James M. Cox

Running on a ticket with future President Franklin D. Roosevelt as his vice presidential running mate, Cox suffered the worst popular vote defeat (a 26.17% margin) since the unopposed re-election of James Monroe in 1820.

James Middleton Cox (born James Monroe Cox; March 31, 1870 – July 15, 1957) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 46th and 48th governor of Ohio, and a two-term U.S. Representative from Ohio.

After his parents divorced, he moved with his mother in 1886 to Middletown, where he started a journalistic apprenticeship at the Middletown Weekly Signal published by John Q. Baker.

In 1892 Cox received a job at the Cincinnati Enquirer as a copy reader on the telegraph desk, and later started to report on spot news including the railroad news.

In 1894, Cox became an assistant to Middletown businessman Paul J. Sorg who was elected to U.S. Congress, and spent three formative years in Washington, D.C. Sorg helped Cox to acquire the struggling Dayton Evening News, and Cox, after renaming it into the Dayton 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 on Associated 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 and McClure's Saturday magazine supplement inserts, among others.

Cox started a crusade against Dayton's Republican boss, Joseph E. Lowes, who used his political clout to profit from government deals.

He also confronted John H. Patterson, president of Dayton's National Cash Register Co., revealing facts of antitrust violations and bribery.

In 1905, foretelling his future media conglomerate, Cox acquired the Springfield Press-Republic published in Springfield, Ohio, and renamed it, the Springfield Daily News.

In 1908, he ran for Congress as a Democrat and was elected.

He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1909 to 1913 before being elected as Governor of Ohio.

As governor, Cox introduced a series of progressive reforms and supported Woodrow Wilson's handling of World War I and its aftermath.

Cox represented Ohio in the United States House of Representatives for two terms from 1909 to 1913, and resigned after winning election as Governor of Ohio.

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; he lost reelection in 1914, but won the 1916 and 1918 elections, and served from 1917 to 1921.

He presided over a wide range of measures such as laying the foundation of Ohio's unified highway system, creating a no fault workers' compensation system and restricting child labor.

He introduced direct primaries and municipal home rule, started educational and prison reforms, and streamlined the budget and tax processes.

During World War I, Cox encouraged voluntary cooperation between business, labor, and government bodies.

In 1918, he welcomed constitutional amendments for Prohibition and women's suffrage.

Cox supported the internationalist policies of Woodrow Wilson and reluctantly supported U.S. entry into the League of Nations.

In 1919, shortly after the Great War ended, Governor Cox backed the Ake Law, introduced by H. Ross Ake, which banned the German 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."

Legislation restricting the teaching of foreign languages was declared unconstitutional in Meyer v. Nebraska.

As the Democratic nominee for President of the United States at the 1920 presidential election, he lost in a landslide to fellow Ohioan Warren G. Harding.

His running mate was future president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

He founded the chain of newspapers that continues today as Cox Enterprises, a media conglomerate.

Born and raised in Ohio, Cox began his career as a newspaper copy reader before becoming an assistant to Congressman Paul J. Sorg.

As owner of the Dayton Daily News, Cox introduced several innovations and crusaded against the local Republican Party boss.

He was chosen as the Democratic nominee for president on the forty-fourth ballot of the 1920 Democratic National Convention.

Cox retired from public office after the 1920 presidential election to focus on his media conglomerate, which expanded into several cities.

A capable and well-liked progressive reformer, Cox was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party at the 1920 Democratic convention in San Francisco defeating A. Mitchell Palmer and William Gibbs McAdoo on the 44th ballot.

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."

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 the Volstead Act.

Cox spoke in support of Americanization to increase the immigrant population's loyalty to the United States.

He remained active in politics, supporting Roosevelt's campaigns and attending the 1933 London Economic Conference.

Cox was born on a farm near the tiny Butler County, Ohio, village of Jacksonburg, the youngest son of Gilbert Cox and Eliza (née Andrew); he had six siblings.

Cox was named James Monroe Cox at birth; he was later known as James Middleton Cox, possibly because he spent part of his early years in Middletown, Ohio.

Cox was educated in a one-room school until the age sixteen.

By 1939, his media empire extended from Dayton to Miami.