Robert W. Ruhl was born January 21, 1880, in Rockford, IL. He was educated at
Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College,
where in 1903 he served on the staff of The Crimson with Franklin D.
Roosevelt. He worked as a reporter for the New York Globe from 1903 to 1908,
and in 1908, he served as editor for the Rockford, IL Daily Republic. In
1910, Ruhl married Mable Works. They had three children: Roxanne, Alicia, and
Robert (Roddy). Their son died in childhood. By then, Ruhl was a writer for
The Spokesman Review of Spokane, WA. In 1911, Ruhl moved to Medford, Oregon to
edit the daily paper that soon became the Medford Mail Tribune. In 1919, Ruhl
bought the paper from George Putnam, who favored progressive reforms and
exposed political scalawags. Ruhl was editor of the paper from 1911 to 1958,
when Eric Allen became editor and Ruhl remained as publisher. Ruhl's first
campaign was against the Ku Klux Klan, who had proposed the anti-Catholic
"School Bill" referendum. Because of this stand, the Tribune lost advertisers
and subscribers. Ruhl also played an important role in the episode later
called The Jackson County Rebellion, in which the Tribune condemned the Good
Government Congress, a grassroots, antiestablishment movement. A GGC leader,
Llewellyn Banks, shot and killed a police officer, George Prescott, rather
than face arrest for ballot tampering. The Mail Tribune was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1934 for Ruhl's "Liberal and vigorous
editorials against local so-called "good government congress". (Ruhl
obituary, Ashland Tidings, 8/22/1967) For a time, Ruhl was a stockholder in
radio station KMED; from 1935-1945, he was a member of the Oregon State Board
of Higher Education, president of the State Editorial Conference of The
Oregon Newspaper Publishing Assoc., and a member of Sigma Delta Chi, the
professional journalism honorary fraternity. In 1958, he was award the Amos
T. Voorhies Award, given by the Oregon Newspaper Association . Ruhl's wife
Mabel sold the Medford Mail Tribune to the Dow Jones/Ottaway Newspapers Inc.
in 1973. SOURCES: Vertical file MMT August 22, 1967 Pacific Northwest
Quarterly, April 1992, vol. 83, No. 2, p. 42
