DC-Photo A.16
Robert R. McCormick, president of the Sanitary District of Chicago from 1905 to 1910, was elected at age 25 in a landslide that brought a Republican majority to the board of trustees. Bert, as he was known before earning The Colonel moniker in World War I, claimed to be a reformer and tried to run the District as if it was his personal business. (Photo from a newspaper advertisement on April 28, 1907, in the files of The Robert R. McCormick Research Center at Cantigny Park, Wheaton, Illinois)