Elmer was one of my favorite authors back when I devoured any and every gun or hunting article I could lay my hands on. Because I subscribed to Outdoor Life in the very early 60s I felt like I got to know their writers of the time. My all-time favorite was Jack O'Connor and if memory serves he and Elmer Keith didn't get on with one another well. Does anyone have any info on the relationship between these two giants?
I never met Jack O'Connor, but we corresponded a fair amount over the years. I think I read all of his gun material. His novel topic didn't interest me.
Jack had a Master's degree and was a professor at AZ State Univ., if I have the college right. He belonged to a fraternity. He could be rather aloof at times, I've heard. Elmer was probably lucky if he finished high school. His spelling and grammar were awful and required extensive editing before seeing print.
Jack had a position at, Outdoor Life that was probably the plum gun writing job in the business. Only John Amber editing, Gun Digest may have had more prestige.
I think Elmer felt inferior to Jack, culturally. And he had a tremendous ego.
Col. Chas. Askins, Jr. hated Jack because Jack replaced his father at, Outdoor Life. When O'Connor died, Askins supposedly claimed that he had done something to his grave that I'm not sure I can mention here without violating some Rule. I don't know if he really said that or not. It'd have been difficult to do, as I think Jack's ashes were scattered from a plane, over a mountain range where he'd enjoyed hunting wild sheep.
O'Connor and Keith both shot a lot of animals. Jack felt that the .270 was effective on most animals below the really large African and Indian game. He did use a .375 on tigers and had a couple of .416's. But he thought the .270 and the .30-06 were fine for most hunting quarry.
I think Elmer preferred the .338 and similar calibers because he was more likely to take a chancy raking shot on departing animals. And he often HAD to kill elk, etc. to feed his family. If O'Connor had to pass on a chancy shot, he could. He had enough income to buy meat at a store.
I hope this explains some things about their famous feud.
BTW, I think that Jack is the ONLY gun writer to get national obituaries in newspapers. He founded the Journalism dept. at his college and that gave him more respectability than other gun scribes got. The mass media is elitist, agenda-driven, and pretty condescending toward outdoor writers.