Bartley, 'WSJ' Editorial Page Editor, Dies

By: E&P Staff Robert L. Bartley, editor of The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page for 30 years, had died of cancer, according to a report on WSJ.com. Bartley, 66, won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials in 1980.

The Journal said, "His greatest impact came in turning the Journal's editorial page, as he put it, into 'the mouthpiece of supply-side economics,' the tax-cutting ideology that has influenced Republican fiscal policy from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush."

"Robert Bartley was an articulate and most effective advocate of free markets, indeed freedom generally. His thoughtful voice will be sorely missed," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in the WSJ.com report.

Bartley's first editorial-page hire was Jude Wanniski, who introduced him to two unconventional economists, Robert Mundell and Arthur Laffer -- both advocates of tax cuts. Bartley "shaped the sometimes-dense writings of the supply-siders into lucid editorials and features. The movement's first big break came in 1978 when a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, William Steiger, successfully proposed a cut in the capital-gains tax to stimulate investment, winning the Journal's hearty endorsement. Then Ronald Reagan, running in the 1980 Republican primary, adopted supply-side ideas and went on to act on them with his 1981 tax cut and the 1986 Tax Reform Act, which lowered marginal tax rates. The Journal's editorials have been championing tax cuts ever since, shaping the debate over fiscal policy to this day," WSJ.com reported.

Under Bartley's leadership, the Journal editorial page was unsparing in heaping criticism on the left. The Clintons were favorite targets.

"Many of the ideas that Bob conceptualized and crusaded for over so many years by now have taken root at or near the center of political and economic life," said Peter Kann, chairman and chief executive of Dow Jones.

Bartley was hired as a reporter in the Journal's Chicago bureau in 1962, joining the editorial page in 1965. Earlier this month, President Bush awarded Bartley the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.