A 'RI E F 'I O 'RAP H ' A N D A N AP P RE C I AT I O N 1 8 4 7 TH E C H I C A 'O T R I 'U N E 1 9 4 7 1 fiT R0 U CT 10N N o man of hi s time exercised a more — — decisive o r o n the whole a more bene' f fici al influence on public a fairs than Mr . ” Medill . T hus another Chicago newspaper , at the o 1 89 time f his death in March , 9 , expressed to itself in paying tribute Joseph Medill , who wh ile n o t th e fo u nder o f th e Ch ic ago of its , Tribune , laid the foundations char acter and success . In the pages which follow , the reader will find an account o f some of the achieve ments and events in the life of a man who no t was only a great editor , an editor of the u s times that gave Greeley , Raymond and w as Dana , but who , in even larger measure , a great American . Joseph Medill ’s contributions to journal i sm to , and the moral , political and economic of as i n f progress his country , will be seen evitable products of his leading ch aracter , i sti cs ; his innate feeling for the qualities which made a newspaper great; hi s u ns h at‘ terable courage; his intense patriotism ; his cle arf e ed y vision , and , perhaps his most notable trait , his sturdy common sense . Time has not changed earlier estimates of Joseph Medill . It is wholly fitting that the two studies of him which appeared in 1 923 and in 1 929 be republished as the Chicago a fo r Tribune , whose ctivities he directed fo rt a fo ur h un f y years , commemorates its dredth anniversary . OSEPH E MED LI , H E M AN A 'RIEF 'IO'RAPH'ORI'INALL' PU 'LISHED AS A 'OOKLET IN 1 929 J O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N 3 ’ H A L F a century of Joseph Medill s long life w as given to journalism . He was of the times and the type of Horace Greeley , James Gordon Bennett the elder , William Cullen Bryant and Cassius M . Clay , with each of whom he enjoyed a friendship that in the case of Greeley amounted to an i admiring int macy . Today , three decades m , after his death , his fa e as editor and pub li c i s t i s attes ted a nd s u s t a i ned b y t h e aggressive life of the newspaper o f which he — ” was editor the Chicago Tribune . A s citiz e n , p atriot and politic al s eer , Joseph Medill i s worthy of a reputation matching his renown in the newspaper world . He served Chicago as mayor just o f 1 1 , after the great fire 87 , instituting re forms that still endure . He was a confidant i n and adviser to Lincoln . He had a wide fluence in developing the Illinois Constitu a o f tion the early seventies , which still stands . T w o Presidents offered him cabinet posts in vain . And he undoubtedly gave the Republican party its name and aided vastly 4 J O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N in its organization . o f He came of this kind stock . It was — — , Scotch Irish hardy , tenacious , active , in o reato ran ’ dus tri us . From the time of his g g d father his family had been shipbuilders in the Belfast yards . His father , William Medill , immigrated 1 8 1 9 to this country in , settling in an area then supposed to belong to the United States , but awarded to Canada by the Ash 1 2 burton treaty of 84 . At a village near St . John , in the present province of New o n Brunswick , Joseph Medill was born 6 1 823 . April , That he was not born on the soil of the country he so greatly served is said to have been a whimsical vexation to him in his maturity . When he was nine years old his parents moved to Stark County , Ohio , and in the district school and th e academy of that region their s o n got his schooling and o n H i s w as worked the farm . father neither 5 1 t wo rich nor rugged , and be des sisters there were three younger brothers whose 'O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N 5 upbringing devolved in some measure upon the oldest boy . He was in the midst o f preparation fo r college when misfortune by fire befell the family , and Joseph closed his books and went directly about the business of life . This he had determined would be the law . In 1 846 he was admitted to the bar and formed a partnership with George M cI lv aine of New Philadelphia , who at the time of his death some years ago w as Chief Justice of Ohio . Many of the young men with whom Mr . Medill was associated in the practice of law in those pioneer days attained n ational prominence , including John A . Bingham , United States Minister to Japan ; Chief Justice Chase ; Edwin M . S t a n to n , S e c r e t a r y o f W a r d u r i n g t h e rebellion , and George E . Pugh , United States Senator from Ohio . Instinct , more than design , turned young Medill aside from this career of the law into the paths of journalism . He was a f friend of the local editor , whose o fice was 6 J O S E PH M E D I L L 'TH E M A N the rendezvous for bright young men of the town . In this atmosphere Medill caught ’ of the smell printer s ink , which , he once remarked , once inoculated into the human system , possesses its victim until death . He learned to set type and work a hand press , — at first for fun then seriously . Almost before he knew it he was a printer and editor . He had found his forte . Then fate conspired to point the way for him a f 1 . 8 9 bit urther At Coshocton , Ohio , in 4 , “ ” the Coshocton Whig was for sale . His three younger brothers were growing up without a career , and a newspaper in the family would supply that defect . He found “ ” the means to purchase the Whig , renamed “ ” it the Republican , and made his three younger brothers his assistants . “ From that time on , the Republican waxed stormy in the cause of human free' d o m— and influential . With its aid the al Whigs carried the county , which had is ways been Democratic . It probable that the outcome of the campaign following hi s J O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N 7 purchase of the paper was the determining factor in Medill ’s subsequent decision not to resume the law . In his own language , the law lingered a little while to reclaim the recusant , but he ’ had tasted the delights of Franklin s nectar , ” and he never returned . Franklin , practical , sensible , visioned , was his hero . In youth , in maturity and in old age he revered the life and works of his predecessor in the publishing field . Chicago s t ates o today owns a statue of the scientist , man and printer , standing in Lincoln Park , that was presented to the city by Joseph Medill . Two years after acquiring the Re p ub a ” lican , he sold it and removed to Cleveland . There he used the purchase price and other funds to establish a morning paper , politi cally of the Whig persuasion , which was “ ” called the Daily Forest City . A year later he consolidated it with a Free Soil journal “ ” and named it the Cleveland Leader . As f such , it lourished for nearly seventy years . 8 J O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N With a national political crisis impending , the perspicuity of the editor began to assert itself. He found Northern Ohio divided into — , three factions Whig , Free Soil , and Demo cratic . A Whig by education and a radical by sentiment , he set out to unite the Free a Soil and the Whig units , a m mmoth task in which he succeeded only partly . co n ve n The following summer , when the tion to nominate a candidate for governor ' of Ohio was held , the radical and conserva tive wings of the Whig party divided it against itself. The Democratic nominee w as elected by a vote of two to one , and the Whig party in Ohio was at an end . Tacitly accepting the demise of the Whig , party as final , and preferring to look for ’ of ward instead backward , Medill s next move was to address letters to the leaders of the disorganized party , asking if they would assist in the formation of a new Republican party o n the ruins of the o ld Whig organization . First of all he wrote to Horace Greeley . J O S E P H M E D I L L 'T H E M A N 9 The reply was destroyed in the great fire 1 .