James Cox | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Cox,c. 1920 | |
| 46th and 48thGovernor of Ohio | |
| In office January 8, 1917 – January 10, 1921 | |
| Lieutenant | Earl D. Bloom Clarence J. Brown |
| Preceded by | Frank B. Willis |
| Succeeded by | Harry L. Davis |
| In office January 13, 1913 – January 11, 1915 | |
| Lieutenant | W. A. Greenlund |
| Preceded by | Judson Harmon |
| Succeeded by | Frank B. Willis |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromOhio's3rd district | |
| In office March 4, 1909 – January 12, 1913 | |
| Preceded by | J. Eugene Harding |
| Succeeded by | Warren Gard |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Monroe Cox[1] (1870-03-31)March 31, 1870 Jacksonburg, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | July 15, 1957(1957-07-15) (aged 87) Kettering, Ohio, U.S. |
| Resting place | Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Mayme Simpson Harding Margaretta Parker Blair |
| Children | 6, includingJames,Anne, andBarbara |
| Signature |  |
James Middleton Cox (March 31, 1870 – July 15, 1957) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th and 48thgovernor of Ohio, and a two-termU.S. Representative fromOhio. As theDemocratic nominee forPresident of the United States at the1920 presidential election, he lost in a landslide to fellow OhioanWarren G. Harding. Cox's running mate was future presidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. He founded the chain of newspapers that continues today asCox Enterprises, a media conglomerate.
Born and raised in Ohio, Cox began his career as a newspaper copy reader before becoming an assistant to CongressmanPaul J. Sorg. As owner of theDayton Daily News, Cox introduced several innovations and crusaded against the localRepublican Party boss. He served in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1909 to 1913 before being elected asGovernor of Ohio. As governor, Cox introduced a series ofprogressive reforms and supportedWoodrow Wilson's handling ofWorld War I and its aftermath.
Cox was chosen as the Democratic nominee for president on the 44th ballot of the1920 Democratic National Convention. Running on a ticket with future PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt as his vice presidential running mate, Cox suffered the worst popular vote defeat (a 26.17% margin) since the unopposed re-election ofJames Monroe in1820.
Cox retired from public office after the 1920 presidential election to focus on his media conglomerate, which expanded into several cities. By 1939, his media empire extended from Dayton toMiami. Cox remained active in politics, supporting Roosevelt's campaigns and attending the 1933London Economic Conference.
Cox was born on a farm near the tinyButler County, Ohio, in the village ofJacksonburg, he was the youngest son of Gilbert Cox and Eliza (née Andrew); Cox had six siblings.[2] He was named James Monroe Cox at birth; he was later known as James Middleton Cox, possibly because he spent part of his early years inMiddletown, Ohio.[3][4] Cox was educated in a one-room school until age 16.[5] After his parents divorced, Cox moved with Eliza in 1886 to Middletown, where he started a journalistic apprenticeship at theMiddletown Weekly Signal published by John Q. Baker.
In 1892, Cox received a job at theCincinnati Enquirer as a copy reader on the telegraph desk, and later started to report on spot news including the railroad news. In 1894, he became an assistant to Middletown businessmanPaul J. Sorg who was elected to U.S. Congress, and spent three formative years inWashington, D.C. Sorg helped Cox to acquire the strugglingDayton Evening News, and Cox, after renaming it into theDayton Daily News, turned it by 1900 into a successful afternoon newspaper outperforming competing ventures. He refocused local news, increased national, international and sports news coverage based onAssociated Press wire service, published timely market quotes with stock-exchange, grain and livestock tables, and introduced several innovations including photo-journalistic approach to news coverage, suburban columns, book serializations andMcClure's Saturday magazine supplement inserts, among others. Cox started a crusade against Dayton'sRepublican boss, Joseph E. Lowes, who used his political clout to profit from government deals. Cox also confrontedJohn H. Patterson, president of Dayton'sNational Cash Register Co., revealing facts of antitrust violations and bribery.[6] In 1905, foretelling his future media conglomerate, Cox acquired theSpringfield Press-Republic published inSpringfield, Ohio, and renamed it theSpringfield Daily News.
