1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cox, James Middleton
COX, JAMES MIDDLETON (1870-), American politician,
was born near Jacksonburg, O., March 31 1870. He was
educated in the common schools, worked in a newspaper office,
for a short time was a country school teacher, and later
became a reporter on the Cincinnati Enquirer. Afterwards he
went to Washington as secretary to Congressman Paul Sorg,
of Ohio. On the latter's retirement he decided to enter again the
newspaper field. In 1898 he purchased the Dayton News and
five years later the Springfield Press-Republic, subsequently
named the Daily News, these papers being known thereafter as
the Newspaper League of Ohio. From 1909 to 1913 he was a
member of Congress from the Dayton district and served on the
Appropriations Committee. He was an active opponent of the
Payne-Aldrich tariff measure. He was elected governor of Ohio
for the term 1913-15, was defeated for the following term,
then was reëlected twice in succession (1917-21). At the
time of his third election he was the only Democrat to be returned
to state office, even the lieutenant-governor being Republican,
and two-thirds of the congressional districts went Republican.
In 1916 he was delegate-at-large to the Democratic National
Convention. His career as governor was notable. Among the
many reforms introduced under his guidance were a workmen's
compensation law; a survey of occupational diseases with
recommendations for health insurance; the elimination of the sweatshop;
the establishment of a state industrial commission for
dealing with questions of labour and capital; the provision of a
minimum wage and a nine-hour day for women; mothers'
pensions; ratification of the proposed woman suffrage amendment;
the budget system for state expenditures; pure food laws;
a “blue sky” law for protecting investors from unscrupulous
promoters; the initiative and referendum; a Corrupt Practices
Act; the indeterminate sentence for convicts; improvement of
rural schools; the establishment of a state tuberculosis hospital
and the extension of safety devices on railways and in mines.
Many of these reforms were followed as models by other states.
He was energetic in suppressing violence in connexion with strikes,
his general policy being to hold local authorities responsible
without recourse to the state militia. In at least one case he
removed a mayor who had called for state troops. He favoured
abolishing the Federal inheritance tax, believing that the state
alone should have jurisdiction over inheritances. He opposed
the excess profits tax but maintained that a small tax should be
laid “on the volume of business of a going concern.” He was a
strong supporter of President Wilson's policies and especially
of the League of Nations. He was often charged with opposing
prohibition but repeatedly declared that all laws must be
enforced. At the Democratic National Convention in 1920 he had
from the beginning strong support for the presidential nomination.
On the first ballot he stood third (with 134 votes); on the
seventh ballot second (with 295½ votes); on the twelfth ballot
first (with 404 votes); on the thirtieth ballot he dropped to
second (with 400½ votes); on the thirty-ninth vote he again
stood first (with 468½ votes); and continued to gain thereafter
until he was nominated on the forty-fourth ballot. Following
his nomination he “stumped” the country, making the League
of Nations the prominent issue but was overwhelmingly defeated
by Warren G. Harding, the Republican nominee. The electoral
vote was 404 for Harding and 127 for Cox. The popular vote
was 16,138,900 for Harding and 9,142,000 for Cox. The vote in
Ohio, the home state of both candidates, was 1,182,000 for
Harding and 780,000 for Cox. The magnitude of the defeat,
unprecedented in American history, was generally considered
as due in part to the unwarranted character of the charges made
by Cox himself during the campaign, but chiefly to a widespread
revolt against the recent course of President Wilson, whose
policies Cox upheld.