Joseph Medill
Joseph Medill (April 6, 1823 – March 16, 1899) is better known as the business manager and managing editor of the Chicago Tribune than as mayor of Chicago, although his term in office occurred during two of the most important years of the city's history as Chicago tried to rebuild in the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire.
Life
Joseph Medill was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Medill was mainly self-educated and practiced law for several years before becoming an editor.
Medill was known as a man of eccentricities. He liked to fraternize with scientists whenever possible, but there were times when he held sunspots accountable for various calamities, such as when Chicago suffered some 700 deaths from influenza during an unusually mild January. His suspicion of sunspots faded when he read about the then-new discovery of microbes. When a reporter blamed a plague in India to sunspots, the reporter was unaware of Medill’s shift in view; rumor has it that Medill took edited the copy to replace all mention of “sunspots” for “microbes.”
Tribune
Career
In the spring of 1855, Medill came to Chicago and wanted to purchase the Tribune but lacked the funds for a full buyout. He bought a one-third interest and became managing editor, while his friend and colleague, Dr. Charles H. Ray, bought a one-quarter interest to become Editor-in-Chief. Medill and Ray wanted to change the Tribune’s policies, including its stance against Roman-Catholics and immigrants, but had to do so in a slow, careful fashion, so as not to alienate many of its subscribers.
Medill would become editor in chief from November 1863 to August 1866.
Style & Approach
As an editor, Medill employed a system of “simplified spelling” of certain words, which his staff soon adopted for themselves. The system underwent various changes but its influence stayed with the paper for many years. The Tribune would spell words such as “freight” as “frate,” and “through” as “thru.”
Medill disdained the reporting of scandal if proof had yet to be validated. When the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the country’s best clergyman of the day, was accused of having an extra-marital affair, newspapers across the country reported on what Medill saw as mere rumor and gossip. Medill was not against the allegations per se, but he condemned this style of reporting. He dispatched his Washington correspondent to personally interview those involved in the scandal and to investigate the matter as a means of gathering facts rather than depending on hearsay. By extensively investigating and covering developments in the scandal, the Tribune set an example for other newspapers to compare the truth and lies in the Beecher-Tilton Scandal as a barometer for American honesty. When Beecher was being tried for infidelity, the judge greatly limited press coverage of the trial; Tribune reporters solved this problem by finding an abandoned basement underneath the courthouse, and used left-over tubes to eavesdrop on the proceedings.
When Medill temporarily left the Tribune, he still contributed material in the form of letters to the editor written under an alias. Despite signing these letters as “Protection,” it was known that Medill was the author. He would also argue that the role of a newspaper would be:
- The organ of no man, however high, no clique or ring, however influential, no faction, however fanatical or demonstrative, and in all things to follow the line of common sense.::: [B, p. 5]
Politics
Medill supported a protective tariff, even while one of his associate editors, Horace White, was a free trade advocate.
Medill believed that a newspaper in service to the public must have a clear preference of political affiliation. He believed that the Republican Party had a larger proportion of intelligent and educated members, many of whom he judged to be patriotic business professionals with high moral worth.
In 1869, he served in the Illinois Constitutional Convention, and later joined the Civil Service Commission.
Republican Party
Abraham Lincoln and Civil War
Medill and State Senator Norman B. Judd were largely responsible for influencing the decision to hold the 1860 Republican national convention in Chicago and later had the Tribune endorse Abraham Lincoln for president. Historians agree that had the convention been held elsewhere, Lincoln would not have become the Republican nominee.
The Tribune had sizeable power and influence; the paper helped contribute to the start of the Civil War. Medill and the Tribune vocally supported Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
The Great Chicago Fire
On the Sunday night of 1871 October 8, much of the city’s center was wiped away by the Great Chicago Fire. During the fire, the Tribune press room was filling with smoke while reporters and staff continued to work on the paper. The building had to be abandoned, and there was no edition printed to show all that effort.
When news of the fire broke, Medill left his home and went to the printers to take charge of the ultimately futile effort to print that evening’s edition. When Sunday night turned into Monday morning, the fire continued to burn, yet Medill rented a job printing plant from the safe West Side and produced 20,000 copies of a one-page paper. He shared the plant with the rival Chicago Journal.
