[3] The elder White groomed his only surviving child for work in journalism, hoping for his son to succeed him as editor of the Emporia Gazette.
Upon his return to Emporia, he wore a monocle and was one of the best-dressed men in the nation[citation needed] He served as associate publisher of the Gazette in the early 1930s.
[2] The National Headliners Club awarded him its prize for best European broadcast of the year for his editorial "The Last Christmas Tree" from the Mannerheim Line in Finland in 1940.
He opposed urban renewal schemes that benefited real estate interests and merchants in downtown Emporia rather than the poor in need of housing.
For most of his later career, William Lindsay White was Roving Editor for Reader's Digest and published numerous articles in that magazine.
When Bob Dole first ran for the United States Senate, White threw a dinner party at the Broadview Hotel and invited most of the Eastern Kansas Republican leaders.
[2] Three of his books were adapted into feature Hollywood films: They Were Expendable, Journey for Margaret, and Lost Boundaries, based on the true story of Dr. Albert C. Johnston and his African Americans family passing as white in New England.
[6] He became an officer of a group formed to aid Russian refugees in 1951, the American Committee for Freedom for the Peoples of the U.S.S.R.[7] White's wife Kathrine was born in Cawker City, Kansas, and worked on the editorial staff at Time magazine before her marriage.
There is also a bronze bust and a sample of his writing in White Memorial Park at Sixth Avenue and Merchant Street in Emporia.