Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1947-02-02
The Grounding
Fathers of
An Empire
AN AMERICAN
DYNASTY
BY John Tebbel. Doubleday,
49,
REVIEWED Dy
CARTER BROOKE JONES.

would expand with it. Though he
was a man who planned for the
future, he hardly could have FORE
seem the Chicago or the Tribune Of
today. He could not have dreamed
that he was founding Journalistic
dynasty which one day would set
up a newspaper empire.
Mr.. Tebbels absorbing book Is the
story Of the Medill- Met ormick-Pat-
terson dynasty. The Scotch irish
ancestral roots Of the three families
are traced. The development OF their
commanding figures is described In
detail, and there's at least an out
line of what became OF those less
known. The author appraises in
fluence of the dynasty on American
Journalism and on the country in
general.
A Pugnacious Editor.
Joseph Medill, like his grandchil-
dren, was an aggressive, pugnacious
editor, who would not compromise
with his ideas and did not deal with
opponents gently. He was, as Mr..
Tebbel writes, "a fighting leader in
the era of personal Journalism,
when that kind of aewspapering was
consistent with q lusty, growing,
brawling America" He was "a
Midwestern James Gordon Bennett
and his paper was even more I'M
inhibited"
Fortunately for the country, the
paper also helped guide divided
Nation toward It's destiny. MFR. Me-
dill's early sponsorship of Lincoln
and strong support of his admins
tration through the war years were.
the author comedies, factors in saw
ing the Union" Yet, having helped
to save the Union, Mr.. Tebbel adds
"Medill and his Tribune did little to
preserve it thereafter" and the
charge is made that the paper was
seldom on the side of democracy
after the Civil War"
Families Unite.
Ironically enough, Mr.. Medins
contemporary, Cyrus Hall McCor-
mick, inventor of the reaper, was
the Tribune editors favorite political
enemy for years. Mr.. Mccormick
bought the Chicago Times. Though
he was against slavery, he always
felt that the Civil War was unneces-
sary and could have been avoided.
Mr.. Medill called his rival a Cop
perhead." But one of Mr.. Medin's
daughters, Katharine, married Cy-
rus brothers son, Robert Sanderson
Mccormick, uniting the families.
Another Medill daughter, Elinor,
married Robert w. Patterson, Jr.,
who succeeded Joseph Medill as
editor of the Tribune. The three
publishing families thus were en-
twined.
Joseph Medills grandchildren
spread the newspaper empire across
the contemporary horizon. One OF
them, Col. Robert R. Mccormick, is
the present publisher of the Tribune.
His cousin, Mrs. Eleanor Patterson,
publishes the Washington Times
Herald, and her brother, the late
Capt. Joseph Medill Patterson, built
the fabulously successful tabloid, the
New York Daily News.
From a Liberal Viewpoint.
Mr.. Tebbeps biography is critical.
It's a safe assumption that the fam
ily will not like it. He observes the
dynasty from what might be called
the liberal side of the fence, and
much of what he sees disturbs him.
He grants the success with which
the present generation has run its
newspaper properties, but he feels
that the Observation-Disclosures edi-
tors of this era have confused the
public welfare with their~own tory
prejudices and laissez-faire philos-
ophy.
The author has made an effort to
assay the able qualities that enabled
these journalists to make or expand
their fortune. He calls tough
minded, powerful Capt. Patterson
by all odds "the most striking figure
the family ever produced. Now that
the founder of the Daily News is
dead, Mr.. Tebbel adds, "the last
strong man of the family has
passed"
Mr.. Tebbel attributes the popular
ity of the Chicago Tribune more to
the many personal services it gives
readers and to features like the COM
les than to its news and the colonel's
editorial crusades. The best news
paperman in its history, he feels,
was James Kelley, not a member OF
the dynasty.
The slanting of the news columns
to fit editorial policy comes in for
thorough discussion. This practice
is particularly true of the Tribune
and always has been, he points out.
But the publishers of all three pa
pers, he contends, "are practicing
personal Journalist. of the Medill
variety in new era when most
newspapers are progressing, however
haltingly. toward realizable ideal
of objectivity and of full reporting
Of the news" The unbending iso-
lationism which brought about a
running fight with the Roosevelt
administration, even during the war,
is dealt with fully.
The. book is pungently written
not without humor and irony. An
immense amount of research obyi-
ously has gone into it.
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE: IT'S
FIRST HUNDRED YEARS
(Vol. III.)