicious of the accepted theory that fundamental differences exist between various classes and races.
  • p. 365

1940s

MacArthur and the War Against Japan (1944)

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, hardcover.

• In this man is the uncompromising will to win, and the character and integrity to lead his country to victory on the battlefields of the world. The respect of the world is his. Men and nations know that when others may fail they can always turn to him for leadership and victory.
  • p. 176

1950s

The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur (1954)

New York: The Devin-Adair Company, hardcover.

• With infinite courage and genius he had helped save South Korea from certain disaster, and he had led his victorious armies to the high cliffs of the Yalu. Only when a vicious new war broke and a hundred thousand hidden Red Chinese suddenly appeared from their caves hand snow-camouflaged forests and attacked, had he felt the utter frustration of not being permitted to unwrap his air and turn defeat into a certain victory that might well have settled the whole Asiatic threat for a score of years to come.
  And he was to live to see his able successors denied the same chance to win- and the icy hand of Russian fear and British trade demands closing tightly around the timid hearts of certain American leaders. Never for a day were either Generals Ridgeway, Van Fleet, or Clark permitted to win the Korean war by making full and fearless use of the weapons each had at hand. The psychosis of fear of Russia and the betrayal of American ideals before the pressure of her questionable Allies were to continue with the mockery of the surrender at Panmunjon and the disgraceful armed peace that followed, leading straight on into the vast problems of future local wars in the distant Pacific. So it was that the rejoicing among little Americans and their foreign tutors was great that day in mid-April 1951. The brave sentinel had been stabbed in the back. Those who bent their knees to the Red Bear finally had seen their plots against this fearless soldier succeed. Douglas MacArthur, the uncompromising American, had been destroyed. Or so they thought.
  • p. 518

Quotes about Hunt

Say! What in hell is your real name, anyway? You've surely got some other name besides Frazier. My name is Red. ~ Sinclair Lewis

• Frazier Hunt has had the unique experience of covering for newspapers and magazines every war and revolution from the original Mexican revolution and World War I down through the great Pacific campaigns of World War II. Following four months at MacArthur's headquarters and New Guinea in 1944, he wrote MacArthur and the War Against Japan. For a number of years he was one of America's well-known radio commentators. Born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1885, the rugged Frazier Hunt has traveled far and wide and has met most of the world's great personalities of the last four decades. The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur is his fourteenth book.
  • Description of the author on the back dust jacket flap of The Untold Story of Douglas MacArthur (1954), New York: The Devin-Adair Company, hardcover, by Frazier Hunt

• Frazier Hunt graduated from Manchester High School in 1903. As a successful war correspondent, radio commentator and author, Hunt traveled world-wide, interviewing all kinds of persons, from American Presidents to revolutionaries. A historical sign now stands in front of the large brick house on North Mill Street where he lived for ten years during his youth. Hunt even has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, being inducted in 1960.
  • John Knarr, Hunt Remembers-Part I: North Manchester, 1893-1903, New Manchester Historical Society Newsletter, February 2011

• Lewis: Say! What in hell is your real name, anyway? You've surely got some other name besides Frazier. My name is Red.
  Hunt: Friends and enemies call me Spike.
  • Sinclair Lewis and Hunt, as quoted by Hunt in One American (1938), p. 248

• Frazier Hunt, well known writer and war correspondent, is broadcasting over Station WLS each Monday, Wednesday and Saturday evening at 6:45. Wednesday evening in his broadcast he spoke of his early life in North Manchester by "sleepy old Eel River." Gorman Grossnickle heard the broadcast and wrote a letter of Mr. Hunt, inviting him to visit North Manchester, and speak at the school and college. He promised to take him up to the "Devil's Hole", the famous deep hole in Eel River above the College football field, which was well known forty years ago, and which Hunt mentions in his book, "One American."
  Hunt, whose mother died shortly after he was born, came to North Manchester to make his home with his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph "Posey" Mathews. The Mathews home was the large brick house on Mill street where the Frank Sausaman family now lives. Hunt, in his book, describes much of the happenings and a few of the characters of North Manchester. Mr. Mathews was an ardent prohibitionist, and every two years ran for congress, although at the most he never received more than 184 votes in the county.
  Hunt graduated from the North Manchester high school in 1903, and spent a year in the Michigan Military Academy. Later he attended the University of Illinois. Following graduation at the University he went to Chicago where he got a job as reporter on the City Press. Then followed journalistic and publishing adventures with no great success from any of them and just before the outbreak of the World War he went to New York and obtained work on The Sun. In February, 1918, Hunt went to France as a war correspondent and to continue his stories of the soldiers and camp life under the caption, "Private Danny" in France.
  Hunt was sent into Siberia where the American troops had made a vain attempt to halt the Bolshevists. In the ensuing years, Hunt was a roving journalist, usually managing to be where the world news was happening. He has had an interesting career and a fair measure of success. The older North Manchester people would be glad to welcome him if he visits his boyhood home.
  • North Manchester News-Journal, 3 February 1941[1]