{{Short description|American lawyer, Army officer, and newspaperman (1880–1955)}} {{Use American English|date=December 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=December 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Robert R. McCormick | image = Robert R. McCormick cph.3b30054.jpg | alt = McCormick looking towards a camera | caption = McCormick in 1925 | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Amie Irwin Adams|1915|1939|end=died}} * {{marriage|Maryland Mathison Hooper|1944}} }} | birth_name = Robert Rutherford McCormick | birth_date = {{birth date|1880|7|30}} | birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1955|4|1|1880|7|30}} | death_place = Wheaton, Illinois, U.S. | political_party = Republican | movement = Non-interventionism | relatives = McCormick family | parents = Robert Sanderson McCormick <br /> Katherine Van Etta Medill | alma_mater = Yale University (BA)<br />Northwestern University (LLB) }} '''Robert Rutherford''' "'''Colonel'''" '''McCormick''' (July 30, 1880 – April 1, 1955) was an American publisher, lawyer, and businessman. A member of the McCormick family of Chicago, McCormick became a lawyer, Republican Chicago alderman, distinguished U.S. Army officer in World War I, and eventually owner and publisher of the ''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper. A leading Republican, McCormick opposed the New Deal and later opposed American entry into World War II. His legacy includes what is now the McCormick Foundation philanthropic organization.
==Early life and international education== {{Unreferenced section |date=February 2024}} McCormick was born July 30, 1880, in Chicago to Robert Sanderson McCormick (1849–1919) and his wife, Katherine Van Etta Medill McCormick (1853–1932). Family members quickly nicknamed him "Bertie" because so many relatives shared the name, including his late patrilineal great-grandfather Robert McCormick. His maternal grandfather was ''Tribune'' editor and former Chicago mayor Joseph Medill, on whose estate McCormick would live for much of his adult life.
On his father's side, his great-uncle was inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick. His elder brother Joseph Medill McCormick (known by his middle name) was slated to take over the family newspaper business, but was more interested in running for political office, and became a member of the United States House of Representatives (1917–1919) and then the U.S. Senate before losing his bid for a second term and committing suicide in Washington, D.C. in 1925. Meanwhile, from 1889 through 1893, Bertie lived a lonely childhood with his parents in London. His father Robert Sanderson McCormick was Second Secretary of the American Legation in London, serving from 1889 to 1892 under Robert Todd Lincoln. Later, his father served as his nation's ambassador to Austria-Hungary (1901–1902) and Imperial Russia (1902–1905), and replaced Horace Porter as ambassador to France in 1905.
While in London, Bertie attended Ludgrove School. Sent back to the United States, Bertie attended Groton School, as had his brother. In 1899, the year of his maternal grandfather Joseph Medill's death, McCormick matriculated at Yale College, where he was elected to the prestigious secret society Scroll and Key and graduated in 1903 (three years after his brother). Robert McCormick then attended the Northwestern University School of Law and after graduation became a clerk in a Chicago law firm.
==Career== Robert McCormick was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1907. The following year, he co-founded the law firm that became Kirkland & Ellis, which represented the Tribune Company. However, his elder brother, Medill McCormick, had become depressed after taking over and expanding the family newspaper business, so, in 1908, on the advice of psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Medill gave up that job, and Robert became increasingly involved in the family publishing business. Despite that business involvement, a scandal that ultimately led to his marriage (see below), and his military service (which led to him becoming known as "the Colonel"), McCormick continued as a law firm partner until 1920.
