[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 61 (Thursday, May 14, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E863-E864]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HONORING JACK MCDOWELL, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST, POLITICAL 
                 CONSULTANT, BELOVED FATHER AND HUSBAND

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. GEORGE P. RADANOVICH

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 14, 1998

  Mr. RADANOVICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise with the sad duty of informing 
you that America has lost an honored journalist, a warm friend and a 
great family man. Jack McDowell, whose storied career included winning 
a Pulitzer Prize for the now-defunct San Francisco Call-Bulletin, 
serving as political editor and columnist for the San Francisco 
Examiner and culminating with 26 years as partner in the highly 
successful political consulting firm Woodward & McDowell, has died at 
this home in Atherton. He was 84.
  Born in Alameda to the founder and publisher of the Alameda Times-
Star, McDowell quite literally had journalism in his blood. As a boy he 
snuck out of camp to make a lone trek through the Sierra snow to file a 
report from the ranger's station about how his Alameda boy scout troop 
was marooned by a freak springtime storm.
  After attending what is now San Jose State University during 
Prohibition, McDowell went on to become managing editor and co-owner 
with his brother, W. Clifford McDowell, of the Eugene (Ore.) Daily News 
and Turlock Daily Journal.
  In 1942 he was hired as a reporter for the Call-Bulletin. Three years 
later his story about the new process of donating blood that followed a 
donor's pint into the Pacific Theater of World War II and into the 
soldier who received the transfusion was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.
  As his career progressed to writing a daily column, ``Memo from Mac'' 
and on to city editor of the Call-Bulletin, McDowell's noteworthy 
stories included confronting a wanted killer on the streets of San 
Francisco and taking the suspect back to the city room for an exclusive 
interview before turning him over to the police.
  It was during the eras of Governors Goodwin Knight, ``Pat'' Brown and 
Ronald Reagan that McDowell served as political editor and columnist 
for the San Francisco Examiner. He was recognized as the dean of the 
capitol press corps and was often found at his ``unofficial'' office, 
the renowned gathering spot for California politicos, Frank Fat's.

[[Page E864]]

  After a learning period under the wing of famed California political 
consultants Stuart Spencer and Bill Roberts and serving as Statewide 
News Director of Governor Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign, 
McDowell and partner Richard Woodward, formed the firm Woodward & 
McDowell in 1971.
  They successfully guided former San Francisco State University 
President S.I. Hayakawa to a seat in the United States Senate and went 
on to run some of the most controversial ballot measure campaigns in 
California, winning more than 95% of the time. McDowell earned the firm 
a reputation for honesty, credibility and journalistic standards that 
are a hallmark of the industry.
  Mr. Speaker, with the loss of Jack McDowell we have lost a man for 
whom the standard was excellence, and nothing less. He will be sorely 
missed by his loving family, his colleagues at Woodward & McDowell and 
the many others who knew him as a man not only with a story to tell, 
but the best way to tell it.

                          ____________________