Epitomizing the American mystique, McCullagh (or Mack as he was popularly known) was the self-made man whose name became a legend in his profession. An Irish immigrant at the age of 11, a printer, reporter, and roving correspondent, McCullagh returned to St. Louis after the Civil War, where he had worked briefly when he was 16. From this point to the end of his life in l896—a thirty-year period which forms the bulk of Mr. Clayton’s story—St. Louis was the primary stage on which his role as editor of the Globe-Democrat unfolded.   St. Louis was a crossroads through which went an unending movement of men on their way West, a bustling and bur­geoning city on the eve of the American century. To this city and to the problems mirrored in its growth, McCullagh dedi­cated his years and his prodigious talents, provoking men to speak, sending his staff of interviewers everywhere, and heap­ing his abrasive prose on men and issues.   This spirited yet humorous account of “Little Mack” will appeal to all readers for its portrayal of an unforgettable man in one of our great cities in the stirring and formative years of the nation.