In 1908, Cox ran for Congress as a Democrat and was elected. He representedOhio in theUnited States House of Representatives for two terms from 1909 to 1913, and resigned after winning election asGovernor of Ohio.[5]
Cox won the 1912 election for Governor of Ohio, in a three-way race gaining 41.5% of the vote. Cox served three terms; after winning the 1912 election, he served from 1913 to 1915; Cox lost reelection in 1914, but won the 1916 and 1918 elections, and served from 1917 to 1921. He presided over a wide range of social reform measures,[7] such as laying the foundation of Ohio's unified highway system, creating a no-fault workers' compensation system, and restricting child labor.[8] Cox introduced direct primaries and municipal home rule, started educational and prison reforms, and streamlined the budget and tax processes.[9][10]
DuringWorld War I, Cox encouraged voluntary cooperation between business, labor, and government bodies. In 1918, he welcomed constitutional amendments forProhibition andwomen's suffrage.[5] Cox supported the internationalist policies ofWoodrow Wilson and reluctantly supported U.S. entry into theLeague of Nations.[11][12]
In 1919, shortly after the Great War ended, Governor Cox backed the Ake Law, introduced byH. Ross Ake, which banned theGerman language from being taught until the eighth grade, even in private schools. Cox claimed that teaching German was "a distinct menace to Americanism, and part of a plot formed by the German government to make the school children loyal to it."[13] Legislation restricting the teaching of foreign languages was declared unconstitutional inMeyer v. Nebraska.[citation needed]
A capable and well-liked progressive reformer,[14] Cox was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party at the 1920 Democratic convention in San Francisco defeatingA. Mitchell Palmer andWilliam Gibbs McAdoo on the 44th ballot.[15]
Cox conducted an activist campaign visiting 36 states and delivering 394 speeches mainly focusing on domestic issues, to the displeasure of the Wilsonians, who pictured the election "as a referendum on the League of Nations."[5] To fight unemployment and inflation, he suggested simultaneously lowering income and business profits taxes. He promised to introduce national collective bargaining legislation and pledged his support to theVolstead Act. Cox spoke in support ofAmericanization to increase the immigrant population's loyalty to the United States.
Despite all of his efforts, Cox was defeated in the1920 presidential election by a fellow Ohioan and newspaperman,U.S. SenatorWarren G. Harding ofMarion. The public had grown weary of the turmoil of the Wilson years and eagerly accepted Harding's call for a "return to normalcy." Cox's running mate was future president, then-Assistant Secretary of the NavyFranklin D. Roosevelt. One of the better-known analyses of the 1920 election is inIrving Stone's book about defeated presidential candidates,They Also Ran. Stone rated Cox as superior in every way to Harding and claimed that Cox would have made a much better president. Stone argued that there was never a stronger case in the history of American presidential elections for the proposition that the better man lost. Of the four men on both tickets, all of them but Cox would ultimately become president: Harding won and was succeeded by his running mate,Calvin Coolidge, after Harding died in office, and Roosevelt would be elected president in 1932. However, Cox would outlive all three men by several years.
During the campaign, Cox recorded several times forThe Nation's Forum, a record label that made voice recordings of American political and civic leaders in 1918–20.[16][17] Among them was the campaign speech now preserved at theLibrary of Congress that accused the Republicans of failing to acknowledge that Wilson's successful prosecution of the Great War had, according to Cox, "saved civilization."[18]
After stepping down from public service, Cox concentrated on building a large media conglomerate,Cox Enterprises. In 1923, he acquired theMiami Daily News and theCanton Daily News. In December 1939, Cox purchased theAtlanta Georgian andJournal, just a week before that city hosted the premiere ofGone with the Wind.[19]: 389 This deal included radio stationWSB, which joined his previous holdings,WHIO in Dayton andWIOD in Miami, to give Cox, "'air' from theGreat Lakes on the north toLatin America on the south."[19]: 387
Cox continued to be involved in politics, and in1932,1936,1940, and1944, Cox (a supporter of theNew Deal[20]) supported and campaigned for the presidential candidacies of his former running mateFranklin D. Roosevelt, unlike the other losing Democratic presidential candidates of the timeJohn W. Davis andAl Smith. In 1933, Cox was appointed by Roosevelt to the U.S. delegation to the failedLondon Economic Conference.[21]
When he was 76, Cox published his memoir,Journey through My Years (1946).
