December 22, 2025 • 38 mins
Joseph Medill was a powerhouse in 19th century journalism who made no attempt to conceal his bias when it came to political writing. He also had a fascinating second career due to a tragedy, when he became a politician.
Research:
- Anderson, Jeffrey Justin. “JOSEPH MEDILL: HOW ONE MAN INFLUENCED THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION OF 1860.” Thesis. Roosevelt University. 2011. https://www.proquest.com/openview/6c0d810b769e5f18c08a028835deba88/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750
- Britannica Editors. "Joseph Medill". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2 Apr. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Medill
- Britannica Editors. "Chicago Tribune". Encyclopedia Britannica, 29 Aug. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chicago-Tribune
- “Chicago History.” Chicago.gov. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/about/history.html#:~:text=Incorporated%20as%20a%20city%20in,Hare%20and%20Midway%20International%20airports.
- Hughes, Frank. “Lincoln and the Tribune: A Great American and a Great Paper to Mold U.S. History.” Chicago Tribune. June 10, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/169275545/
- “Joseph Medill, Giant of Journalism.” Chicago Tribune. June 10, 1947. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/370685102/?match=1&terms=Joseph%20Medill
- “Joseph Medill Is Dead.” Chicago Tribune. March. 17, 1899. https://www.newspapers.com/image-view/355009623/?fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjM1NTAwOTYyMywiaWF0IjoxNzY1MjUwOTIxLCJleHAiOjE3NjUzMzczMjF9.T6Xs_g5fD6JZTwZSYECT73-0gILoXji25OQ_fIX1MI4
- McKinney, Megan. “The Magnificent Medills: America's Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor.” Harper Collins. 2011.
- Medill, Joseph. “Mayor Joseph Medill Inaugural Address, 1871.” https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-joseph-medill-inaugural-address-1871/
- Moses, John. “Biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of the representative men of the United States : Illinois volume.” Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. 1896. Accessed online: https://archive.org/details/biographicaldi1271mose/page/12/mode/2up
- Smith, Richard Norton. “The Colonel: The Life and Legend of Robert R. McCormick 1880-1955.” Houghton Mifflin. 1997.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, Holly here. I wanted to let you in
on a little something before we get started today. We've
been talking about our Morocco trip a lot lately because
it was amazing, and if it sounds to you like
something you might want to do, like you might want
to join us for a little adventure. I have great news.
We are already set up and starting to take bookings
(00:24):
for next year's big adventure. This is going to be
Octoberfest in the Alps, but not just Octoberfest. We're going
to visit Germany and the Czech Republic. The pacing is
going to be a little less intense than our Morocco trip,
so it will have some time that's a little more
like downtime where you can really explore on your own.
(00:44):
Some of these places are going to be big cities,
some of them are going to be small, storybook really
picturesque villages, and some of it will be out in
the countryside. So we're going to do three nights in Garmish,
which is outside of Munich, so we can go to
Munich and experience Octoberfest, but then have this really quiet,
beautiful village up in the mountains to really just enjoy
(01:09):
the picturesque views. We are also going to visit Cheske
Krumlov in the Czech Republic, which is we're going to
be right in the center of town on these cobblestone streets.
It's going to be so incredibly sweet and charming, I
cannot wait. And then we are going to spend time
several nights in Prague, which is going to be absolutely beautiful.
(01:32):
These are not places that you just kind of like
go to and you know, spend the night and roll out.
These are really going to be some picturesque surroundings, really
really beautiful things. So you're going to get some of
the busy, fast paced stuff like Octoberfest, which is a
very energetic time, but we're also going to have some quieter,
really kind of just more casual, slower, more relaxed things,
(01:55):
while also still taking in a whole lot of history.
So if that sounds it's really really good to you.
Get on over to Defined Destinations dot Com and they
are going to have the trip link right there ready
for you on the home page. It's going to be
one of the tours that's listed and we hope that
(02:16):
you will join us. Welcome to stuff you missed in history.
Class A production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I, like
(02:36):
many of us, have been thinking about the wild times
we're living through. I don't know how you don't, but
I've specifically been thinking about how it's discussed in the press,
because that's often a matter of consternation. But that made
me think about Joseph Medill because he was a powerhouse
in nineteenth century journalism, and he made no attempt to
conceal his bias when it came to political writing. Medill
(03:00):
also had this really fascinating second career due to a
big and famous tragedy. So in addition to journalism, he
was also a politician. We're going to get into all
of that today because we're going to talk about Joseph Medill.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Joseph Medill was born on April sixth, eighteen twenty three,
in New Brunswick, Canada, just outside the town of Saint John.
The Medill family was traced as far back as the
sixteenth century French Huguenots who left France for Ireland. Joseph's parents,
William and Margaret, moved from Ulster to Canada in eighteen
(03:36):
nineteen as newlyweds, and Joseph was their first child. In
eighteen thirty two, the family moved to Masalon, Ohio. They
had been planning to move to Saint Louis, Missouri, but
a cholera epidemic halted that journey in Ohio and they
just decided to stay there. They lived in Maslin for
several years and then moved to Pike Township.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
William and Margaret Medil had five kids after Joseph, two
girls and three boys, and as William's health began to fail,
Joseph became the family patriarch. But he also wanted an education,
so while he worked in various jobs to bring in money,
one day a week he walked nine miles to Canton,
Ohio to meet up with basically any teacher there who
(04:21):
would help him, leading to this sort of patchwork, haphazard
but surprisingly thorough education. He did a lot of reading
and study on his own. He was truly an autodidact,
and so then he would use these occasions where he
had a teacher in front of him to get clarity
on any of the concepts that he struggled with. He
had hoped that he could eventually go to college, but
(04:43):
the family's home burned down in eighteen forty four and
all of their savings with it, so that was not
going to happen. But he did gain enough knowledge through
his own self study to get a teaching job at
a country school. But it turned out he hated teaching.
The wages were low and the demands were high.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I don't know why. That really made me laugh, because
I read this already. I knew that was what you
were going to say.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
He wrote about it, and he says some very slurry
and pejorative things about it, about how wages are calculated.
But he basically lists out all the things he's expected
to do in a day, and all the students he's
supposed to deal with, and all of their things that
he's supposed to do one on one with them in
a classroom that has already left. He just hated it
and cataloged everything about it he didn't like.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
During this time, in addition to all that, Joseph met
a young woman named Katherine Patrick who went by Kitty.
Kitty's father, James, was Irish, and her mother was also
named Catherine, and she was descended from some of North
America's early European colonists. Kitty's father was a county judge,
but he also served as editor of the local paper,
(05:54):
the Tuscarawas Chronicle, and Joseph started spending time in the
papers offices. He picked up various skills there, including the
mechanical part of running a paper, like typesetting and running
a press, but he also got his earliest taste of
journalism writing there. Still it doesn't seem like anything more
than a fun hobby, a way to stay close to
(06:17):
the Patrick family, and soon Joseph got an apprenticeship with
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
After two years as an apprentice, Joseph passed the bar
and was ready to practice law, and he was able
to start a practice with a man named George mcelvain.