In 1910, Robert McCormick took control of the ''Chicago Tribune'' and, in 1914, became editor and publisher with his cousin, Captain Joseph Medill Patterson, who was the son of a ''Tribune'' editor who had wed Joseph Medill's daughter. In 1919, Patterson, a former U.S. Representative from Illinois, moved to New York City and founded the tabloid ''New York Daily News''. However he and McCormick, while often disagreeing, jointly held both positions at the ''Chicago Tribune'' until 1926, when McCormick assumed both roles at the ''Tribune'', and Patterson concentrated on the ''New York Daily News''.<ref name="Smith">{{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}}</ref>
In 1904, a Republican ward leader persuaded McCormick to run for alderman. Elected, he served two years on the Chicago City Council. In 1905, at the age of 25, he was elected to a five-year term as president of the board of trustees of the Chicago Sanitary District, which operated the city's vast drainage and sewage disposal system. In 1907 McCormick was appointed to the Chicago Permanent Charter Commission and the Chicago Plan Commission. However, his political career ended abruptly when he took control of the ''Tribune.''
McCormick went to Europe as a war correspondent for the ''Tribune'' in February 1915, early in World War I. He interviewed Tsar Nicholas, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. McCormick also visited (and was under fire on) both the Eastern and Western Fronts. Using connections his father had made while ambassador to Russia, McCormick attended formal dinners with Grand Duke Nicholas and Grand Duke Peter.<ref>{{cite news |title= Two Grand Dukes lead the russians: Peter, Brother of Nicholas, an Important, Though Unofficial, Member of the Staff.n |newspaper= New York Times |date= July 12, 1915 |author= Robert R. McCormick |page= 3 |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/07/12/100166360.pdf |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> During this trip, McCormick collected fragments of the cathedral at Ypres and the city hall of Arras. Reputedly, these pieces were the first of the collection of stones that were later embedded in the facade of the Tribune Tower. However, they are not actually on display.<ref>Annabel Wharton, "The Tribune Tower: Spolia as Despoliation", in ''Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture, from Constantine to Sherrie Levine'', ed. Richard Brilliant and Dale Kinney (Ashgate, 2011), 179-197</ref>
===Military service=== Returning to the United States in early 1915, McCormick joined the Illinois National Guard on June 21, 1916. His family background, education and expert horsemanship led to his being commissioned as a major in its 1st Cavalry Regiment. Two days earlier, President Woodrow Wilson had called the Illinois National Guard into federal service, along with those of several other states, to patrol the Mexican border during General John Joseph Pershing's Punitive Expedition.<ref name="Smith" /> McCormick accompanied his regiment to the Mexican border. Soon after, the United States entered the war, the entire Illinois National Guard was mobilized for federal service in Europe. McCormick thus became part of the U.S. Army on June 13, 1917, and was sent to France as an intelligence officer on the staff of General Pershing. Seeking more active service, he was assigned to an artillery school.
By June 17, 1918, McCormick became a lieutenant colonel, and by September 5, 1918, was promoted to a full colonel in the field artillery. He took part in the capture of Cantigny (hence his later naming his farm estate near Wheaton, Illinois), and in the battles of Soissons, Saint-Mihiel, and the second phase of the Argonne. McCormick served in the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment, with the 1st Infantry Division. His service ended on December 31, 1918, though he remained a part of the Officers Reserve Corps from October 8, 1919, to September 30, 1929. Cited for prompt action in battle, he received the Distinguished Service Medal, and was later always referred to as "Colonel McCormick".
===Crusading publisher=== McCormick returned from the war and took control of the ''Tribune'' in the 1920s. Given the lack of schools of journalism in the midwestern United States at the time, McCormick and Patterson sponsored a school named for their grandfather, the Joseph Medill School of Journalism. It was announced by Walter Dill Scott in November 1920, and began classes in 1921.<ref>{{cite book |publisher= Northwestern University |location= Evanston, Illinois |title=Bulletin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0mjOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA5 |year=1920 |page=5}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= New Journalism School: Chicago Newspapers to Aid Students at Northwestern University |newspaper= New York Times |date= November 14, 1920 |page=11 |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1920/11/14/113319414.pdf |access-date= January 9, 2011 }}</ref>
As publisher of the ''Tribune'', McCormick was involved in a number of legal disputes regarding freedom of the press that were handled by McCormick's longtime lawyer Weymouth Kirkland. The most famous of these cases is ''Near v. Minnesota'', 283 U.S. 697 (1931), a case championed by McCormick in his role as chairman of the American Newspaper Publishers Association's Committee on Free Speech.
