Background
James Middleton Cox was born on March 31, 1870 in Jacksonburg, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Gilbert Cox, a farmer, and Eliza Andrews.
James Middleton Cox was born on March 31, 1870 in Jacksonburg, Ohio, United States. He was the son of Gilbert Cox, a farmer, and Eliza Andrews.
Cox left school at fifteen, moved to Middletown, Ohio, and, tutored by his brother-in-law, at age seventeen passed an examination for teacher certification.
Cox worked on the farm and served as a sexton in the United Brethren Church which his family attended. (He later joined the Episcopal Church. )
Subsequently he taught school for a few years prior to entering his lifelong field, journalism.
Working in all capacities on his brother-in-law's paper, the Middletown Signal, in 1892 Cox scored a major scoop about a train wreck--he monopolized the only available telegraph line--that led to a position on the Cincinnati Enquirer. Two years later he accompanied Paul J. Sorg, a wealthy tobacco manufacturer and newly elected congressman, to Washington as private secretary.
After Sorg's defeat in the next election, Cox returned to Ohio; in 1898, backed by funds provided by Sorg, he purchased the Dayton Daily News.
As a publisher Cox added a woman society editor, stopped the practice of accepting prepared pages furnished by certain firms, adopted wire services for national and world developments, used photography and marketing services, and charged all advertisers uniform rates. He combined editorial sense and business acumen.
By the age of twenty-eight he had a reputation for aggressive reform journalism.
In 1908 Cox plunged into politics, easily winning election to Congress on the Democratic ticket.
Cox was defeated in the 1914 gubernatorial election, but he ran again successfully in 1916.
At the 1920 Democratic national convention in San Francisco, Cox was nominated on the forty-fourth ballot, defeating such opponents as William G. McAdoo and A. Mitchell Palmer. The New York Tribune attributed his nomination to his being a wet candidate, to his not being identified with the Wilson administration, and to his being from Ohio. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was selected as his running mate. Ignoring cautious advisers, Cox courageously endorsed the League of Nations, basing his campaign on that issue and calling it the supreme test. This stance contributed to his defeat.
Warren G. Harding, the Republican candidate, campaigned for a return to normalcy, and the voters, weary of reform at home and crusades abroad, elected him by a wide margin--404 to 127 in the electoral college. Cox never again ran for public office.
In 1933 Cox accepted appointment by President Frank D. Roosevelt as a member of the American delegation to the London World Monetary and Economic Conference, which was called to try to halt the ravages of the spreading world depression. Although Roosevelt was responsible for the failure of the conference to reach a common approach, Cox defended the president's policy in his memoirs, Journey Through My Years (1946). After 1933, Cox repeatedly refused administration offers, ranging from head of the Federal Reserve System to ambassadorships.
While keeping close control over his newspapers, he left much leeway to his editors in the belief that the individuality of his outlets could thus be preserved. By the time of his death Cox owned a chain of flourishing newspapers and numerous radio and television stations in Ohio, Georgia, and Florida. He died in Dayton, Ohio.
He took pride in the $1 million in lawsuits against his Dayton Daily News, all of which were later dropped. In 1927 his Canton [Ohio] News was awarded the Pulitzer prize for its fight against corruption in the municipal government. Cox's record as governor was impressive. He was probably proudest of his accomplishment of school reforms. He completely reorganized the Ohio school system, consolidating school districts and increasing salaries and training for teachers. He also introduced a workmen's compensation act, the initiative and referendum, and a minimum wage and a nine-hour-day law for women. He launched a new state highway construction program, pioneered in prison reform, and supported a new measure regulating banks, a fairer tax system, and municipal home rule. Other measures included laws that provided for mothers' pensions and a more efficient state budgeting procedure. For responding to the devastating Ohio River flood of 1913 with extraordinary executive vigor, Cox received the Red Cross Gold Medal of Merit. Reelected in 1918--the only major Democrat in the state to win election that year--Cox became the first Ohio Democratic governor to serve three terms.
A liberal and progressive politician, he was reelected to the House in 1910, and in 1912 he was elected governor of Ohio. His victory in this contest in large part resulted from the split within the Republican ranks between President William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt.
Short and stocky, the bespectacled Cox resembled both Napoleon and Theodore Roosevelt, whose pictures hung on his walls.
He was honest and efficient.
He was an avid baseball fan, a passionate golfer, and an inveterate reader--biography and history were his favorites--and an enthusiastic fisherman and hunter. He maintained a fishing shack in the woods of upper Michigan peninsula and earned a reputation as a gourmet cook on recreational expeditions.
In 1893 Cox married Mayme L. Harding of Cincinnati; they had three children. They were divorced in 1910, and on September 15, 1917, Cox married Margaretta Parker Blair of Chicago. They had one child.
