Medill McCormick

{{short description|American publisher, Congressman, and Senator (1877–1925)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

|image = Joseph Medill McCormick 1912.jpg

|caption = McCormick in 1912

|birth_name = Joseph Medill McCormick

|birth_date = {{birth date|1877|5|16}}

|birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|1925|2|25|1877|5|16}}

|death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S.

|residence =

|state = Illinois

|jr/sr = Senior Senator

|term_start = March 4, 1919

|term_end = February 25, 1925

|predecessor = J. Hamilton Lewis

|successor = Charles S. Deneen

|state2 = Illinois

|district2 = at-large

|term_start2 = March 4, 1917

|term_end2 = March 3, 1919

|predecessor2 = Burnett M. Chiperfield

|successor2 = Richard Yates

|office3 = Member of the
Illinois House of Representatives

|term_start3 = 1913

|term_end3 = 1917

|preceded3 =

|succeeded3 =

|party = Republican

|alma_mater = Yale University

|religion =

|spouse = {{Marriage|Ruth Hanna|June 10, 1903}}

|children = 3, including Bazy

|parents = Robert Sanderson McCormick
Katherine Medill

|website =

}}

Joseph Medill McCormick (May 16, 1877 – February 25, 1925) was part of the McCormick family of businessmen and politicians in Chicago. After working as a publisher for some time and becoming part owner of the Chicago Tribune, which his maternal grandfather had owned, he entered politics.

After serving in the State House, he was elected both as a Representative in the United States Congress and later as a US Senator from Illinois.

Early life

Joseph Medill McCormick was born in Chicago on May 16, 1877. His father was Robert Sanderson McCormick (1849–1919), a future diplomat and nephew of industrialist Cyrus McCormick.

McCormick was an early pupil at Ludgrove School when his father was based in Europe.{{cite book |last1=Barber |first1=Richard |title=The Story of Ludgrove |date=2004 |publisher=Guidon Publishing |location=Oxford |isbn=0-9543617-2-5 |page=20}} He later attended the Groton School, a preparatory school at Groton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale University in 1900, where he was elected to the secret society Scroll and Key.

He worked as a newspaper reporter and publisher, and became an owner of the Chicago Daily Tribune. He later purchased interests in The Cleveland Leader and Cleveland News. In 1901 he served as a war correspondent in the Philippine Islands.

=Marriage and family=

In 1903 he married Ruth Hanna, daughter of the Ohio Senator Mark Hanna. They had three children:

Ruth "Bazy" McCormick, (1921–2013) who married Peter Miller and then Garvin Tankersley. As Bazy Miller, she founded Al-Marah Arabians, a breeding and training farm for Arabian horses formerly in Tucson, Arizona, which operates in Florida, under the ownership of her son, Mark Miller.{{cite book |title=... and Ride Away Singing |last=Parkinson |first=Mary Jane |year=1998 |publisher=Arabian Horse Owners Foundation |isbn=978-1-930140-00-4 }}
Katrina McCormick (1913–2011), who married Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Jr.{{cite news|last=McCormick|first=Katrina|title=Katrina McCormick Weds Courtland Dixon Barnes, Jr.|url=http://www.tarzan.org/pdf/19350615.pdf|access-date=March 10, 2013|newspaper=Syracuse Herald|date=June 15, 1935}}
John Medill McCormick, called "Johnny", died in a mountain-climbing accident in 1938.

The ''Chicago Tribune''

McCormick was a grandson of the Tribune owner Joseph Medill. His mother Katherine Medill McCormick hoped that leadership of the paper would pass from her brother-in-law, Robert Wilson Patterson, to her first son. Joseph Medill McCormick took over much of the management of the paper between 1903 and 1907, but became increasingly depressed and developed alcoholism. In 1907–1908, he spent some time under the care of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung in Zurich, and subsequently followed Jung's advice to detach himself from the family newspaper.{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Kristie |title=Ruth Hanna McCormick: A Life in Politics |year=1992 |isbn=0-8263-1333-7 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/ruthhannamccormi00mill }}

His younger brother, the famed "Colonel" Robert McCormick (1880–1955) became involved in the newspaper, worked closely on it for four decades, and was a leading isolationist figure in the Republican Party.{{cite book |author= Richard Norton Smith |author-link= Richard Norton Smith |title= The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick, 1880–1955 |publisher= Northwestern University Press |year= 2003 |orig-year= 1997 |isbn= 978-0-8101-2039-6 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=0tIW6XTGsOAC}}

Political career

McCormick was vice chairman of the national campaign committee of the Progressive Republican movement from 1912 to 1914. He was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1912 and 1914.

Afterward he advanced to national office, being elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served one term from March 4, 1917, to March 3, 1919. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1918, and served from March 4, 1919, until his death at age 48 in 1925. In the Senate, McCormick was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Labor and the Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments.

In the primary election of 1924, McCormick lost the Republican U.S. Senate nomination to Charles S. Deneen, who had previously served as the 23rd Governor of Illinois. Deenen defeated McCormick by a narrow 0.69% margin (only 5,944 votes).{{cite web |title=OFFICIAL VOTE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS CAST AT THE GENERAL ELECTION, NOV. 4, 1924 JUDICIAL ELECTIONS, 1923-1924 JUDICIAL ELECTIONS, 1923-1924 SPECIAL ELECTIONS, 1923-1924 PRIMARY ELECTIONS GENERAL PRIMARY, APRIL 8, 1924 PRESIDENTIAL PREFERENCE, APRIL 8, 1924 |url=https://www.elections.il.gov/DocDisplay.aspx?doc=Downloads/ElectionOperations/VoteTotals/Archived/1924/PE%20and%20GE%201924.pdf |publisher=Illinois State Board of Elections |access-date=19 December 2020 }}{{Dead link|date=February 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Death

McCormick died on February 25, 1925, in his hotel suite at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.{{cite magazine |title= National Affairs: Medill McCormick |date= March 9, 1925 |magazine= Time magazine |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,751256,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111122071441/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,751256,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= November 22, 2011 |access-date= January 9, 2011 }} Although it was not publicized as such at the time, his death was considered to be a suicide. At the time of his death, McCormick was about to leave office. His reelection loss is believed to have contributed to his apparent suicide.{{Cite web|url=https://www.illinoisreview.com/illinoisreview/2006/10/illinois_hall_o_28.html|title=Illinois Hall of Fame: Ruth Hanna McCormick|last=Rhoads|first=Mark|date=October 30, 2006|website=Illinois Review|access-date=January 4, 2019}}{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,751256,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111122071441/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,751256,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 22, 2011|title=National Affairs: Medill McCormick|date=March 9, 1925|magazine=Time magazine|access-date=January 9, 2011}}{{cite web |last1=Hill |first1=Ray |title=The Senate's Dandy: James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois - The Knoxville Focus |url=https://knoxfocus.com/archives/the-senates-dandy-james-hamilton-lewis-of-illinois/ |publisher=The Knoxville Focus |access-date=16 December 2020 |date=16 December 2012}}{{cite journal |last1=Miller |first1=Kristie |title=Ruth Hanna McCormick and the Senatorial Election of 1930 |journal=Illinois Historical Journal |date=1988 |volume=81 |issue=3 |pages=191–210 |jstor=40192065 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40192065 |issn=0748-8149}}{{CongBio |M000369 |inline=please}}

References

American National Biography
Dictionary of American Biography
Miller, Kristie. Ruth Hanna McCormick: A Life in Politics from 1880 to 1944. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1992
Stone, Ralph A. "Two Illinois Senators Among the Irreconcileables." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 50 (December 1963): 443–65.