It might be contended that Robert Rutherford McCormick was one of the few men in America--perhaps the only man--in whom the two divergent strains of American newspaperdom were combined. These two strains--personal journalism, as represented in the great editors of earlier days, and hardheaded manufacturing and publishing with a sharp eye to profits--were both so strong in his character as to make him a unique and formidable force in his time. As one commentator put it, "He not only knows what will sell and how to manage his big business shrewdly; he also knows what he believes and is willing to go to hell for it."

McCormick, also known as "the Colonel," was editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune for forty-five years. Although he earned the lasting hatred of many people for his isolationism and his staunch rejection of President Roosevelt and the New Deal, many of...