Medill McCormick

Only 48, a young man as men in the Senate go, Senior Senator from Illinois and a power in the politics of his own state, Medill McCormick died abruptly, unexpectedly, last week in Washington. He had been defeated for renomination last summer, and was serving his last few days in the Senate. His wife was at their home in Chicago, where she had been spending much time with Alice Roosevelt Longworth who was recovering from childbirth. The McCormick home in Washington had been broken up--the Senator was staying at a hotel. He returned from an evening session of the Senate and retired at 11 p. m. Next morning, correspondent William Hard, a personal friend of the McCormicks, telephoned to Mr. McCormick. There was no answer to his call. He went to the hotel and, after investigation, the door of Mr. McCormick's room was taken down. The Senator lay in bed, his hand over his mouth as if to stop the flow of blood which covered the bedclothes. He had died about an hour before, so quickly that he had not had time to summon aid. Thus ended his career--a career that began in a family of distinction and ended at a time when, although he had suffered a temporary political setback, it was still apparently on the crescendo. He came from the family of "Harvester" McCormicks. The three members of the family in the generation which first attained fame were Cyrus, William and Leander. Cyrus was father of Cyrus II as well as Harold F. (who married Edith Rockefeller and, later, Ganna Walska and is the father of Harold II and Mathilde Oser). William had a son Robert S. who was the father of the Senator and of Colonel Robert Rutherford McCormick. Leander was the father of L. Hamilton McCormick, of Robert H. and Anita and grandfather of Alister whose one time bride-to-be, Mary Landon Baker, brought him undesired fame. Senator McCormick's mother was Katharine Medill, daughter of Joseph Medill, founder of The Chicago Tribune. Eleanor Medill, another daughter of Joseph Medill, married Robert W. Patterson and their son Joseph Medill Patterson is one of the present publishers of the Tribune. Descended from these two prominent Chicago families, Medill McCormick also married prominence -- Ruth Hanna, daughter of Mark A. Hanna of Ohio (TIME, Feb. 18, 1923). His mother, Katharine Medill, had planned that he should become publisher of the Tribune and his brother Robert R. should go into public life. So they began. Medill served with the Tribune for some time; but when Theodore Roosevelt broke from the Republican ranks in 1912, Medill cast his lot with the Progressive Party-- and doing so was elected to the State House of Representatives. Two years later, he was reflected, and about at that time resigned his post on the Progressive National Commitee. In 1916, he was back in the Republican Party, taking an active part in the convention of that year -- and was elected Representative-at-Large to Congress. There he helped to draft the Federal Budget Act. Meanwhile, his brother Robert, destined for politics, had turned to journalism and the Tribune.

In 1918, the term of Democrat James Hamilton Lewis, who had procured a seat in the Senate in 1912, expired. Medill McCormick ran against him and won. His career in the Senate was marked chiefly by the fact that he was a leader in the irreconcilable group, opposed to the League of Nations. He was strong in Illinois politics, but an enemy of William Hale Thompson, Chicago's famed boss-mayor. This placed him also in opposition to Governor Len Small, Thompson ally. In the primaries last summer, Charles S. Deneen, with the support of these two, was able to take the Republican nomination from Mr. McCormick. The Senator felt his defeat keenly. Some said that he was hoping to obtain a diplomatic appointment, others that he wished to return to Illinois and set upon Len Small and the Governorship at the next election. At any rate, he was in no mood for retiring and would have been heard from soon again, had not Death intervened.