[[File:Chicago Tribune Building.jpg|thumb|upright|right| Tribune Tower ]] A conservative Republican, McCormick was an opponent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and compared the New Deal to Communism. For a period in 1935, he protested Rhode Island's Democratic judiciary by displaying a 47-star flag outside the Tribune building, with the 13th star (representing Rhode Island) removed; he relented after he was advised that alteration of the American flag was unlawful.<ref name="bio42">{{cite book |title= Current Biography yearbook |year= 1942 |pages= 54–58 |publisher= H. W. Wilson Company }}</ref><ref name="cent"/>
He was also an America First non-interventionist who strongly opposed entering World War II "to rescue the British Empire". He famously published the "Victory Program," a military plan that FDR had ordered in the summer of 1941 to prepare the United States for possible entry into World War II. It had been leaked to him by US Senator Burton K. Wheeler. The publication was on December 4, 1941, only three days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The controversy it stirred died off quickly after the December 7 attack. In June 1942, the ''Tribune'' published an article that indicated that the Americans had broken Japanese codes, the 1942 ''Chicago Tribune'' incident.
As a publisher he was very innovative. McCormick was a 25 percent owner of the Tribune's 50,000 watt radio station, which was purchased in 1924; he named it WGN, the initials of the ''Tribune'''s motto, the "World's Greatest Newspaper". He also established the town of Baie-Comeau, Quebec in 1936 and constructed a paper mill and a hydroelectric power plant there named McCormick Dam to generate electricity for the mill.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.toponymie.gouv.qc.ca/ct/ToposWeb/fiche.aspx?no_seq=370330 |title=Centrale McCormick |author=Commission de la toponymie du Québec |work=Topos sur le Web |location=Quebec City |date= June 5, 2001 |access-date= January 7, 2011 |language=fr}}</ref>
McCormick carried on crusades against various local, state, and national politicians, gangsters and racketeers, labor unions, prohibition and prohibitionists, Wall Street, the East and Easterners, Democrats, the New Deal and the Fair Deal, liberal Republicans, the League of Nations, the World Court, the United Nations, British imperialism, socialism, and communism. Besides Roosevelt, his chief targets included Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson and Illinois Governor Len Small.
Some of McCormick's personal crusades were seen as quixotic (such as his attempts to reform spelling of the English language) and were parodied in political cartoons in rival Frank Knox's ''Chicago Daily News''. Knox's political cartoonists, including Cecil Jensen, derided McCormick as "Colonel McCosmic", a "pompous, paunchy, didactic individual with a bristling mustache and superlative ego."<ref name="bio42"/><ref name="life1942051128">{{cite magazine | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CVAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28 | title=Chicago's Col. M'Cosmic Makes Hit as U. S. Counterpart of England's Late Col. Blimp | magazine=Life | date=1942-05-11 | access-date=November 17, 2011 | pages=28}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=John Churchill Chase |title=Today's cartoon |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3PLVAAAAMAAJ |year=1962 |publisher=Hauser Press}}</ref>
In 1943, he told an audience he helped plan a defence against an invasion from Canada at the end of World War I. In June 1947, he gave a 100-year birthday party for the ''Tribune'' that included a fireworks show called "the most colossal show since the Chicago fire."<ref name="cent">{{cite magazine |title= The Press: The Colonel's Century |date= June 9, 1947 |magazine= Time magazine |url= http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779077-1,00.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20121106171751/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779077-1,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= November 6, 2012 |access-date= January 8, 2011 }}</ref> Other publications noted that everything about the celebration was called "the world's greatest". Time magazine editorialized that "the ''Tribune'' has been made into a worldwide symbol of reaction, isolation, and prejudice by a man capable of real hate."<ref>{{cite magazine |title= Newspaper Congratulates Itself |magazine= Life magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25|date=June 23, 1947 |publisher=Time Inc |pages=25–29 |issn=0024-3019 }}</ref>
