The Press: Fighting Jimmy

"There is nothing worse," contended Ohio's James Middleton Cox, "than an invertebrate publisher." Stocky, round-faced Jim Cox was one of the higher vertebrates in a generation of publishers that included such well-spined warriors as William Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer and Colonel Robert McCormick. As a journalist, he practiced his preachment that newspapers "should tell the truth as only intellectual honesty can discern the truth." As a politician, Democrat Cox was also notable for intellectual honesty. And he almost achieved the classic American cycle: born on a log-cabin farm, he got to be a Congressman and Ohio's governor; he was his party's...

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