By Michael Gartner

editor@dmcityview.com

A generation or two ago, when there was still a Des Moines Tribune, a reporter wrote a long profile of David Kruidenier, chairman and publisher of the Tribune and the Des Moines Register and one of the two or three most powerful people in town.

I was the editor of the newspapers, and the reporter asked me if Kruidenier ever interfered in the news operation. No, I responded, but added that of course he could. After all, I said, “it’s his candy store.”

In the 10 years I was at The Register – as executive editor, editor, editorial chairman and president – that was the only time David ever got mad at me about anything in the news pages. And he was quite mad. He sent me a sharp note. And he called with a tart message.

“This newspaper,” he said, “is not a candy store.”

And in those 10 years, he called only once about an editorial that upset him. It ran after Roger Jepsen beat incumbent Dick Clark in the Senate race of 1978. The Register had endorsed Clark and viewed Jepsen as an oaf, so editorial page editor Gil Cranberg wrote an editorial headlined “Best Man Lost.” Kruidenier agreed with the sentiment but thought the headline was ungracious, was piling on and made the newspaper look like “a sore loser.”

A few months ago – more than 25 years after that editorial – David and Gil and I were having lunch at the ballpark. That editorial came up in the discussion. “I don’t want you to think there weren’t editorials I disagreed with,” David told Gil. “I just didn’t say anything to you about them.”

That was David Kruidenier, who died last week at age 84. He loved the newspapers with his heart and soul. They could dig up scandal on his friends, criticize institutions he cherished, lionize people he disliked, offend advertisers he relied on – and he’d never say a word. But trivialize the newspapers themselves – call them “a candy store” – and he’d be irate. The newspapers, of course, followed the editorial course he helped set – arguing for civil rights and human rights, aid and dignity for the homeless and the helpless and the hapless, a world view, open government and liberal politics. On occasion, though, they could editorially espouse causes he wasn’t fond of, attack policies he approved of, comment on matters he deemed meaningless – and he’d never say a word. But demean the pages themselves – slip in a nasty headline – and he’d get upset.

He was the perfect publisher.

He had immense pride in the newspapers that his grandfather, Gardner Cowles, had purchased early in the 20th century, and he encouraged strong journalism. Although he was almost shy around reporters and dropped by the newsroom only on Friday afternoons – making the newer reporters and editors quite nervous, for he wasn’t great at small talk in those days – it was clear to all that the news department was the department he loved.

He rose through the ranks – rather quickly, as he was a Cowles – on the business side, but he would have been a terrific reporter. He was curious about everything. He asked good questions. He listened. He thought. He liked gossip – who doesn’t? – but unlike many publishers, he’d pass it along to the newsroom. He dined and traveled in circles alien to most reporters and editors of his day – circles where business secrets and town scandals were known and discussed – and he’d regularly call down to the newsroom with word of those secrets or scandals.

Like his good friend and neighbor Ken MacDonald –who preceded David as publisher and me as editor – he figured that anything the folks at Wakonda or The Des Moines Club knew should also be something his readers should know. He was the newsroom’s best tipster.

In contrast, never once did he ask that anything be kept out of the paper.

He loved the community almost as much as he loved the newspapers. He had an eye for beauty – that he was virtually blind in his later years is one of life’s cruel hoaxes – and he was instrumental in seeing to it that the city’s institutions chose great architects and sculptors. He is the one who chose I. M. Pei for the Art Center, Chick Herbert for the Civic Center, David Chipperfield for the new library, Claes Oldenburg for the Crusoe Umbrella sculpture. He launched the revival of downtown in the 1970s when he championed – and helped finance – the Civic Center. He launched a turnaround of a lousy area on the Near North Side when he championed – and helped finance – the Forest Avenue revival. He launched the embracing of the town’s natural resources when he championed – and helped finance – the renovation of Gray’s Lake, a project that gave others the vision and courage to launch the Meredith Trail and the Principal Riverwalk.

(Nearly every “he” in the preceding paragraphs should say “he and she.” For Liz Kruidenier had an enormous influence on him – particularly in his politics and some of his civic involvements.)

He carried the burden of being born rich – he once told me he often wondered if he would have been good enough to become a newspaper publisher if he hadn’t been born into the family (the answer to that is “yes’) – of having to deal with cousins who cared more about newspaper dividends than newspaper journalism, of having to deal with the trends that have led to the decline of daily newspapers.

At times, it was not an easy life.

But, always, it was a life well lived.

And all of us – particularly I – are the better for it.

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