This was a really important time in Medill's life because
he made a lot of professional connections that would be
integral to his career down the road. Two of the
lawyers he became friends with in his early law career
(06:45):
were Sam and Chase and Edwin Stanton. Keep those names
in mind are going to come up again later. And
if you know about presidential history, you might already have
done the map there, But though these connections were important
to him, it also turned out that he didn't really
like practicing law very much either. Journalism did still appeal
to him, though. In eighteen forty nine he quit law
(07:08):
and he purchased a newspaper in Koshockton, Ohio, called The
Kashocktin Whig, which he renamed the Kashocktan Republican. Madill positioned
the paper's content as constantly touting that the Whig Party
was on its way out and the then third party
Republicans were the ones to get behind for anybody who
(07:29):
supported anti slavery legislation. I feel like this is a
lot of what we talked about with Charles Sumner, but
in a different part of the country. Yes. Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And this strategy worked. Soon not many people in Kashocktan
identified as Whigs, and they had switched over to the
Republican Party. After Kashockton, Medill decided to move to a
bigger city to try his hand at another paper and
if he could bending the political views of the area
to match his own. In eighteen fifty one, Madill made
(07:59):
the move to Cleveland, Ohio to publish a paper there,
and this effort lasted longer than kashocktan did.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He was there for four years. One of his first
moves politically was to back a Whig candidate named Winfield
Scott for president. So while he did think the Whigs
were on the way out, he also knew that they
had the candidates that he was most interested in. Scott
performed very poorly in that presidential election, and the outcome
led Medill to conclude that the Whig Party had truly
(08:27):
no chance and that it should be disbanded completely. It
was during this time that he meant another influential person
in his life and a podcast frequent flyer. It's Horace Greeley,
who was heming the New York Tribune.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Greeley hired Medill to write for him as a correspondent,
sending mostly political news from Clevelands to be printed in
the New York Tribune. Greeley wanted the New Republican Party
to once again organize. It had existed during the eighteen
thirties but had disbanded. After debates among the people interested
(09:01):
in the new party, it was decided that they would
simply go with a Republican, a name that Madell claimed
credit for He was definitely a key player in Ohio
in the effort to form a new party that aligned
with the anti slavery ideology that could replace the flailing Wigs,
and he had very vehemently campaigned for the adoption of
(09:22):
the Republican label for the party.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Joseph married Kitty Patrick on September second, eighteen fifty two,
and she became his partner in business to some degree
as well as in life. Because she had grown up
in a journalism family, she knew how to set type,
and she often did so for Joseph's paper, The Cleveland Leader.
The couple welcomed their first daughter, Catherine, in the summer
(09:46):
of eighteen fifty three.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Coming up, we will talk about a big move for Medill,
and before we do, we will pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
After several years in Cleveland and with a new family,
Medill felt ready to take on an even bigger challenge
as a newspaperman. Horace Greeley had encouraged him in this idea,
and Madill set his sights on Chicago, although it actually
took some coaxing to get him interested in the city.
At the time, Chicago was still very young and it
(10:23):
was finding its identity. Chicago was founded in eighteen thirty seven,
and then just ten years later, in eighteen forty seven,
the Chicago Tribune was founded by James Kelly, Joseph Casey Forrest,
and John E. Wheeler. But the paper didn't do especially well,
and eight years into its run it was really close
to declaring bankruptcy. The Tribune had changed hands in number
(10:47):
of times, and one of its owners in the eighteen fifties,
J D. Webster, extended an invitation to Medill to visit Chicago.
That invitation was followed by an offer to become the
Struggle Papers editor. Initially, Medill did not want this job.
He was busy with his work at home in Cleveland
(11:08):
and his family was growing.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But Greeley really nudged him, and also introduced him to
somebody who would be part of his business going forward.
That was former physician Charles Ray, who had quit medical
practice to promote anti slavery messaging through his own paper.
Greeley thought that together these two men could really do
great things in Chicago, and after meetings, so did Medill
(11:33):
and Ray. Medill did not take the offer of editor,
though he and Ray joined forces and purchased a controlling
interest in the Chicago Tribune, they were not the sole owners.
Two of Medill's Cleveland associates, Alfred Cows and John Vaughn,
also bought in, and two existing owners, Webster and Timothy Wright,
(11:54):
also stayed. They were part of this new purchase deal.
In the new arrangement, Medill owned owned a third of
the paper and which is the largest share, and Ray
owned a quarter.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, he still did become editor, but not an editor
for hire. He wanted to work for himself and with
Madill at the helm, the Chicago Tribune turned around, and
it did so really rapidly. Within months, subscriber numbers had doubled,
and it was due to the very decisive editorial leadership
that he provided. He drove the tone of the writing
for the Tribune, and the paper increasingly featured hard news
(12:28):
with a political bent. Medill was able to pour all
of his time and energy into the paper because Kitty
and the children were back in Cleveland. Initially, they didn't
join Joseph until after his first year, when the family
moved to Washington Boulevard near Union Park. And as the
paper was growing, one specific person walked into the paper's
(12:49):
offices to subscribe, and that person would change Joseph Minil's
life Forever. That person was Abraham Lincoln. At that point,
Lincoln was practicing law in Springfield after having finished his
term in the US House of Representatives. He stated while
at the Tribune's office that he was subscribing because of
the papers changed leadership. Medill and Lincoln struck up a friendship,
(13:14):
and the lawyer stopped by the paper's offices to chat
any time he was in the city. This friendship also
became a political alliance, as Medill backed Abraham Lincoln as
a politician in his paper. Medill had become even more
interested in politics as he matured, and rather than hire
a new reporter or trust a member of his staff,
(13:37):
he became the Chicago Tribune's Washington correspondent, traveling to the
Capitol to dig up any story he could. But he
didn't only travel to the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
He was also present at the first Illinois State Republican Convention.
The convention was held in Bloomington, Illinois, which was about
one hundred and thirty five miles southwest of Chicago. This
convention was the site of Lincoln's famous Lost speech, which
was said to have been so compelling that all of
(14:08):
the reporters in attendance failed to take notes on it.
Medil himself admitted to being carried away by Lincoln's anti
slavery address. The speech is often described as having been radical,
so radical that Medill believed that a statesman was glad
that it had not been recorded by any of the
attending journalists. Medil wrote of it quote, he got up
(14:31):
as his name was called, and came forward with a
giraffe like lope. He never walked straight like other men,
and stood in front of the pulpit. And after he
had spoken a few sentences, the delegates shouted to him
to get into the pulpit. He did so, and there
finished his speech. It is the regret of my life
that this speech of Lincoln's was not preserved. It was
(14:54):
easily his greatest, and very likely it was the first
of the series of events which made him pres I
have often tried to reproduce it from memory. Incidentally, there
is a version of the lost speech that was published
in McClure's magazine in eighteen ninety six, using the notes
that were made by Henry Clay Whitney, and while there
(15:16):
have been some debates about its accuracy in the century
plus since then, it's mostly choked up to having the
spirit of Lincoln's words but not really being accurate as
to how he conveyed that message. Yeah, and there's been
back and forth allegedly, and I didn't find if there
was a letter to back this up, but allegedly at
(15:37):
one point Madill was like, yes, this was the speech
as I remember it, and then later was.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Like not really.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
If you happen upon that, know that it's not considered
the true version of Lincoln's speech. When Lincoln decided to
run for US Senate in eighteen fifty eight, Madill used
the Tribune to support that run, but there was also
a crisis at the Tribune during that time, when its
finances faltered in the wake of an economic panic. To
(16:05):
save the paper, Medill agreed to merge it with another
paper known as The Democratic Press, which was run by
John L. Scripps, Barton Spears, and William Bross. The paper
ran as the Chicago Press and Tribune before going through
a couple more name changes and then landing once again
it being the Chicago Tribune.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
When Lincoln ran for president, the Tribune again back to him,
even going so far as to keep him in the
loop on information they got as the campaign played out,
so that he could address that information if needed. Medill
was also very active in the Republican Party and used
his influence to help Lincoln's run, starting with the nomination
(16:46):
and going right through to election day. There was no
way to claim the Tribune was unbiased in the news coverage.
The coverage of political events and editorials were always slanted
very heavily in favor of a Lincoln president. Modern scholars
have underlined the importance of Medill's efforts as a powerful
publisher in the outcome of the November eighteen sixty election.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But as the US was a powder keg of division.
