Finley Peter Dunne

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Finley Peter Dunne : biography

July 10, 1867 – April 24, 1936

Works

  • Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War (1899)
  • Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen (1899)
  • Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy (1900)
  • Mr. Dooley’s Opinions (1901)
  • Observations by Mr. Dooley (1902)
  • Dissertations by Mr. Dooley (1906)
  • Mr. Dooley Says (1910)
  • Mr. Dooley on Making a Will and Other Necessary Evils (1919)

Grace Eckley, Finley Peter Dunne. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1981.

Early life

Peter Finley Dunne was born in Chicago on July 10, 1867. He was educated in the Chicago public schools (graduating from high school last in his class), then began his newspaper career in Chicago as a newspaper reporter/editor for the Chicago Telegram in 1884, at age 17.Lowe, John. "Finley Peter Dunne." The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 July 2001. He was then with the Chicago News from 1884–88, the Chicago Times in 1888, the Chicago Tribune in 1889, the Chicago Herald in 1889, and the Chicago Journal in 1897. Originally named Peter Dunne, to honor his mother, who had died when he was in high school, he took her family name as his middle name some time before 1886, going by PF Dunne, reversed the two names in 1888, for Finley P. Dunne, and later used simply the initials, FP Dunne.Lowe, John. "Finley Peter Dunne." The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 July 2001. His sister, Amelia Dunne Hookway, was a prominent educator and high school principal in Chicago; the former Hookway School was named in her honor.

Legacy

His historical significance was apparent at the time of his death. Elmer Ellis, historian at (and later president of) the University of Missouri, wrote a biography of Dunne published in 1941.Elmer Ellis, Mr. Dooley’s America: A Life of Finley Peter Dunne, (Knopf, 1941).

He coined numerous political quips over the years; in particular, he is perhaps best known today as the originator of the aphorism "politics ain’t beanbag".

He is sometimes erroneously credited with coining the word "southpaw" for a left-handed baseball pitcher while covering sports in Chicago in the 1880s. (for example, QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson ). In fact, the term was in use before Dunne’s birth.

As a journalist in the age of "muckraking journalism", Dunne was aware of the power of institutions, including his own. Writing as Dooley, Dunne once wrote the following passage cautioning against the power of the newspapers themselves:

"Th newspaper does ivrything f’r us. It runs th’ polis foorce an’ th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward".

The expression has been borrowed and altered in many ways over the years:

  • Clare Booth Luce employed a variation of it in a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, "Mrs. Roosevelt has done more good deeds on a bigger scale for a longer time than any woman who ever appeared on the public scene. No woman has ever so comforted the distressed — or so distressed the comfortable."
  • Several religious leaders (including one Archbishop of Canterbury) have called it the goal of religion.
  • Social activist "Mother" Mary Jones was once quoted as saying "My business is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
  • A version showed up in a line delivered by Gene Kelly in the 1960 film, Inherit the Wind. Kelly (E.K. Hornbeck) says, "Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable".

According to an article in the November 5, 2006 edition of the New York Times, he coined the truism, often wrongly attributed to Tip O’Neill, that "all politics is local."

The American performance artist Karen Finley is a distant relative of Dunne’s.

Margaret Abbott

His wife, Margaret Ives Abbott, was the daughter of the Chicago Tribune’s book reviewer, Mary Ives Abbott, a newspaper woman and novelist who associated with the prominent families of the time in Chicago-the Potter Palmers, the Chatfield-Taylors, etc. She had a sort of literary salon dedicated to encouraging young Chicago writers, among whom was Dunne. Mary’s husband had been a merchant in Calcutta before his death. She also had a son, Sprague. Mary Ives Abbott died in 1904.

Margaret Abbott was one of the first women golfers, having begun play in 1897 as a member of the prestigious Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Illinois. She won the first Olympic gold medal for women’s golf at the second Olympiad in Paris in 1900—thus becoming the first American woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal. That same summer, she also won the women’s golf championship of France. Her mother, Mary Abbott, also played in the Olympics that summer, finishing in a tie for 7th place. Marda, as Margaret was known to her family, later said that the other women, "apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled for the day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts."

On December 10, 1902, Margaret Ives Abbott was married to Dunne at her mother’s home in New York. She continued to play golf while she and Dunne were raising their four children, Finley Peter Dunne, Jr., screenwriter/director Philip Dunne, and twins Peggy and Leonard. She died in 1955.