It should be noted that a month before the fire, the Tribune predicted the disaster. The paper reasoned that as Chicago was rapidly growing as a city, its buildings were getting built with shoddy materials and workmanship and were vulnerable to fire damage.
Mayor Joseph Medill
Medill’s reassertion of control over the Tribune during the crisis was swift; after the fire subsided, he left command of the paper. However, his actions were visible enough for citizens to notice. He ran for mayor on the ‘Fireproof’ ticket (to emphasize his platform of rebuilding the city with thorough and effective means). Medill was also endorsed by the American Industrial Union, despite Medill’s disapproval of organized labor.
Citizens elected Medill to launch rebuilding efforts in 1871. Under Medill’s leadership, the city granted more power for the mayor's office. He helped create Chicago's first public library, reformed the police and fire department, the latter as a visible consequence of the Great Chicago Fire.
As a proponent of laws designed to enforce moral standards, Medill supported temperance laws. He argued that liquor was a strong factor in the city’s increasing crime rates and demanded stricter enforcement of an ordinance that required closing saloons and beer gardens on Sundays. He pointed out the fact that two-thirds of his constituents were of European birth, but said they could not understand why it was legal to drink on Saturday but illegal to drink on Sunday.
Spinal rheumatism and a degree of hearing-loss started to take its toll on Medill, and he did not have the energy to maintain his stand on many political issues. Due to his health problems and constant criticism of his leadership skills, he resigned as mayor in 1873. He asked the City Council for a leave of absence that was to last for the rest of his term, and he cited his hearing as his official reasoning for leaving (though this reason was seen by much of the populace as the least embarrassing way for Medill to resign). He appointed Lester L. Bond as acting mayor.
After his resignation, Medill toured Europe and returned to Chicago with a new desire to return to the Tribune. He befriended a young Marshall Field, head of the world-famous Marshall Field & Co. department store. Medill borrowed enough money from Field to buy up controlling shares of the Tribune, resuming a command of the paper that would last until his death. It took nine years for Medill to completely repay Field for the loan, and Medill was constantly annoyed whenever Field offered advice on how to run the paper.
Despite leaving public office, Medill continued to voice political concerns through the Tribune. He disapproved of the eight-hour day, arguing that it would increase living costs by one-fifth. The paper described labor organizers as “lazy demagogues” and “filth and scum,” and argued that they were betraying honest, free laborers. Medill denounced a city councilman who proposed an eight-hour day for city employees as a Communist.
Legacy
Joseph Medill died in San Antonio, Texas on 1899 at the age of 76. He is seen as a leader in an era of personal journalism, when that kind of reporting corresponded with the growing and bustling United States of the time. He determined guilt or innocence in news columns and used an unrelenting tone in either assailing his opponents or advocating a cause.
Medill's country estate in Wheaton, Illinois, which was later occupied by his grandson, Robert R. McCormick, who named it Cantigny, is now open to the public as a beautiful public garden, picnic area and museum for the First Division of the US Army [1] [2]. The Medill-McCormick home is also open for tours as a museum.
The Medill School of Journalism, one of the many schools that compose Northwestern University, and one of the top journalism schools in the United States, is named after Joseph Medill.
Medill had two daughters, Kate and Elinor, known as Nellie. While Kate married the nephew of Medill's chief rival McCormick, Nellie married Robert W. Patterson Jr., an influential reporter at the Tribune. Each daughter named her firstborn son after her successful father: Katie had Joseph Medill McCormick, and Nellie had Joseph Medill Patterson. Nellie's son became a succussful newspaper owner himself, founding the New York Daily News and rivaling the dynasty of William Randolph Hearst. Nellie's daughter, Cissy Patterson, also achieved fame as a publisher. Joseph Medill Patterson's daughter and Medill's great-granddaughter, Alicia Patterson, founded and edited Newsday. Medill's great-great grandson, Joseph Medill Patterson Albright, married future United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Am.
External links
- Medill School of Journalism - Joseph M. Medill biography
- Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation official site
- Cantigny Park official site
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