McCormick had purchased the ''Washington Times-Herald'' newspaper following the 1948 death of Eleanor Medill "Cissy" Patterson, his first cousin.<ref name="ChicTrib2005">{{cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2005/03/27/a-complicated-person/ |last=Warren|first=James|title=A Complicated Person|work=Chicago Tribune |date=March 27, 2005 |access-date=April 25, 2013}}</ref> The paper was an "isolationist and archconservative" publication known for sensationalism.<ref name="WaPoObit">{{cite news|last=Bernstein |first=Adam |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/ruth-tankersley-tribune-scion-dc-publisher-and-arabian-horse-breeder-dies/2013/02/06/a237a26e-6fb7-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.html |title=Ruth Tankersley, Tribune scion, D.C. publisher and Arabian horse breeder, dies|newspaper=Washington Post |date=February 6, 2013 |access-date=March 25, 2013}}</ref><ref name="Time1954">{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819679,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101116224137/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,819679,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 16, 2010 |title=The Press: Sale of the ''Times-Herald'' |magazine=Time |date=March 29, 1954 |access-date=March 25, 2013}}</ref>
McCormick appointed his niece, then known as Ruth "Bazy" McCormick Miller as the publisher of the paper in 1949.<ref name="NewsTribObit">{{cite web|url=http://newstrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=42&ArticleID=26410|title=Ruth 'Bazy' McCormick Tankersley|work=LaSalle News Tribune|date=February 6, 2013|access-date=March 25, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160311154951/http://www.newstrib.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=42&ArticleID=26410|archive-date=March 11, 2016}}</ref> He wanted Bazy to use the paper to create "an outpost of American principles".<ref name=HighCountry>{{cite web|last=Davis |first=Tony |url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.14/the-right-wing-heiress-who-changed-course-in-the-desert |title=The right-wing heiress who changed course in the desert|work=High Country News|date=August 28, 2013 |access-date=December 6, 2013}}</ref> When the two came to a parting of the ways over her relationship with one of the paper's editors, Garvin Tankersley, as well as editorial control over the paper, he ordered her to choose between Tankersley and the Tribune Company. As a result, she resigned from the ''Times-Herald''. Bazy later said, "I understood when I went to the ''Times-Herald'' I was to have full control. That control was not given me ... There is some difference in our political beliefs. I have broader Republican views than [McCormick] has. I am for the same people as the colonel, but I am for some more people.<ref name="WaPoObit"/>
McCormick tried to run the paper himself, but lost money on the venture, and sold the ''Times-Herald'' to ''The Washington Post'' in 1954.<ref name="ChicTrib2005"/><ref name="Time1954"/> When he announced the sale, one of the paper's board members insisted that Bazy be given a chance to purchase it, so McCormick gave her 48 hours to match the $10 million asking price. She could not raise the money to do so. Upon the purchase of the ''Times-Herald'', the ''Post'' consolidated its market position by discontinuing the rival paper.<ref name=Warren>{{cite web|last=Warren|first=James|title=Graham's Visit Conjures Tale Of 2 Cities, 2 Strong Women|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1997/02/23/grahams-visit-conjures-tale-of-2-cities-2-strong-women/|work=Chicago Tribune|access-date=March 27, 2014|date=February 23, 1997}}</ref> In 1955 he cofounded the ''American Security Council'', an anti-communist organization.<ref name=foy>{{cite book |last1=Foy |first1=David A. |title=Loyalty First: The Life and Times of Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur's Chief Intelligence Officer |date=2025 |publisher=Casemate Publishers |page=206}}</ref>
