This collection of Ralph McGill’s essays on some well-known people of the South is based on articles originally published in the Saturday Evening Post, Georgia Review, Atlantic Monthly, Atlanta Journal Constitution Magazine, and elsewhere. In these essays McGill discusses such notables as poets Carl Sandburg and Byron Reese, politician George Wallace and William Hartsfield, and businessmen Robert Woodruff and Peter Knox. Readers will discover what made golfer Bobby Jones both a “great man and great golfer,” and what Walter George picked to be “the most important decisions of his time.”
Ralph McGill was known best for his perceptive observations of the South. Because he phrased scenes poetically, McGill’s essays are enjoyable and insightful. Because he drew his conclusions from the study of Southern history and firsthand observations, McGill’s judgments are informative.
This Pulitzer Prize winner’s chief concern was with the “quality of life”—not just the country’s “size but our spirit; not our political beliefs but our insight; not our self-esteem, but our self-comprehension.” Underlying McGill’s evaluation of people of the South was his demand for intellectual honesty, common decency, opportunity, unselfishness, gentleness, and plain speaking—all of which are evident in these revealing essays.
Calvin M. Logue is Professor of Speech Communication and Director of the Public Communication Division at the University of Georgia, Athens.