Cox, James Middleton 1870-1957

views updated

COX, James Middleton 1870-1957

PERSONAL:

Born March 31, 1870, near Dayton, Ohio; died July 15, 1957; son of Gilbert and Eliza Cox; married Mayme L. Harding, 1893 (divorced, 1910); married Margaretta Parker Blair, 1917; children (first marriage) James, John, Richard; (second marriage) Anne, Barbara. Education: Earned a teaching certificate.

CAREER: Cincinnati Enquirer, reporter, 1892-95; secretary to U.S. Representative Paul J. Sorg, 1895; bought controlling interest in Dayton, Ohio, Evening News, 1898; formed News League of Ohio. U.S. Representative for Third Congressional District, Ohio, 1908-12; Ohio governor, 1912-14 and 1916-20; Democratic candidate for president, 1920. Founder, Cox Enterprises (media company).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Pulitzer Prize for journalism, 1927, for articles exposing city government corruption in Canton, Ohio.

WRITINGS:

Journey through My Years (autobiography), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1946.

SIDELIGHTS:

James Middleton Cox worked his way up from a position working as a janitor to newspaper mogul to Ohio governor, then to presidential nominee. Cox, the youngest of seven children in a farming family, dropped out of high school after two years, but earned his teaching certificate. Later he founded the company that became Cox Enterprises, a top U.S. media outlet.

Working for a printer in 1892, Cox discovered a career opportunity as a reporter. He covered railroad news at the Cincinnati Enquirer—"magnificent training," as he called it. By 1895 he was married and working in Washington as a secretary to Ohio Democratic Congressman Paul J. Sorg. But newspapering remained in Cox's blood. At age twenty-eight, backed by a $6,000 loan from Sorg, Cox bought the Dayton, Ohio, Evening News. The Dayton Journal was skeptical. "The Evening News has been sold and will hereafter be a Democratic paper," one of its writers said. "Democratic papers have never paid in Dayton and never will. Four of them have failed."

Though he would later describe himself as "too young to be running a newspaper," Cox revived the struggling daily, adopting wire services to provide domestic and global updates, using state-of-the-art photography, and adding a local society column. "He developed a reputation for aggressive, reform journalism, characterizing the News as 'the People's paper,'" Gregory C. Lisby wrote in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

A friend of labor and an enemy of prohibition, Cox often found himself and his paper under fire. But he chose not to resort to mudslinging; in the midst of a rumor-fueled controversy, he instructed his staff not to discuss competitors publicly. By the end of 1900 the News was one of the country's top newspapers. A few years later Cox formed the News League of Ohio after acquiring the Springfield Press-Republic.

Twice elected to represent Ohio's third congressional district, Cox was elected governor in 1912. He was the first Democrat to serve three two-year terms and, as Lisby wrote, he "left a legacy of reform legislation that included a direct-primary law, public-school and prison reforms, state court reorganization, extension of the civil-service law, authorization of a budget commission and a roads program." Democratic party stalwarts nominated Cox for president at its 1920 national convention in San Francisco. Choosing Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate, Cox campaigned on a platform supporting Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations. Republican Warren G. Harding soundly defeated the Democrats-the electoral vote was 404-127-after which Cox resolved "never again to seek or to accept a public office," as he was quoted in Dictionary of Literary Biography. "I had my newspapers."

Cox vigorously resumed his publishing career, purchasing the Miami Metropolis and the Atlanta Constitution, among other papers, and in 1934 entered the broadcasting business when his son, James, established Dayton's first radio station. Though he no longer ran for elective office, Roosevelt after becoming president appointed Cox to the American delegation to the London World Monetary and Economic Conference.

Cox's memoirs, published as Journey through My Years, drew mixed critical reaction, ranging from "neither informative nor entertaining," as a Kirkus Reviews writer said, to "full of shrewd insights and ripe wisdom," from Allan Nevins of Saturday Review of Literature. According to Nevins, Cox produced "one of the best books of political reminiscences in many years; a book valuable for its inside story of important transactions, its many anecdotes and sketches of people, and its personal record—but most of all, valuable for its animating spirit."