Date Published:
August 2004

Biographies of Prominent Quebec and Canadian

Historical Figures

John Patrick MacCormac

(1890-1958)

Damien-Claude Bélanger,

Department of History,

McGill University

Journalist and soldier, was born at Ottawa. During the Great War MacCormac served as an artillery officer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was awarded the Military Cross. In 1924 he joined the staff of the New York Times and was their Canadian correspondent from 1933 to 1939. He died while on holiday in Norway. MacCormac authored the widely read and controversial Canada: America's Problem in 1940. The wartime essay argued that Canada's participation in the war made "isolation impossible for the United States." He attended the 1939 Carnegie Endowment conference on Canadian-American relations held at the St. Lawrence University.