Even after Lincoln handily won that election, Medill was back
to Washington to cover the ongoing conflict. He didn't especially
like being in DC, but the Tribune had a policy
that if the nation was in crisis, there would always
be a correspondent in the Capitol. As the Confederate States
(17:31):
announced their secession, Medill reported on it. We mentioned earlier
that Sam and Chase and Edwin Stanton had become friends
with Medill when they were all young lawyers. Sam and Chase,
who had hoped to win the Party nomination that Lincoln received,
was tapped by the new administration to be Secretary of Treasury,
and Edwin Stanton became Secretary of War. So in addition
(17:53):
to being friends with the President, Medill also had other
contacts high in the government to get information when the
commander in chief was busy. Though Medill and Lincoln sometimes
had disagreements about how the President was handling aspects of
the war, Medill never wavered publicly, and the Tribune always
back to Lincoln. One point of contention was the President
(18:17):
asking the paper to be vocal and calling for volunteers
for military service. According to Medill, when he pushed back
at the president, Lincoln told him, quote, you called for
war until we had it. Now you come here begging
to be let off from the call for men which
I have made to carry out the war you have demanded,
(18:38):
and you, Medill, are acting like a coward. The President
reminded Medil of how much influence his paper had in
creating the division that had led to the war. Medil
backed off and did as he was asked. Men from
Medill's family and employees of the paper volunteered and were
killed in action. When Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the
(19:00):
South surrender. Madill was emotionally shell shocked.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
The nation had lost its president, but he had also
lost a close friend as well as the political collaborator.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In the mid eighteen sixties. After the war, Medill found
himself doing well financially. War had actually been great for
the newspaper industry, but he had lost some of his
power at the paper as various alliances had formed in
its leadership structure that kind of left Joseph Medill on
the outside. He had ruled the paper with a very
firm hand, and the pressure he applied had eventually fractured
(19:35):
things among the staff and the leadership. While he still
held twenty percent of the paper at this point, after
its various reorgs, he decided to focus on politics instead
of journalism, and he stepped down from the editor position.
He did continue to write articles for publication, though, but
he became more deeply involved in the Republican Party and
(19:56):
he became part of the Illinois Constitutional Committee.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We are about to get into the catastrophic event that
has led historians to describe Medill as a phoenix, but
first we will hear from the sponsors that keep Stuffuinus
and history class going.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
On October ninth, eighteen seventy one, the Great Chicago Fire
devastated the city. When Medill awoke around midnight, the fire
was blazing, and he immediately went to the Tribune's offices.
He went out on the roof with some of the
men from the paper with a telescope to watch the
blaze spread, only to discover that their building was catching sparks.
(20:43):
All of the men on the roof hustled to stamp
out the flames when the sparks hit the roof and
caught fire in the very dry night. Medill also made
sure they ran an account of that harrowing night of
trying to keep the building safe, but then the ground
floor started to catch and despite trying to continue working,
that staff sounds like they stayed till the very bitter end,
(21:04):
but eventually the entire staff did have to evacuate.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Madill was still deeply dedicated to the paper that he loved.
He immediately started to rebuild in rented offices and with
scrounged printing equipment. Madill wrote two editorials that ran on
October eleventh and twelfth that were both very moving and
took a positive tone. The second began, quote all is
(21:28):
not lost. Though four hundred million dollars worth of property
has been destroyed, Chicago still exists. She was not a
mere collection of stone and bricks and lumber. Those were
but evidence of the power which produced these things. They
were but the external proof of the high courage, unconquerable energy,
(21:49):
strong faith, and relentless perseverance which have built up here
a commercial metropolis.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The fire created a whole new chapter of Medill's life.
He became an iconic figure of the city around the
globe as his words were reprinted, and soon a new
political party called the Union fire Proof Party formed and
nominated him as their candidate for mayor of Chicago in
an election that was scheduled to directly follow the tragedy.
(22:18):
So four weeks after the fire, Joseph Medill was elected
mayor of Chicago, while the city was still reeling from
the blaze and its aftermath.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
His inaugural speech was quite something, and we're going to
quote a lot of it. Unsurprisingly, he talked about the
fire a lot, outlining just how devastating it had been
to the city. Quote, I have been called to the
head of the city government under extraordinary circumstances. A few
weeks ago, our fair city, reposing in fancied security, received
(22:48):
a fearfully tragic visitation from fire, which in a few
brief but awful hours, reduced a large portion thereof to ashes, senders,
and smoke, consuming one grit division, leaving but a fragment
of another, and inflicting an ugly wound on the third.
In a single night and day, one hundred and twenty
(23:08):
five thousand of our people were expelled from their homes
and compelled to flee for their lives into the streets, commons,
or lake to avoid perishing in the flames. Many lost
their lives from heat, suffocation, or falling walls. How many
may never be known, and the multitudes who escaped were
fained to seek shelter and food at the hand of charity.
(23:32):
The greater part of our citizens not burned out of
their homes, lost their stores, shops, offices, stocks of goods, implements, books, accounts, papers, bouchers,
business or situations. And it is difficult to find any
citizen who has not suffered directly by that fearful conflagration
(23:53):
of the total property in Chicago created by labor and
capital existing on the eighth of October, more than half
perished on the ninth. The money value of the property
thus suddenly annihilated is impossible accurately to ascertain, but it
can hardly fall short of one hundred and fifty millions
(24:15):
of dollars, a comparatively small part of which will be
reimbursed by insurance companies. Such a tremendous loss cannot befall
the people at large without seriously affecting their municipal affairs.
In a move that was unusual and surprisingly transparent, as
his inauguration speech continued, he listed out the hard numbers
(24:38):
of the city's debt, and it almost starts to read
like a meeting agenda for a corporation rather than a
mayoral inauguration address. He stated that as of December first,
eighteen seventy one, the city had fourteen million, one hundred
three thousand dollars in bonded debt, and then he broke
that down by line item, and then he added in
(24:59):
the city's flowed debt, and he stated that the expenses
for the city to run for the rest of the
year were going to be about one million, one hundred
and forty one thousand dollars and sharing all of these
numbers was a way to establish an expectations management for
the city. Madill really wanted his constituents to understand what
their taxes were going to, particularly at a time when
(25:22):
so much recovery had to be done following the fire.
He was particularly troubled by the way city expenses were handled,
even in good times, and he said so, quote from
time immemorial, it has been the practice of the municipal
government to anticipate its revenues from nine to twelve months
before they are received, a practice which I unqualifiedly condemn
(25:45):
as imprudent and improper, in which I trust will be
reformed at an early date. The city taxes are collected
in the spring, but as fast as they are paid
in they are needed for the liquidation of floating debt
and accumulation claims, and when these are settled and receded
for the year's taxes are exhausted, and for the residue
(26:07):
of the fiscal year. The government is supported by borrowing
from special funds or the banks, by issuing certificates of indebtedness,
or resorting to other financial devices. This is all wrong.
