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The Colonel:
ROBERT RUTHERFORD McCormick (1880-1955), who
reigned over the Chicago Tribune for 44 years, was one of the last of the great personal newspaper tyrants who played God in shaping the lives of his readers and the politics of his city, state and nation.
The size of this volume is testimony to the difficulty of writing about McCormick's multilayered life and personality.
He entered politics in his youth to bring much-needed reform to Chicago as an alderman and president of the Chicago Sanitary District. But in full ascendancy at the Tribune, he became one of the most reactionary political voices.
He preached virtue but stole other men's wives and married them. He was sheltered but neglected as the second son of an ambitious U.S. diplomat in London and a cold-hearted mother. He sought to compensate for his sense of failure by seeking glory in war, as a correspondent and an officer. He shot a Mexican off a horse as a part of a U.S. campaign against Pancho Villa, and dodged shrapnel and a hail of bullets in World War I. He was rendered...