Robert McCormick

Robert McCormick. . , Robert McCormick , Newspaper editor and publisher , 1880 - 1955, Robert McCormick, known as “the Colonel” for his service in World War I, served as editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune for 30 years. He made the Chicago Tribune the nation’s most widely-read paper and expanded its reach into radio and television broadcasting., When he and his cousin, Joseph Patterson, took over the family paper in 1911, McCormick was not afraid to take on controversial issues, and he used the Tribune to shape public opinion and policy, often with an isolationist bent. A frequent target of his conservative editorials was Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal policies., One of the last of the newspaper barons, McCormick tried to make the Tribune a self-contained operation to the extent of buying its own paper mills. He attracted readers by his fervent editorials as well as comics, color photos and features geared toward women. He moved the Tribune to its current location in the famed Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue in 1925., A champion of press freedom, McCormick underwrote the cost of winning a landmark Supreme Court case that found a Minnesota gag law unconstitutional. The law would have suppressed any newspaper deemed a public nuisance., One of McCormick’s many eccentricities was his campaign to simplify the language, using spellings such as “tho,” “thru,” “iland” and “frate” in the Tribune. His Chicago home was here at 1519 North Astor Street. ,