There should always be in the treasury a sufficiently large
balance to meet current expenses. He explained that this practice
(26:29):
didn't account for disasters, and that it was what put
the city in a very bad financial position following the fire,
noting that if the state had not given them assistance,
the next two years of city expenses would be impossible
to fund. He also included the hard numbers regarding the
state's relief and where that was going.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
This was a very long speech. Madill was really trying
to be straight with the city about what was going
to happen in the following years, and to that end
he was comprehensive. He noted that things like adding, widening,
or extending streets were just not going to happen for
a while, telling those assembled quote, there are no funds
in the treasury now, nor likely to be for a
(27:11):
long time, with which to pay for street extensions or
widenings or pavings, and the city is prohibited from borrowing
money and adding to the municipal debt for these or
any other purposes. It will be all the city can
possibly do to keep the present improved streets in repair
and clean all the streets in this widespread city.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
His plan to aid the city financially was retrenchment, cutting
back on expenditures wherever possible, and his words, quote, there
is nothing that will afford such financial relief to the
city at this time as retrenchment. It is our surest resource,
and better than any credit. We can draw upon it
to a remarkable extent. When we borrow, we must repay
(27:54):
with interest. But when we save an expense, there is
no debt created, and neither princes or interest to provide
for the fire fiend came like a thief in the
night and caught our municipal government living in excess of
its income, with a loose discipline in some departments, inefficiency
in others, and extravagance in all. He mentioned that every
(28:18):
city department needed to be assessed and overhauled to see
where the money was being spent unnecessarily, and he said
that he felt quote a multitude of expenses can be
lopped off without detriment to the public interests. That included
cutting city employees that were in roles where there just
wasn't enough work to keep them busy, and he thought
(28:38):
that would save half a million dollars right off the top,
and some of this waste within departments he was confident
was tied to corruption, as quote the disparate, vicious and
criminal classes were placed on the city payrolls, and sinecure
offices for satellites were created by the thousand. But he
also thought that it was going to be easy to
(28:58):
identify these corrupt players government because quote rascality sooner or
later oversteps all bounds of shame, neglects to cover its tracks,
and suddenly stands exposed and confounded by an indignant and
plundered community.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Toward the end of.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The speech, he talked about taking steps to ensure that
a fire like the one they had just experienced couldn't
happen again. He attributed the disaster to the fact that
Chicago sits quote on the lake border of a boundless
prairie swept continually by high winds. He mentioned that while
only a few thousand brick and stone structures stood in
(29:36):
the city at the time, there were more than sixty
thousand built out of pine, and stated that quote for
miles square there was little bit pine structures, pine sidewalks,
pine planing mills, manufactures of pine, and pine lumber yards.
He very clearly wanted to reform the city's construction methods
(29:57):
to brick, stone, iron, concrete, and slate and away from pine,
telling his listeners quote, if we rebuild the city with
this dangerous material, we have a moral certainty at no
distant day of a recurrence of the late catastrophe. He
proposed that there should be no wooden building erected in
(30:18):
Chicago going forward, with the exception of very temporary structures,
and that the city's elected officials needed to develop a
well thought out fire ordinance and to develop a robust
system of supplying water to fires.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, not too long before all of this, the city
of Chicago had actually raised itself up to make space
for things like sewage lines and other infrastructure items, and
in doing so they had used a lot of pine.
So in addition to the buildings, there was just like
a lot of infrastructure that depended on a very flammable wood.
(30:54):
And all of this proposed reform, he believed, was what
the voters wanted, saying quote, if I comprehend the meaning
of the recent municipal election, one of its chief purposes
was to secure the reforms and economies which I have named,
and the people will be bitterly disappointed and indignant if
they are not fairly carried out.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He wanted to talk about more things, but recognized he
had already talked too long, stating, quote, there are other
important subjects to which I would call your attention, where
this communication not already too long. But I found it
impossible to discuss the extraordinary condition of things in which
the fire has placed the city government in the brief
space usually occupied by a mayor's inaugural.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That speech, as you just heard, noted a lot of
things that Madill wanted to happen, and he ended up
taking emergency powers to enact most of it. He had
basically kind of done some wheeling and dealing in government
for the mayor's role to be expanded, and in the
early part of his term, for roughly the first year,
he was able to use those expanded powers to enact
(31:58):
a lot of financial ROAs with no real resistance. He
made a lot of improvements to the city, and he's
credited with the speed with which it bounced back after
the fire. He raised and estimated five million dollars for
Chicago's rebuilding efforts, including one thousand dollars that came directly
from President Grant's personal fund. In eighteen seventy two, Madill
(32:21):
turned his energies to the establishment of a public library
for Chicago's citizens.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
But as his term continued, conflicts arose. One problem was
that he tended to appoint his friends from his vast
network of political connections to various roles in the government.
While these men were usually experienced, they were probably capable,
they often did not come from or represent the people
(32:48):
of the districts where they worked. They were all white Protestants.
That meant that a lot of people in the city
were being represented by people who just didn't understand their
lives that were making decisions about their neighborhoods. Immigrants got
very little representation in the government.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
If you've remember.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Any of our other episodes about nineteenth century Chicago had
very large immigrant population, a lot of racial diversity as
people moved north from the South, freed people moving north,
and that just was not what the city government looked
like at all. Yeah, none of those people had anyone
to really represent them. The stress of the job of mayor,
(33:30):
as people shifted from unilateral support to challenging his decisions,
took a toll on Medill's health. The final three and
a half months of his mayoral term were served by
Chicago City Council member Lester lagrant Bond, who.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Was appointed by Medill. Joseph went on a trip to
Europe to rest at the behest of his doctor. Although
he finished on a leave of absence and at that
point not everybody was a fan, Madill was still offered
a lot of high profile positions with the the US
government in the years following his trip, but he wanted
to go back to journalism. When Medill and his family
(34:07):
got back to the US after a full year abroad,
Joseph was a man with a mission, and that mission
was to get his paper back. He had acquired some
additional stock here and there, but not enough to get
a controlling interest. He borrowed a staggering three hundred thousand
dollars from Marshall Field to purchase six hundred additional shares
(34:30):
of stock, which tipped him over a thousand shares total,
which was enough to control the publication. He reinstalled himself
as editor, and he stayed in that job until the
day he died. This also marks a shift in his
political use of the paper. While he had taken a
fairly progressive and liberal stance when it came to Lincoln's presidency,
(34:50):
and specifically the issue of slavery when it came to
labor and government management. In these later years, he was
a lot more conservative after his time in office. Just
as he had used the paper to promote Lincoln's agenda,
he started using it as an anti union outlet once
he was the controlling shareholder. In late eighteen ninety eight,
(35:12):
Medill's doctor told him he needed to spend winters in
a drier climate than could happen in Chicago, so he
traveled to San Antonio, Texas. It was there that he
died on March sixteenth, eighteen ninety nine. Kitty had died
five years earlier. Medill's doctor released a statement that ran
in the papers, saying that he had been in good
(35:34):
health overall until near the very end. His cause of
death was heart failure. He was reportedly awake and lucid
until the very end of his life, and his last
words have been reported as what's the news this morning.
Medill's journalism legacy continued in his family. Three of his grandchildren,
(35:54):
Robert R. McCormick, Joseph Patterson, and Eleanor Patterson, all became
publishers of high profile newspapers. Robert worked in the same
role as his grandfather at the helm of the Chicago Tribune.
He might be a future episode. That Tribune got much
more conservative under his leadership, and in nineteen twenty one,
the Middle School of Journalism was dedicated at Northwestern University.
(36:19):
Do you have some listener mail before we close out
the episode? Oh? I do, and it delights me utterly.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
This is from our listener, Catherine. I feel like this
is a day of Catherine's in this episode. Catherine writes, Hi, Holly,
and Tracy. After the episode featuring Rebecca Raccoon, I wanted
to write in with this story. I work at an
animal shelter, and many years ago we were able to
move operations to a beautiful new building. Shortly after we
opened our new building to the public, I was walking
(36:47):
through the lobby and saw a woman looking lost and confused.
When I approached her to ask if I could help
her find something, she very excitedly asked me, yes, where
are your raccoons. I was so confused that I was
completely silent for about thirty seconds, and then it finally
clicked and I asked her if she was looking for
a raccoon to adopt. She told me yes, and I
(37:08):
informed her that that is not legal in our state.
She was so sad. I felt a little bad for
spoiling her dreams of raccoon ownership, although I do love
that she wanted to go the adopt, don't shop route.
Thank you so much for the wonderful podcast. I love
learning new things every week for pet tax I have
attached a photo of my two cats, both adopted from
my work. Sputnik is the big gray boy and the
(37:31):
Torti is Pocket, who is actually a rare male tourty.
Thanks again for the wonderful episode, Catherine. These babies are
so cute. I love a solid gray cat that's like
one of the many cats of my heart. And yes,
male tourty is very rare. If you have a male tourty,
I think they are always sterile, like they could never
(37:53):
have offspring. But they are both utterly gorgeous creatures, so pretty.
Oh my goodness, I want to kiss those faith so much.
Thank you so much for this note, Catherine. I appreciate
that people want to want raccoons. They're cute. I feel
like after Guardians of the Galaxy, a lot of people
(38:13):
wanted to pet raccoon, but they usually can't talk. Just FYI,
you would like to write to us and share your
stories of odd animal adoption dreams, or whatever it is
you'd like to talk about. You can do so at
History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe
on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your
(38:34):
favorite podcasts.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, Holly here. I wanted to let you in
on a little something before we get started today. We've
been talking about our Morocco trip a lot lately because
it was amazing, and if it sounds to you like
something you might want to do, like you might want
to join us for a little adventure. I have great news.
We are already set up and starting to take bookings
(00:24):
for next year's big adventure. This is going to be
Octoberfest in the Alps, but not just Octoberfest. We're going
to visit Germany and the Czech Republic. The pacing is
going to be a little less intense than our Morocco trip,
so it will have some time that's a little more
like downtime where you can really explore on your own.
(00:44):
Some of these places are going to be big cities,
some of them are going to be small, storybook really
picturesque villages, and some of it will be out in
the countryside. So we're going to do three nights in Garmish,
which is outside of Munich, so we can go to
Munich and experience Octoberfest, but then have this really quiet,
beautiful village up in the mountains to really just enjoy
(01:09):
the picturesque views. We are also going to visit Cheske
Krumlov in the Czech Republic, which is we're going to
be right in the center of town on these cobblestone streets.
It's going to be so incredibly sweet and charming, I
cannot wait. And then we are going to spend time
several nights in Prague, which is going to be absolutely beautiful.
(01:32):
These are not places that you just kind of like
go to and you know, spend the night and roll out.
These are really going to be some picturesque surroundings, really
really beautiful things. So you're going to get some of
the busy, fast paced stuff like Octoberfest, which is a
very energetic time, but we're also going to have some quieter,
really kind of just more casual, slower, more relaxed things,
(01:55):
while also still taking in a whole lot of history.
So if that sounds it's really really good to you.
Get on over to Defined Destinations dot Com and they
are going to have the trip link right there ready
for you on the home page. It's going to be
one of the tours that's listed and we hope that
(02:16):
you will join us. Welcome to stuff you missed in history.
Class A production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I, like
(02:36):
many of us, have been thinking about the wild times
we're living through. I don't know how you don't, but
I've specifically been thinking about how it's discussed in the press,
because that's often a matter of consternation. But that made
me think about Joseph Medill because he was a powerhouse
in nineteenth century journalism, and he made no attempt to
conceal his bias when it came to political writing. Medill
(03:00):
also had this really fascinating second career due to a
big and famous tragedy. So in addition to journalism, he
was also a politician. We're going to get into all
of that today because we're going to talk about Joseph Medill.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Joseph Medill was born on April sixth, eighteen twenty three,
in New Brunswick, Canada, just outside the town of Saint John.
The Medill family was traced as far back as the
sixteenth century French Huguenots who left France for Ireland. Joseph's parents,
William and Margaret, moved from Ulster to Canada in eighteen
(03:36):
nineteen as newlyweds, and Joseph was their first child. In
eighteen thirty two, the family moved to Masalon, Ohio. They
had been planning to move to Saint Louis, Missouri, but
a cholera epidemic halted that journey in Ohio and they
just decided to stay there. They lived in Maslin for
several years and then moved to Pike Township.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
William and Margaret Medil had five kids after Joseph, two
girls and three boys, and as William's health began to fail,
Joseph became the family patriarch. But he also wanted an education,
so while he worked in various jobs to bring in money,
one day a week he walked nine miles to Canton,
Ohio to meet up with basically any teacher there who
(04:21):
would help him, leading to this sort of patchwork, haphazard
but surprisingly thorough education. He did a lot of reading
and study on his own. He was truly an autodidact,
and so then he would use these occasions where he
had a teacher in front of him to get clarity
on any of the concepts that he struggled with. He
had hoped that he could eventually go to college, but
(04:43):
the family's home burned down in eighteen forty four and
all of their savings with it, so that was not
going to happen. But he did gain enough knowledge through
his own self study to get a teaching job at
a country school. But it turned out he hated teaching.
The wages were low and the demands were high.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I don't know why. That really made me laugh, because
I read this already. I knew that was what you
were going to say.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
He wrote about it, and he says some very slurry
and pejorative things about it, about how wages are calculated.
But he basically lists out all the things he's expected
to do in a day, and all the students he's
supposed to deal with, and all of their things that
he's supposed to do one on one with them in
a classroom that has already left. He just hated it
and cataloged everything about it he didn't like.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
During this time, in addition to all that, Joseph met
a young woman named Katherine Patrick who went by Kitty.
Kitty's father, James, was Irish, and her mother was also
named Catherine, and she was descended from some of North
America's early European colonists. Kitty's father was a county judge,
but he also served as editor of the local paper,
(05:54):
the Tuscarawas Chronicle, and Joseph started spending time in the
papers offices. He picked up various skills there, including the
mechanical part of running a paper, like typesetting and running
a press, but he also got his earliest taste of
journalism writing there. Still it doesn't seem like anything more
than a fun hobby, a way to stay close to
(06:17):
the Patrick family, and soon Joseph got an apprenticeship with
a lawyer.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
After two years as an apprentice, Joseph passed the bar
and was ready to practice law, and he was able
to start a practice with a man named George mcelvain.
This was a really important time in Medill's life because
he made a lot of professional connections that would be
integral to his career down the road. Two of the
lawyers he became friends with in his early law career
(06:45):
were Sam and Chase and Edwin Stanton. Keep those names
in mind are going to come up again later. And
if you know about presidential history, you might already have
done the map there, But though these connections were important
to him, it also turned out that he didn't really
like practicing law very much either. Journalism did still appeal
to him, though. In eighteen forty nine he quit law
(07:08):
and he purchased a newspaper in Koshockton, Ohio, called The
Kashocktin Whig, which he renamed the Kashocktan Republican. Madill positioned
the paper's content as constantly touting that the Whig Party
was on its way out and the then third party
Republicans were the ones to get behind for anybody who
(07:29):
supported anti slavery legislation. I feel like this is a
lot of what we talked about with Charles Sumner, but
in a different part of the country. Yes. Uh.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And this strategy worked. Soon not many people in Kashocktan
identified as Whigs, and they had switched over to the
Republican Party. After Kashockton, Medill decided to move to a
bigger city to try his hand at another paper and
if he could bending the political views of the area
to match his own. In eighteen fifty one, Madill made
(07:59):
the move to Cleveland, Ohio to publish a paper there,
and this effort lasted longer than kashocktan did.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
He was there for four years. One of his first
moves politically was to back a Whig candidate named Winfield
Scott for president. So while he did think the Whigs
were on the way out, he also knew that they
had the candidates that he was most interested in. Scott
performed very poorly in that presidential election, and the outcome
led Medill to conclude that the Whig Party had truly
(08:27):
no chance and that it should be disbanded completely. It
was during this time that he meant another influential person
in his life and a podcast frequent flyer. It's Horace Greeley,
who was heming the New York Tribune.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Greeley hired Medill to write for him as a correspondent,
sending mostly political news from Clevelands to be printed in
the New York Tribune. Greeley wanted the New Republican Party
to once again organize. It had existed during the eighteen
thirties but had disbanded. After debates among the people interested
(09:01):
in the new party, it was decided that they would
simply go with a Republican, a name that Madell claimed
credit for He was definitely a key player in Ohio
in the effort to form a new party that aligned
with the anti slavery ideology that could replace the flailing Wigs,
and he had very vehemently campaigned for the adoption of
(09:22):
the Republican label for the party.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Joseph married Kitty Patrick on September second, eighteen fifty two,
and she became his partner in business to some degree
as well as in life. Because she had grown up
in a journalism family, she knew how to set type,
and she often did so for Joseph's paper, The Cleveland Leader.
The couple welcomed their first daughter, Catherine, in the summer
(09:46):
of eighteen fifty three.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Coming up, we will talk about a big move for Medill,
and before we do, we will pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
After several years in Cleveland and with a new family,
Medill felt ready to take on an even bigger challenge
as a newspaperman. Horace Greeley had encouraged him in this idea,
and Madill set his sights on Chicago, although it actually
took some coaxing to get him interested in the city.
At the time, Chicago was still very young and it
(10:23):
was finding its identity. Chicago was founded in eighteen thirty seven,
and then just ten years later, in eighteen forty seven,
the Chicago Tribune was founded by James Kelly, Joseph Casey Forrest,
and John E. Wheeler. But the paper didn't do especially well,
and eight years into its run it was really close
to declaring bankruptcy. The Tribune had changed hands in number
(10:47):
of times, and one of its owners in the eighteen fifties,
J D. Webster, extended an invitation to Medill to visit Chicago.
That invitation was followed by an offer to become the
Struggle Papers editor. Initially, Medill did not want this job.
He was busy with his work at home in Cleveland
(11:08):
and his family was growing.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
But Greeley really nudged him, and also introduced him to
somebody who would be part of his business going forward.
That was former physician Charles Ray, who had quit medical
practice to promote anti slavery messaging through his own paper.
Greeley thought that together these two men could really do
great things in Chicago, and after meetings, so did Medill
(11:33):
and Ray. Medill did not take the offer of editor,
though he and Ray joined forces and purchased a controlling
interest in the Chicago Tribune, they were not the sole owners.
Two of Medill's Cleveland associates, Alfred Cows and John Vaughn,
also bought in, and two existing owners, Webster and Timothy Wright,
(11:54):
also stayed. They were part of this new purchase deal.
In the new arrangement, Medill owned owned a third of
the paper and which is the largest share, and Ray
owned a quarter.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah, he still did become editor, but not an editor
for hire. He wanted to work for himself and with
Madill at the helm, the Chicago Tribune turned around, and
it did so really rapidly. Within months, subscriber numbers had doubled,
and it was due to the very decisive editorial leadership
that he provided. He drove the tone of the writing
for the Tribune, and the paper increasingly featured hard news
(12:28):
with a political bent. Medill was able to pour all
of his time and energy into the paper because Kitty
and the children were back in Cleveland. Initially, they didn't
join Joseph until after his first year, when the family
moved to Washington Boulevard near Union Park. And as the
paper was growing, one specific person walked into the paper's
(12:49):
offices to subscribe, and that person would change Joseph Minil's
life Forever. That person was Abraham Lincoln. At that point,
Lincoln was practicing law in Springfield after having finished his
term in the US House of Representatives. He stated while
at the Tribune's office that he was subscribing because of
the papers changed leadership. Medill and Lincoln struck up a friendship,
(13:14):
and the lawyer stopped by the paper's offices to chat
any time he was in the city. This friendship also
became a political alliance, as Medill backed Abraham Lincoln as
a politician in his paper. Medill had become even more
interested in politics as he matured, and rather than hire
a new reporter or trust a member of his staff,
(13:37):
he became the Chicago Tribune's Washington correspondent, traveling to the
Capitol to dig up any story he could. But he
didn't only travel to the Capitol.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
He was also present at the first Illinois State Republican Convention.
The convention was held in Bloomington, Illinois, which was about
one hundred and thirty five miles southwest of Chicago. This
convention was the site of Lincoln's famous Lost speech, which
was said to have been so compelling that all of
(14:08):
the reporters in attendance failed to take notes on it.
Medil himself admitted to being carried away by Lincoln's anti
slavery address. The speech is often described as having been radical,
so radical that Medill believed that a statesman was glad
that it had not been recorded by any of the
attending journalists. Medil wrote of it quote, he got up
(14:31):
as his name was called, and came forward with a
giraffe like lope. He never walked straight like other men,
and stood in front of the pulpit. And after he
had spoken a few sentences, the delegates shouted to him
to get into the pulpit. He did so, and there
finished his speech. It is the regret of my life
that this speech of Lincoln's was not preserved. It was
(14:54):
easily his greatest, and very likely it was the first
of the series of events which made him pres I
have often tried to reproduce it from memory. Incidentally, there
is a version of the lost speech that was published
in McClure's magazine in eighteen ninety six, using the notes
that were made by Henry Clay Whitney, and while there
(15:16):
have been some debates about its accuracy in the century
plus since then, it's mostly choked up to having the
spirit of Lincoln's words but not really being accurate as
to how he conveyed that message. Yeah, and there's been
back and forth allegedly, and I didn't find if there
was a letter to back this up, but allegedly at
(15:37):
one point Madill was like, yes, this was the speech
as I remember it, and then later was.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Like not really.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
If you happen upon that, know that it's not considered
the true version of Lincoln's speech. When Lincoln decided to
run for US Senate in eighteen fifty eight, Madill used
the Tribune to support that run, but there was also
a crisis at the Tribune during that time, when its
finances faltered in the wake of an economic panic. To
(16:05):
save the paper, Medill agreed to merge it with another
paper known as The Democratic Press, which was run by
John L. Scripps, Barton Spears, and William Bross. The paper
ran as the Chicago Press and Tribune before going through
a couple more name changes and then landing once again
it being the Chicago Tribune.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
When Lincoln ran for president, the Tribune again back to him,
even going so far as to keep him in the
loop on information they got as the campaign played out,
so that he could address that information if needed. Medill
was also very active in the Republican Party and used
his influence to help Lincoln's run, starting with the nomination
(16:46):
and going right through to election day. There was no
way to claim the Tribune was unbiased in the news coverage.
The coverage of political events and editorials were always slanted
very heavily in favor of a Lincoln president. Modern scholars
have underlined the importance of Medill's efforts as a powerful
publisher in the outcome of the November eighteen sixty election.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But as the US was a powder keg of division.
Even after Lincoln handily won that election, Medill was back
to Washington to cover the ongoing conflict. He didn't especially
like being in DC, but the Tribune had a policy
that if the nation was in crisis, there would always
be a correspondent in the Capitol. As the Confederate States
(17:31):
announced their secession, Medill reported on it. We mentioned earlier
that Sam and Chase and Edwin Stanton had become friends
with Medill when they were all young lawyers. Sam and Chase,
who had hoped to win the Party nomination that Lincoln received,
was tapped by the new administration to be Secretary of Treasury,
and Edwin Stanton became Secretary of War. So in addition
(17:53):
to being friends with the President, Medill also had other
contacts high in the government to get information when the
commander in chief was busy. Though Medill and Lincoln sometimes
had disagreements about how the President was handling aspects of
the war, Medill never wavered publicly, and the Tribune always
back to Lincoln. One point of contention was the President
(18:17):
asking the paper to be vocal and calling for volunteers
for military service. According to Medill, when he pushed back
at the president, Lincoln told him, quote, you called for
war until we had it. Now you come here begging
to be let off from the call for men which
I have made to carry out the war you have demanded,
(18:38):
and you, Medill, are acting like a coward. The President
reminded Medil of how much influence his paper had in
creating the division that had led to the war. Medil
backed off and did as he was asked. Men from
Medill's family and employees of the paper volunteered and were
killed in action. When Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the
(19:00):
South surrender. Madill was emotionally shell shocked.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
The nation had lost its president, but he had also
lost a close friend as well as the political collaborator.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In the mid eighteen sixties. After the war, Medill found
himself doing well financially. War had actually been great for
the newspaper industry, but he had lost some of his
power at the paper as various alliances had formed in
its leadership structure that kind of left Joseph Medill on
the outside. He had ruled the paper with a very
firm hand, and the pressure he applied had eventually fractured
(19:35):
things among the staff and the leadership. While he still
held twenty percent of the paper at this point, after
its various reorgs, he decided to focus on politics instead
of journalism, and he stepped down from the editor position.
He did continue to write articles for publication, though, but
he became more deeply involved in the Republican Party and
(19:56):
he became part of the Illinois Constitutional Committee.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
We are about to get into the catastrophic event that
has led historians to describe Medill as a phoenix, but
first we will hear from the sponsors that keep Stuffuinus
and history class going.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
On October ninth, eighteen seventy one, the Great Chicago Fire
devastated the city. When Medill awoke around midnight, the fire
was blazing, and he immediately went to the Tribune's offices.
He went out on the roof with some of the
men from the paper with a telescope to watch the
blaze spread, only to discover that their building was catching sparks.
(20:43):
All of the men on the roof hustled to stamp
out the flames when the sparks hit the roof and
caught fire in the very dry night. Medill also made
sure they ran an account of that harrowing night of
trying to keep the building safe, but then the ground
floor started to catch and despite trying to continue working,
that staff sounds like they stayed till the very bitter end,
(21:04):
but eventually the entire staff did have to evacuate.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Madill was still deeply dedicated to the paper that he loved.
He immediately started to rebuild in rented offices and with
scrounged printing equipment. Madill wrote two editorials that ran on
October eleventh and twelfth that were both very moving and
took a positive tone. The second began, quote all is
(21:28):
not lost. Though four hundred million dollars worth of property
has been destroyed, Chicago still exists. She was not a
mere collection of stone and bricks and lumber. Those were
but evidence of the power which produced these things. They
were but the external proof of the high courage, unconquerable energy,
(21:49):
strong faith, and relentless perseverance which have built up here
a commercial metropolis.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
The fire created a whole new chapter of Medill's life.
He became an iconic figure of the city around the
globe as his words were reprinted, and soon a new
political party called the Union fire Proof Party formed and
nominated him as their candidate for mayor of Chicago in
an election that was scheduled to directly follow the tragedy.
(22:18):
So four weeks after the fire, Joseph Medill was elected
mayor of Chicago, while the city was still reeling from
the blaze and its aftermath.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
His inaugural speech was quite something, and we're going to
quote a lot of it. Unsurprisingly, he talked about the
fire a lot, outlining just how devastating it had been
to the city. Quote, I have been called to the
head of the city government under extraordinary circumstances. A few
weeks ago, our fair city, reposing in fancied security, received
(22:48):
a fearfully tragic visitation from fire, which in a few
brief but awful hours, reduced a large portion thereof to ashes, senders,
and smoke, consuming one grit division, leaving but a fragment
of another, and inflicting an ugly wound on the third.
In a single night and day, one hundred and twenty
(23:08):
five thousand of our people were expelled from their homes
and compelled to flee for their lives into the streets, commons,
or lake to avoid perishing in the flames. Many lost
their lives from heat, suffocation, or falling walls. How many
may never be known, and the multitudes who escaped were
fained to seek shelter and food at the hand of charity.
(23:32):
The greater part of our citizens not burned out of
their homes, lost their stores, shops, offices, stocks of goods, implements, books, accounts, papers, bouchers,
business or situations. And it is difficult to find any
citizen who has not suffered directly by that fearful conflagration
(23:53):
of the total property in Chicago created by labor and
capital existing on the eighth of October, more than half
perished on the ninth. The money value of the property
thus suddenly annihilated is impossible accurately to ascertain, but it
can hardly fall short of one hundred and fifty millions
(24:15):
of dollars, a comparatively small part of which will be
reimbursed by insurance companies. Such a tremendous loss cannot befall
the people at large without seriously affecting their municipal affairs.
In a move that was unusual and surprisingly transparent, as
his inauguration speech continued, he listed out the hard numbers
(24:38):
of the city's debt, and it almost starts to read
like a meeting agenda for a corporation rather than a
mayoral inauguration address. He stated that as of December first,
eighteen seventy one, the city had fourteen million, one hundred
three thousand dollars in bonded debt, and then he broke
that down by line item, and then he added in
(24:59):
the city's flowed debt, and he stated that the expenses
for the city to run for the rest of the
year were going to be about one million, one hundred
and forty one thousand dollars and sharing all of these
numbers was a way to establish an expectations management for
the city. Madill really wanted his constituents to understand what
their taxes were going to, particularly at a time when
(25:22):
so much recovery had to be done following the fire.
He was particularly troubled by the way city expenses were handled,
even in good times, and he said so, quote from
time immemorial, it has been the practice of the municipal
government to anticipate its revenues from nine to twelve months
before they are received, a practice which I unqualifiedly condemn
(25:45):
as imprudent and improper, in which I trust will be
reformed at an early date. The city taxes are collected
in the spring, but as fast as they are paid
in they are needed for the liquidation of floating debt
and accumulation claims, and when these are settled and receded
for the year's taxes are exhausted, and for the residue
(26:07):
of the fiscal year. The government is supported by borrowing
from special funds or the banks, by issuing certificates of indebtedness,
or resorting to other financial devices. This is all wrong.
There should always be in the treasury a sufficiently large
balance to meet current expenses. He explained that this practice
(26:29):
didn't account for disasters, and that it was what put
the city in a very bad financial position following the fire,
noting that if the state had not given them assistance,
the next two years of city expenses would be impossible
to fund. He also included the hard numbers regarding the
state's relief and where that was going.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
This was a very long speech. Madill was really trying
to be straight with the city about what was going
to happen in the following years, and to that end
he was comprehensive. He noted that things like adding, widening,
or extending streets were just not going to happen for
a while, telling those assembled quote, there are no funds
in the treasury now, nor likely to be for a
(27:11):
long time, with which to pay for street extensions or
widenings or pavings, and the city is prohibited from borrowing
money and adding to the municipal debt for these or
any other purposes. It will be all the city can
possibly do to keep the present improved streets in repair
and clean all the streets in this widespread city.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
His plan to aid the city financially was retrenchment, cutting
back on expenditures wherever possible, and his words, quote, there
is nothing that will afford such financial relief to the
city at this time as retrenchment. It is our surest resource,
and better than any credit. We can draw upon it
to a remarkable extent. When we borrow, we must repay
(27:54):
with interest. But when we save an expense, there is
no debt created, and neither princes or interest to provide
for the fire fiend came like a thief in the
night and caught our municipal government living in excess of
its income, with a loose discipline in some departments, inefficiency
in others, and extravagance in all. He mentioned that every
(28:18):
city department needed to be assessed and overhauled to see
where the money was being spent unnecessarily, and he said
that he felt quote a multitude of expenses can be
lopped off without detriment to the public interests. That included
cutting city employees that were in roles where there just
wasn't enough work to keep them busy, and he thought
(28:38):
that would save half a million dollars right off the top,
and some of this waste within departments he was confident
was tied to corruption, as quote the disparate, vicious and
criminal classes were placed on the city payrolls, and sinecure
offices for satellites were created by the thousand. But he
also thought that it was going to be easy to
(28:58):
identify these corrupt players government because quote rascality sooner or
later oversteps all bounds of shame, neglects to cover its tracks,
and suddenly stands exposed and confounded by an indignant and
plundered community.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Toward the end of.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
The speech, he talked about taking steps to ensure that
a fire like the one they had just experienced couldn't
happen again. He attributed the disaster to the fact that
Chicago sits quote on the lake border of a boundless
prairie swept continually by high winds. He mentioned that while
only a few thousand brick and stone structures stood in
(29:36):
the city at the time, there were more than sixty
thousand built out of pine, and stated that quote for
miles square there was little bit pine structures, pine sidewalks,
pine planing mills, manufactures of pine, and pine lumber yards.
He very clearly wanted to reform the city's construction methods
(29:57):
to brick, stone, iron, concrete, and slate and away from pine,
telling his listeners quote, if we rebuild the city with
this dangerous material, we have a moral certainty at no
distant day of a recurrence of the late catastrophe. He
proposed that there should be no wooden building erected in
(30:18):
Chicago going forward, with the exception of very temporary structures,
and that the city's elected officials needed to develop a
well thought out fire ordinance and to develop a robust
system of supplying water to fires.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, not too long before all of this, the city
of Chicago had actually raised itself up to make space
for things like sewage lines and other infrastructure items, and
in doing so they had used a lot of pine.
So in addition to the buildings, there was just like
a lot of infrastructure that depended on a very flammable wood.
(30:54):
And all of this proposed reform, he believed, was what
the voters wanted, saying quote, if I comprehend the meaning
of the recent municipal election, one of its chief purposes
was to secure the reforms and economies which I have named,
and the people will be bitterly disappointed and indignant if
they are not fairly carried out.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
He wanted to talk about more things, but recognized he
had already talked too long, stating, quote, there are other
important subjects to which I would call your attention, where
this communication not already too long. But I found it
impossible to discuss the extraordinary condition of things in which
the fire has placed the city government in the brief
space usually occupied by a mayor's inaugural.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
That speech, as you just heard, noted a lot of
things that Madill wanted to happen, and he ended up
taking emergency powers to enact most of it. He had
basically kind of done some wheeling and dealing in government
for the mayor's role to be expanded, and in the
early part of his term, for roughly the first year,
he was able to use those expanded powers to enact
(31:58):
a lot of financial ROAs with no real resistance. He
made a lot of improvements to the city, and he's
credited with the speed with which it bounced back after
the fire. He raised and estimated five million dollars for
Chicago's rebuilding efforts, including one thousand dollars that came directly
from President Grant's personal fund. In eighteen seventy two, Madill
(32:21):
turned his energies to the establishment of a public library
for Chicago's citizens.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
But as his term continued, conflicts arose. One problem was
that he tended to appoint his friends from his vast
network of political connections to various roles in the government.
While these men were usually experienced, they were probably capable,
they often did not come from or represent the people
(32:48):
of the districts where they worked. They were all white Protestants.
That meant that a lot of people in the city
were being represented by people who just didn't understand their
lives that were making decisions about their neighborhoods. Immigrants got
very little representation in the government.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
If you've remember.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Any of our other episodes about nineteenth century Chicago had
very large immigrant population, a lot of racial diversity as
people moved north from the South, freed people moving north,
and that just was not what the city government looked
like at all. Yeah, none of those people had anyone
to really represent them. The stress of the job of mayor,
(33:30):
as people shifted from unilateral support to challenging his decisions,
took a toll on Medill's health. The final three and
a half months of his mayoral term were served by
Chicago City Council member Lester lagrant Bond, who.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Was appointed by Medill. Joseph went on a trip to
Europe to rest at the behest of his doctor. Although
he finished on a leave of absence and at that
point not everybody was a fan, Madill was still offered
a lot of high profile positions with the the US
government in the years following his trip, but he wanted
to go back to journalism. When Medill and his family
(34:07):
got back to the US after a full year abroad,
Joseph was a man with a mission, and that mission
was to get his paper back. He had acquired some
additional stock here and there, but not enough to get
a controlling interest. He borrowed a staggering three hundred thousand
dollars from Marshall Field to purchase six hundred additional shares
(34:30):
of stock, which tipped him over a thousand shares total,
which was enough to control the publication. He reinstalled himself
as editor, and he stayed in that job until the
day he died. This also marks a shift in his
political use of the paper. While he had taken a
fairly progressive and liberal stance when it came to Lincoln's presidency,
(34:50):
and specifically the issue of slavery when it came to
labor and government management. In these later years, he was
a lot more conservative after his time in office. Just
as he had used the paper to promote Lincoln's agenda,
he started using it as an anti union outlet once
he was the controlling shareholder. In late eighteen ninety eight,
(35:12):
Medill's doctor told him he needed to spend winters in
a drier climate than could happen in Chicago, so he
traveled to San Antonio, Texas. It was there that he
died on March sixteenth, eighteen ninety nine. Kitty had died
five years earlier. Medill's doctor released a statement that ran
in the papers, saying that he had been in good
(35:34):
health overall until near the very end. His cause of
death was heart failure. He was reportedly awake and lucid
until the very end of his life, and his last
words have been reported as what's the news this morning.
Medill's journalism legacy continued in his family. Three of his grandchildren,
(35:54):
Robert R. McCormick, Joseph Patterson, and Eleanor Patterson, all became
publishers of high profile newspapers. Robert worked in the same
role as his grandfather at the helm of the Chicago Tribune.
He might be a future episode. That Tribune got much
more conservative under his leadership, and in nineteen twenty one,
the Middle School of Journalism was dedicated at Northwestern University.
(36:19):
Do you have some listener mail before we close out
the episode? Oh? I do, and it delights me utterly.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
This is from our listener, Catherine. I feel like this
is a day of Catherine's in this episode. Catherine writes, Hi, Holly,
and Tracy. After the episode featuring Rebecca Raccoon, I wanted
to write in with this story. I work at an
animal shelter, and many years ago we were able to
move operations to a beautiful new building. Shortly after we
opened our new building to the public, I was walking
(36:47):
through the lobby and saw a woman looking lost and confused.
When I approached her to ask if I could help
her find something, she very excitedly asked me, yes, where
are your raccoons. I was so confused that I was
completely silent for about thirty seconds, and then it finally
clicked and I asked her if she was looking for
a raccoon to adopt. She told me yes, and I
(37:08):
informed her that that is not legal in our state.
She was so sad. I felt a little bad for
spoiling her dreams of raccoon ownership, although I do love
that she wanted to go the adopt, don't shop route.
Thank you so much for the wonderful podcast. I love
learning new things every week for pet tax I have
attached a photo of my two cats, both adopted from
my work. Sputnik is the big gray boy and the
(37:31):
Torti is Pocket, who is actually a rare male tourty.
Thanks again for the wonderful episode, Catherine. These babies are
so cute. I love a solid gray cat that's like
one of the many cats of my heart. And yes,
male tourty is very rare. If you have a male tourty,
I think they are always sterile, like they could never
(37:53):
have offspring. But they are both utterly gorgeous creatures, so pretty.
Oh my goodness, I want to kiss those faith so much.
Thank you so much for this note, Catherine. I appreciate
that people want to want raccoons. They're cute. I feel
like after Guardians of the Galaxy, a lot of people
(38:13):
wanted to pet raccoon, but they usually can't talk. Just FYI,
you would like to write to us and share your
stories of odd animal adoption dreams, or whatever it is
you'd like to talk about. You can do so at
History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe
on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your
(38:34):
favorite podcasts.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.