===Family life and scandal=== McCormick married twice, and had no children from either marriage. His first wife was Amie de Houle "Amy" Irwin (born 1872), the former wife of his father's first cousin, Edward Shields Adams. Starting in the summer of 1904, McCormick had spent much time at the homes of Adams in downtown Chicago and Lake Forest, Illinois. Her father was decorated soldier Bernard J. D. Irwin.<ref name="family">{{cite book |title= Family record and biography |publisher= L.J. McCormick |first=Leander James |last=McCormick |author-link= Leander James McCormick |year= 1896 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/familyrecordand00mccogoog/page/n13 300]–303 |url=https://archive.org/details/familyrecordand00mccogoog }}</ref>
Starting in November 1913, a bitter family dispute developed.<ref name="love">{{cite news |title= E. S. Adams Sues Bert M'Cormick for Alienating his Wife's Love |date= September 26, 1914 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |pages= 1–5 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-09-26/ed-1/seq-1/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> Amy Irwin Adams filed for divorce, claiming Adams was alcoholic, and the suit was granted on March 6, 1914, without her husband appearing in court. In September 1914, Adams filed another lawsuit.<ref name=Daybook/> He sued McCormick for trespass and asked for the divorce case to be heard again. The opposition press made the most out of the scandals.<ref>{{cite news |title= Edward Adams Sues for a Rehearing of Divorce Case|date= September 12, 1914 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 30 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-09-12/ed-1/seq-30/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> Adams presented McCormick with a bill for eight years of lodging,<ref>{{cite news |title= Eight-year Board Bill is Contested Point in McCormick-Edwards Mess |date= October 1, 1914 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 30 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-10-01/ed-1/seq-30/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> and claimed McCormick had "wickedly and maliciously debauched and carnally knew the said Amy Irwin Adams" while his guest.<ref name="love"/> Other allegations included that McCormick had a former chauffeur arrested and interrogated by a private detective.<ref name=Daybook>{{cite news |title= Robert M'Cormick, Tribune Head, Named in Big Damage Suit |date= September 25, 1914 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 1 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-09-25/ed-1/seq-1/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> McCormick then counterclaimed that he had made loans to Adams which had to be repaid. The case was heard by Federal Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis in November. It was hinted that McCormick had promised to forgive the loans if Adams dropped his suit to reopen the divorce.<ref>{{cite news |title= Federal Judge Landis Takes McCormick-Adams Case under Advisement |date=November 19, 1914 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 30 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1914-11-19/ed-1/seq-29/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> Landis ruled in favor of McCormick in February 1915.<ref>{{cite news |title= Rob't M'Cormick Wins Case before Judge Landis |date= February 10, 1915 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 3 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1915-02-10/ed-1/seq-3/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref>
Following the settlement, on March 10, 1915, McCormick married Amy Irwin Adams, after waiting the year after the original divorce decree as was required by law at the time. The wedding occurred in London, in the registry office of St George's, Hanover Square, with only two witnesses present.<ref>{{cite news |title= R. R. M'Cormick Marries Divorcee: Editor of The Chicago Tribune Weds Mrs. E. S. Adams in St. George's Church, London |newspaper= New York Times |date= March 11, 1915 |page=11 |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1915/03/11/105035186.pdf |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> The ''Tribune'' did not mention the wedding, nor any of the previous lawsuits.<ref>{{cite news |title= Robert McCormick Weds Mrs. Amy Adams in London as Society Expected |date= March 11, 1915 |newspaper= The Day Book |location= Chicago |page= 8 |url= http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045487/1915-03-11/ed-2/seq-8/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref>
