Medill McCormick

Medill McCormick
McCormick in 1912
United States Senator from Illinois
In office March 4, 1919 – February 25, 1925
Preceded by	J. Hamilton Lewis
Succeeded by	Charles S. Deneen
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's at-large district
In office March 4, 1917 – March 3, 1919
Preceded by	Burnett M. Chiperfield
Succeeded by	Richard Yates
Member of the Illinois House of Representatives
In office 1913–1917
Personal details
Born	Joseph Medill McCormick (1877-05-16)May 16, 1877 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	February 25, 1925(1925-02-25) (aged 47) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Ruth Hanna ​ (m. 1903)​
Children	3, including Bazy
Parent(s)	Robert Sanderson McCormick Katherine Medill
Alma mater	Yale University

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.

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.^[1] 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.

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.^[2]
• Katrina McCormick (1913–2011), who married Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Jr.^[3]
• John Medill McCormick, called "Johnny", died in a mountain-climbing accident in 1938.

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.^[4]

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.^[5]

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).^[6]

McCormick died on February 25, 1925, in his hotel suite at the Hamilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.^[7] Although it was not publicized 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.^{[8][9][10][11][12]}

• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)

• 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.

• Media related to Joseph M. McCormick at Wikimedia Commons
• Newspaper clippings about Medill McCormick in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW