Heywood Broun (1888–1939,) fully Heywood Campbell Broun Jr., was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He was noted for liberal social and political viewpoints.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Broun Harvard University 1906–10 but did not finish. He began his career as a sportswriter for The New York Morning Telegraph and The Tribune. Becoming a drama critic, he wrote the “It Seems to Me” column for The Tribune, The Telegram, and The Post. He also wrote the “Shoot the Works” column in The New Republic 1935–39.
Broun is best remembered for his writing on social issues and his championing of the underdog. He believed that journalists could help right wrongs, especially social ills.
Broun founded the American Newspaper Guild, later known as The Newspaper Guild and now as The News Guild-CWA. Engaged in labor and political problems, Broun ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1930 on the Socialist ticket.
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I have never understood the fear of some parents about babies getting mixed up in the hospital. What difference does it make as long as you get a good one?
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Children
Hell is paved with great granite blocks hewn from the hearts of those who said, “I can do no other.”
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Hell
Repartee is what you wish you’d said.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Wit
In the march up the heights of fame there comes a spot close to the summit in which man reads nothing but detective stories.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Fame
The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Gambling, Chance, Evil
The artist has never been a dictator, since he understands better than anybody else the variations in human personality.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Art
Except that right side up is best, there is not much to learn about holding a baby. There are one hundred and fifty-two distinctly different ways—and all are right! At least all will do.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Babies, Children
Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggressions without going to jail for it.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Football
Golf is not, on the whole, a game for realists. By its exactitudes of measurements it invites the attention of perfectionists.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Golf
Being a well-dressed person is a career, and he who goes in for it has no time for anything else.
—Heywood Broun
Topics: Clothing
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