After Amy died in 1939, McCormick became a near social recluse. On December 21, 1944, he married Mrs. Maryland Mathison Hooper in the apartment of his cousin Chauncey McCormick.<ref>{{cite magazine |title= McCormick Weds: At 64, famous Chicago Publisher marries and old family friend |magazine= Life |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U1MEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA35 |date= January 8, 1945 |publisher=Time Inc |pages=35–38 |issn=0024-3019 }}</ref> She was 47 and he was 64 at the time. She lived until July 21, 1985.<ref>{{cite news |title= Maryland Mathison Hooper McCormick, 87, second wife of Col. Robert R. McCormick |date= July 28, 1985 |newspaper= Chicago Tribune |url= https://www.chicagotribune.com/1985/07/28/maryland-mathison-hooper-mccormick-87-second-wife/ |access-date= January 8, 2011 }}</ref> In his later years and until his death, McCormick lived at the estate named Cantigny, in Wheaton, Illinois.<ref name="family"/>
The childless McCormick for a time mentored his niece, Ruth (later Tankersley) to be the heir to his publishing empire.<ref name="ChicTrib2005"/> He was said to have "doted" on Bazy.<ref name="WaPoObit"/> When McCormick appointed her as the publisher of the ''Washington Times-Herald'' in 1949,<ref name="NewsTribObit"/> she was 28 years old and was given the title of vice-president.<ref name=ReadingEagle>{{cite web|agency=Associated Press|title=Born Newswoman, Bazy Miller At 28 Is Major Publisher|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1955&dat=19490904&id=XLMhAAAAIBAJ&pg=5537,922836|work=Reading Eagle|access-date=March 27, 2014|date=September 4, 1949}}</ref> When Bazy divorced her husband in 1951, ultimately to elope with an editor at the paper, Garvin "Tank" Tankersley,<ref name="WaPoObit"/><ref name="InsideTucson">{{cite web|author=Peachin, Mary Levy |url=http://www.insidetucsonbusiness.com/news/profiles/bazy-tankersley-and-her-lifetime-passion-breeding-arabian-horses/article_7b499e3c-dcd2-11e1-ac47-001a4bcf887a.html |title=Bazy Tankersley and her lifetime passion breeding Arabian horses|work=Inside Tucson Business |date=August 3, 2012 |access-date=March 25, 2013}}</ref> the two came to a parting of the ways. McCormick considered Tankersley to be of unsuitable social status for Bazy because "Tank" was from a poor Lynchburg, Virginia, family.<ref name="InsideTucson"/> McCormick also disapproved of her divorce in general, which Bazy viewed as hypocritical, given McCormick's own complicated personal life.<ref name="ChicTrib2005"/> When McCormick delivered the ultimatum that she choose between Garvin Tankersley and the paper, she resigned from the ''Times-Herald''.<ref name="WaPoObit"/> Though estranged for many years, Bazy and McCormick reconciled prior to his death.<ref name="ChicTrib2005"/>
==Personality== McCormick was regarded as a "remote, coldly aloof, ruthless aristocrat, living in lonely magnificence, disdaining the common people ... an exceptional man, a lone wolf whose strength and courage could be looked up to, but at the same time had to be feared; an eccentric, misanthropic genius whose haughty bearing, cold eye and steely reserve made it impossible to like or trust him." McCormick was described by one opponent as "the greatest mind of the fourteenth century"<ref>''Current Biography 1941'', p. 545.</ref> and by the American labor historian Art Preis as a "fascist-minded multi-millionaire".<ref>"Police-State Liberals: A case of "midsummer madness"?", Art Preis, Fall 1954. Retrieved April 27, 2008. On line [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/preis/1954/xx/liberals.htm here].</ref> In his memoirs, publisher Henry Regnery described his meeting with McCormick and William Henry Chamberlin: <blockquote>The Colonel received us in his rather feudal office, high above Michigan Avenue at the top of his Gothic tower. He was a tall, erect, distinguished-looking man, who, with his white hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion, white mustache, and in his manner and dress, conveyed the impression that he might have come from the English landed aristocracy. He was perfectly cordial, but gave us clearly to understand that our rather similar views on such matters as foreign policy and the administration in Washington were no basis for familiarity.<ref>{{cite book |author=Henry Regnery |title= Memoirs of a dissident publisher |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H_NhOnKZdr4C&pg=PA125 |date= July 1985 |publisher=Regnery Publishing |isbn=978-0-89526-802-0 |pages= 125–126 }}</ref></blockquote>
''The New York Times'' wrote: <blockquote>He did consider himself an aristocrat, and his imposing stature—{{convert|6|ft|4|in|cm}} tall, with a muscular body weighing over {{convert|200|lbs|kg}}, his erect soldierly bearing, his reserved manner and his distinguished appearance—made it easy for him to play that role. But if he was one, he was an aristocrat, according to his friends, in the best sense of the word, despising the idle rich and having no use for parasites, dilettantes or mere pleasure-seekers, whose company, clubs and amusements he avoided. With an extraordinary capacity for hard work, he often put in seven long days a week at his job even when elderly, keeping fit through polo and later horseback riding. In his seventies, he could still get into the war uniform of his thirties.<ref>{{cite news |title= Debates Swirled About M'Cormick |newspaper= New York Times |date= April 1, 1955 |page=17 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/13/reviews/mccormick-obit.html |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref><!-- this is copied from the NYT, should be paraphrased! --></blockquote>
==Death and legacy== In failing health since an attack of pneumonia, following a trip to Europe in April 1953;<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/04/02/93736754.html?pageNumber=12 "Publisher Died in Sleep", ''The New York Times'', April 2, 1955. Retrieved September 13, 2020.]</ref> McCormick nonetheless remained active in his work until the month before he died, on April 1, 1955. He was buried on his farm, in his war uniform. His second wife survived him by three decades. Upon his death, the childless McCormick left an estate estimated at $55 million, including stock in the Chicago Tribune Company. His will established a trust devoted to charitable purposes, including maintenance of his former home, which became Cantigny and includes a house and war museum as well as formal gardens.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.cantigny.org/about-us/Pages/McCormick%20Foundation.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315010423/http://www.cantigny.org/about-us/Pages/McCormick%20Foundation.aspx |archive-date=2016-03-15 |title=McCormick Foundation}}</ref>
The Northwestern University School of Law building that opened in 1962 was named McCormick Hall following a donation from the foundation.<ref>{{cite web |title= Northwestern Law through the Years |work= Northwestern Law School web site |url= http://www.law.northwestern.edu/news/150anniversary/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101223091413/http://www.law.northwestern.edu/news/150anniversary/ |archive-date= December 23, 2010 }}</ref> After a donation to renovate the Technological Institute building at Northwestern University in 1989, the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science was also named for him.<ref>{{cite web |title= History: 1989-1998 |work= Northwestern Engineering web site |url= http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/100/?history#decade-9 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100605030026/http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/100/?history#decade-9 |url-status= dead |archive-date= June 5, 2010 |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref>
[[File:20070509 McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum.JPG|thumb| McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum was funded by the foundation ]] Within days of McCormick's death, Richard J. Daley was elected mayor and a new family would dominate Chicago, this time aligned with the Democratic Party for over half a century. Since McCormick had long advocated building a convention center, after it was built from 1957 to 1960 McCormick Place was named for him.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Adam Seth Cohen |author2=Elizabeth Joel Taylor |title=American pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley : his battle for Chicago and the nation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nGem2g467GAC&pg=PT223 |date=May 2000 |publisher=Hachette Digital, Inc.|isbn=978-0-316-83403-2 |pages=223–224}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= About Colonel Robert R. McCormick: The Man Behind the Name |work= Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority web site |url= http://www.mpea.com/about/col_mccormick.html |access-date= January 8, 2011}}</ref>
The trust eventually divested its ownership of the Tribune Company, so in 2008 changed its name from the McCormick Tribune Foundation to the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.<ref>{{cite news |title= McCormick Tribune Foundation Announces Name Change |date= May 15, 2008 |work= press release |url= http://www.mccormickfoundation.org/news/2008/McCormickFoundation/pr051508.aspx |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref> It contributed more than a billion US dollars for journalism, early childhood education, civic health, social and economic services, arts and culture and citizenship.<ref>{{cite web |title= McCormick Foundation |work= official web site |url= http://www.mccormickfoundation.org/ |access-date= January 5, 2011 }}</ref>
McCormick endowed five scholarships at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina and deeded his Aiken, South Carolina estate to friend and former commander Charles Pelot Summerall with the stipulation that the General live there the remainder of his life. After Summerall's death in 1954, the estate was sold and the proceeds used to purchase a beach house in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, now known as the Robert R. McCormick Citadel Beach Club. The structure was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and subsequently rebuilt and hosts many functions including weddings and corporate events.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.citadel.edu/root/beachclub-history|publisher=The Citadel|title=The Citadel Beach Club – History|access-date=May 8, 2016|archive-date=June 4, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604061648/http://www.citadel.edu/root/beachclub-history|url-status=dead}}</ref>
McCormick's legacy also extended to Canada, his grandfather Joseph Medill's birthplace. Six towns were created for the purpose of forestry and journal paper production: Heron Bay (Ont.), Gore Bay (Ont), Thorold (Ont.), Baie-Comeau (Que), Franquelin (Que) and Shelter Bay (Que), known as Port-Cartier today. Many monuments have been made in honor of the Colonel, in Baie-Comeau lay the biggest of them all, a bronze statue of the Colonel canoeing as he did in 1915 when he discovered the land that would welcome the town in 1937. The monument was made by Wheeler Williams an American sculptor. In 1955 the Quebec & Ontario Transportation Company renamed the cargo vessel the ''Manicouagan'' the ''Col. Robert R. McCormick''.<ref name=Gilmore> {{cite news | url = http://www.maritimehistoryofthegreatlakes.ca/documents/Gilmore/default.asp?ID=s021c#cl2155 | title = The St Lawrence River Canals Vessel | publisher = Maritime History of the Great Lakes | author = James Gilmore | date = 1957 | access-date = 2014-01-26}}</ref>
==Family tree== ===Paternal side=== {{McCormick Chicago family tree}}
===Maternal side=== {{Medill Chicago family tree}}
==See also== {{portal-inline|Conservatism}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book |author= Gies, Joseph |title=The Colonel of Chicago: A Biography of the Chicago Tribune's Legendary Publisher, Colonel Robert McCormick |date= September 1979 |publisher= Dutton Adult |isbn= 978-0525082675 }} * {{cite book |author= Madigan, Charles |author-link= Charles Madigan |title=Robert R. McCormick: A Celebration of His Life and Legacy |date= January 2005 |publisher= McCormick Tribune Foundation |isbn= 978-1-890093-19-8 }} * {{cite book |author1=Morgan. Gwen |author2=Arthur Veysey |title=Poor little rich boy (and how he made good) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=utw3AAAAIAAJ |date= February 1985 |publisher= Crossroad Communications |isbn=978-0-916445-10-2}} * Olmsted, Kathryn S. ''The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler'' (Yale UP, 2022)[https://www.amazon.com/Newspaper-Axis-Barons-Enabled-Hitler/dp/0300256426/ online] also [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-newspaper-axis-review-hitlers-editorial-allies-11649435547?page=1 online review] * {{cite book |author=Tebbel, John William |title=An American dynasty |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.166629 |year=1947 |publisher=Doubleday & Company }} * Indro Montanelli, "McCormick", in Id., "Facce di bronzo", Longanesi, 1955, pp. 209–215.
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |search=( "McCormick, Robert Rutherford" OR (McCormick AND "1880-1955") )}} *[https://www.c-span.org/video/?86877-1/life-legend-robert-r-mccormick Presentation by Richard Norton Smith on ''The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick'', June 16, 1997], C-SPAN *[https://www.c-span.org/video/?96243-1/the-colonel Presentation by Smith on ''The Colonel'', December 2, 1997], C-SPAN
{{McCormick family|state=autocollapse}} {{Authority control}}
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