COLONEL McCORMICK:

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 344, 25 January 1946, Page 14

COLONEL McCORMICK:

Anti-British Isolationist

(Prepared for "The Listener" by

TOM L.

MILLS

((OLGR EY McCORMICK is in the news again-this time using an Australian (Lt.-General Bennett) and a Singapore incident as a bludgeon theme for his life-long animosity to Britain.

OR many _ years Colonel McCormick, principal proprietor of the Chicago Tribune, has been a recurrent head-liner in the columns of American newspapers. For the most part, editors of the principal papers of New Zealand, Australia and England are unknown to the man in the street and take little or no part in politics outside the editorial columns of their papers. They do not even sign their names to special articles. In American journalism, however, the editors are anything but anonymous. Therefore Robert McCofmick represents the rule, not the exception, in pouring out his antipathies under his own name, but it is a genuine and wellearned title. Robert Rutherford McCormick won his spurs and his insignia and his rank in World War I. As a Major he went to England in 1915; and when the American army arrived in France he was on the Headquarters staff of General Pershing. He took part in the battle of Cantigny and impressed that fact permanently upon the State of Illinois (of which Chicago is the capital city) by naming his country estate after that historic episode. Prejudiced but Gifted It is hard to understand the two outstanding and bitter prejudices of this very strong and gifted American: his persistent hatred for all things British and his leadership in Isolationism. For he is descended from an autocratic Virginian family, some of them soldiers; his father was in the diplomatic service, in the London Embassy, and he himself attended a primary school in England. Yet from his young manhood days-he is now 64-he has never been able to see anything good coming out of England. During the Great War he went on a military mission to the Russian front, the result of which was a book With the Russian Army, which he dedicated to the Grand Duke Nicholas (the Czar’s brother) and in which he expressed great admiration for the Army of the East; but throughout the war and afterwards he was critical of the prowess of England’s fighting forces. It may be that it is his animosity against England that has developed his Isolationism until it has become a passion. Yet he has decided and often expressed hatred of pacifists! Colonel McCormick has full control of the wealthiest and (in Chicago) the most influential daily paper in the 48 States. Yet outside his home: town-the McCormicks migrated from the Southern State to Chicago a full century agohe cuts little ice nationally. He has had high civic honours in his great city; yet although he has yearned for State and Congressional places in the political sun, none have come to him. His politics are Republican; he was vehemently antiRooseveltian and has hammered the New

Deal mercilessly. Even his signed editorial articles are tinctured by his personal prejudices. If he conceives a strong liking for a public man, that man gets the Tribune’s* backing through good report and ill. Rhode Island Incident His political bias takes strange and at times dramatic twists. There was the occasion when the Legislature of Rhode Island State, newly elected by a Democratic victory, ousted the Republican members off the Supreme Court bench, The fiery Colonel "read" Rhode Island State "out of the Union" and ordered its star to be ripped from every flag flying from the towers of the great building housing his paper! This he did despite the advice of his corps of legal luminaries that to deface the American flag was a highly criminal offence! In order to sew the stars back on again on the silken areas of The Stars and Stripes the employees of the Tribune had to haul down the flags that had braved the breezes of the city of the lakes for many years. Naturally the Chigagoans saw the bare flagpoles, the telephones in the many-storeyed building rang asking who was dead? It was weeks before the Czar of Chicago recovered from that episode. Most of his closest friends-he is really familiar with no one-are wealthy old-line Republicans. While some of the rank and file members of the Republican Party strongly dislike the Colonel, he is in almost complete control of the party machine in the State of Illinois. Because of his persistent anti-war policy while Britain was holding the fort. alone against Hitler, McCormick attracted the (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) fanatic and lunatic fringe of the Isolationists, which solidly increased his reputation as a bad citizen. Yet, a contradiction in his make-up again, he actually has little patience with cranks and fanatics of any kind or degree. But the fact that he has never failed to use such material damns him the more in the opinion of the great majority of Americans. Considerate Employer So far in this review an attempt has been made to sketch the man and the mixtures that .make up his character, politics, and influence. But what about the character and psychology of his paper. Working journalists pay it the tribute that it is one of the best papers to work for. Its staff is complete in expert writers, specialists, and news gatherers, and they are all well paidbetter, in fact, than the all-round rates paid even in New York. Further, its owner-editor is loth to dismiss any of his workers. This remarkable tribute was recently paid by a special writer on a rival journal: "Any man of sober habits and ability who serves the Tribune long and well is certain to die well-to-do." McCormick has always been generous to members of his staff with Christmas gifts and bonuses. One year four of his chief executives split a_ million-dollar bonus (£50,000 each!). Of course, the Tribune is a very wealthy concern. The 2,000 shares of its company stock are closely held by the McCormick family trust, plus a very few individuals -and each share is valued in the region of £8,000. . Kiss of Death Under the Colonel’s management the Tribune has become enormously success-ful--and arrogant. With a circulation of over a million daily, it naturally is very powerful; ,yet its reputation in political circles is that its kiss of approval spells death to candidates. Politicians fear both its’kiss and its -kick, because its editorial writers, like their leader, fight with tireless and fearless savagery: the editorial policy towards Franklin Roosevelt, for example, was always that he was "just another scheming politician." Sometimes the very bitterness of the Tribune’s attacks have brought obscure men into prominence and placed them in the positions the Colonel himself deFa out loud they were unfitted to fulfil. Indeed, it has been said of the Tribune that it is read so widely because it antagonises so many people. But ‘the geographical situation of Illinois and Chicago must be taken into consideration too. For instance, if a million residents in that area of the Mid-Western States believed the Tribune to be a sinister force, would they buy the paper? The answer is obvious. It is very largely an issue of personal prestige, such ‘as pertains to no editor or proprietor of a newspaper within the British Empire. The huge power and influence of the Colonel in the MidWest of the U.S.A. are based very largely on the fact that millions of the people of the Middle West are inclined towards the ideas publicised in the Tribune, but they read it with more smiles of appreciation than frowns of disapprobation. Dexterous, but Sinister So they make their subscription to the paper permanent. The Colonel’s

natrow nationalism, his distrust of foreigners (although there are so many migrants from all parts of Europe in his electorate), ‘his hatred of the English, his detestation of the. many activities of organised labour, his opposition to federal intervention in the economic affairs of the States, all coincide with and tend to inflame their own prejudices. It is their support, with the power that accompanies inherited wealth, great family prestige, dnd always of course his shrewd management of a big business enterprise, that makes Colonel Robert R. McCormick such a sinister force in the public life of the United States.

Henry Hall’s Holiday FOR the first time in eight years, Henry Hall-who, with his dance band, is well known to BBC listeners-recently took a day off. The reason? His daughter Betty’s wedding. As a friendly gesture, Charles Shadwell, conductor of the BBC Variety Orchestra, conducted Hall’s orchestra at the London music hall where it was appearing. Twenty-year-old Betty Hall is a medical student at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and her twenty-five-year-old bridegroom, Captain Peter*G. Mundy, R.A.M.C., was formerly a medical student at another famous London hospital, St. Mary’s, Paddington,