Citizen Carl
Citizen Carl
The Editor Who Cracked Teapot Dome, Shot a Judge, and Invented the Parking Meter
Educator, lawyer, editor, inventor, entrepreneur, and civic booster, Carl Magee helped shape New Mexico and Oklahoma in the years after gaining statehood, garnering fame along the way. Jack McElroy's fascinating biography of "Citizen Carl" tells the story of a man whose exploits were as diverse and complex as the American Southwest he loved.
Magee purchased the Albuquerque Journal from the syndicate responsible for reelecting Senator Albert Bacon Fall, soon to become secretary of the Interior. Magee battled the Republican machine in New Mexico, a fight that sent Fall to prison in the Teapot Dome scandal and saw Magee repeatedly tried on charges of criminal libel, contempt of court, and even manslaughter. Forced to sell the Journal, he then started the newspaper that would become the Albuquerque Tribune.
Magee's fame prompted Scripps-Howard to buy the Tribune, retaining him as editor and adopting his motto: "Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way." The company later transferred Magee to its struggling paper in Oklahoma City. There he solved the city's downtown parking problem by inventing the parking meter.
Now mostly forgotten, Magee's legacy lives on, and many of the issues he confronted--press freedom, gun violence, public corruption, and demagoguery--remain relevant today.
“Jack McElroy has produced a masterful biography of Carl Magee, an extraordinary community citizen. This life story overflows with engrossing accounts of Magee’s nonstop actions as a journalist in Oklahoma and New Mexico, as an energetic businessman, and even as the unlikely inventor of the parking meter. Well-written and deeply researched, Citizen Carl also contributes valuable information on the Teapot Dome scandal, legal and newspaper organizations, and state political parties. In all ways, a notable and intriguing read.”—Richard W. Etulain, editor of New Mexican Lives: Profiles and Historical Stories
“Fascinating reading.…Jack McElroy chronicles the life of Carl Magee, a crusading newspaper editor who, unlike his big-city counterparts, never made the pages of journalism history books describing great editors of the twentieth century. Magee’s ‘Turning on the Light’ front-page column exposed corruption—particularly machinations leading to statehood in Oklahoma and New Mexico and later the Teapot Dome scandal—and spoke truth (as he viewed it) to power in papers he edited in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.”—Dorothy Bowles, professor emerita, University of Tennessee School of Journalism and Media
A lifelong newspaperman, Jack McElroy has worked for the Albuquerque Tribune, the Rocky Mountain News, and the Knoxville News-Sentinel, where he served as editor-in-chief for nearly twenty years. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.