In 1915, Cox built a home near those of industrialistsCharles Kettering andEdward Deeds in what later becameKettering, Ohio, where he lived for four decades. It was constructed in the classicalFrench-Renaissance style with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, two tennis courts, a billiards room, and an in-ground swimming pool.[22] Cox named the home Trailsend.
Cox died at Trailsend on July 15, 1957, after a series of strokes.[23] He is interred in theWoodland Cemetery and Arboretum, Dayton, Ohio.
| Presidential candidate | Party | Home state | Popular vote | Electoral vote | Running mate | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Percentage | Vice-presidential candidate | Home state | Electoral vote | ||||
| Warren G. Harding | Republican | Ohio | 16,144,093 | 60.32% | 404 | Calvin Coolidge | Massachusetts | 404 |
| James M. Cox | Democratic | Ohio | 9,139,661 | 34.15% | 127 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | New York | 127 |
| Eugene V. Debs | Socialist | Indiana | 913,693 | 3.41% | 0 | Seymour Stedman | Illinois | 0 |
| Parley P. Christensen | Farmer-Labor | Illinois | 265,398 | 0.99% | 0 | Max S. Hayes | Ohio | 0 |
| Aaron S. Watkins | Prohibition | Indiana | 188,787 | 0.71% | 0 | D. Leigh Colvin | New York | 0 |
| James E. Ferguson | American | Texas | 47,968 | 0.18% | 0 | William J. Hough | New York | 0 |
| William Wesley Cox | Socialist Labor | Missouri | 31,084 | 0.12% | 0 | August Gillhaus | New York | 0 |
| Robert Colvin Macauley | Single Tax | Pennsylvania | 5,750 | 0.02% | 0 | Richard C. Barnum | Ohio | 0 |
| Other | 28,746 | 0.11% | — | Other | — | |||
| Total | 26,765,180 | 100% | 531 | 531 | ||||
| Needed to win | 266 | 266 | ||||||
Source (Popular Vote):Leip, David."1920 Presidential Election Results".Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. RetrievedSeptember 11, 2012.
Source (Electoral Vote):"Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996".National Archives and Records Administration. RetrievedJuly 31, 2005.
| Year | Democratic | Republican | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1918[24] | James M. Cox : 486,403 | Frank B. Willis : 474,459 | |
| 1916[25] | James M. Cox : 568,218 | Frank B. Willis : 561,602 | Tom Clifford : 36,908 John H. Dickason : 7,347 |
| 1914[26] | James M. Cox : 493,804 | Frank B. Willis : 523,074 | James R. Garfield (Progressive) : 60,904 Scott Wilkins (Socialist) : 51,441 |
| 1912[24] | James M. Cox : 439,323 | Robert B. Brown : 272,500 |
Ohio's 3rd Congressional District
1910
1908
Cox was married twice. His first marriage to Mayme Simpson Harding lasted from 1893 to 1912, and ended in divorce.[5] He married Margaretta Parker Blair in 1917 and she survived him.[5][29] Cox had six children, three by Mayme Harding, sonsJames McMahon and John William and a daughter Helen Harding,[30][31][32] a son who died in infancy, and two daughters by Margaretta Blair:Anne Cox Chambers andBarbara Cox Anthony.[5][29] His sonJames M. Cox Jr., who took over the business after his death, was chairman ofCox Enterprises,Cox Communications, andCox Media Group in Atlanta.[30][33] His daughter Helen died in 1921 and her husband Daniel Joseph Mahoney was president ofCox Newspapers. His descendants through Chambers and Anthony, including billionairesBlair Parry-Okeden,James C. Kennedy,James Cox Chambers,Katharine Rayner andMargaretta Taylor, are major shareholders in Cox Enterprises.
Cox practiced a variety of trades throughout his life, being a farmer, reporter,Congressional staff member, newspaper publisher and editor, politician, elected official and finally, a regional media magnate.[34]
InOhio, Cox is remembered as a crusading publisher of theDayton Daily News and progressive governor; the newspaper's editorial meeting room is still referred to as theGovernor's Library. TheJames M. Cox Dayton International Airport, more commonly referenced simply asDayton International Airport, was named for Cox as well.
Cox is credited with words, "If there is anything in the theory of reincarnation of the soul then in my next assignment, if I be given the right of choice, I will ask for the aroma of printers ink."[6]
The Cox Fine Arts Building at the Ohio Expo Center andState Fair in Columbus, Ohio, is named in honor of Cox.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
