Thomas R. Marshall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Thomas Riley Marshall
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| In office March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921 |
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| President | Woodrow Wilson |
| Preceded by | James S. Sherman |
| Succeeded by | Calvin Coolidge |
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27th Governor of Indiana
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| In office January 11, 1909 – January 13, 1913 |
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| Lieutenant | Frank J. Hall |
| Preceded by | Frank Hanly |
| Succeeded by | Samuel M. Ralston |
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| Born | March 14, 1854 North Manchester, Indiana |
| Died | June 1, 1925 (aged 71) Washington, D.C. |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Lois Irene Kimsey Marshall |
| Alma mater | Wabash College |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Religion | Presbyterianism |
| Signature |  |
Thomas Riley Marshall (March 14, 1854—June 1, 1925) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States of America under Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921. His historical role is often discussed in debates about presidential incapacity and the 25th Amendment because of Woodrow Wilson's condition after an incapacitating stroke in 1919.
A prominent lawyer in Indiana and well known for his sense of humor, he gained popularity in the state because of his participation in numerous organizations and because of representation in several high profile legal cases. He was elected to serve as Governor of Indiana where he attempted to have a new controversial progressive state constitution adopted. The Republican minority blocked the attempt in the state courts, resulting in an appeal to the United States Supreme Court which declined to accept the case. His popularity as a governor and Indiana's status as a critical swing state aided him in securing the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination in 1912 and in winning the subsequent general election.
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[edit] Early life
[edit] Family and education
Thomas R. Marshall was born in North Manchester, Indiana on March 14, 1854, the son of Daniel and Martha Patterson Marshall; he was their only child. His father was a country doctor, and his mother suffered from tuberculosis. As a child, the family spent several years moving, first to Illinois, then to Kansas, and later to Missouri as his father attempted different cures to help his mother, and eventually succeeded in curing her disease. Marshall's father was an a unionist and often voiced his opinions. As the American Civil War neared, his life was threatened by Confederate sympathizers on the frontier during the violence of the Bleeding Kansas incidents, causing him to return with his family to Indiana during the autumn of 1860.[1]
Upon settling in Princeton, Indiana, Marshall was enrolled in public school. After two years of elementary school, the family moved again, and he attended high school in Fort Wayne , graduating in 1869. His family was Presbyterian and staunch Democrats. At age fifteen, they enrolled him in the Wabash College, a Presbyterian school in Crawfordsville. There he learned a classical education, but did not take his father’s advice to study medicine or to become a minister, and entered the school without knowing which profession he would take upon graduation.[2]
Marshall joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and participated in literary and debating societies. He secured a position on the staff of the college newspaper and began writing political columns defending Democrat policies. In 1872 he wrote an unfavorable column about a female lecturer at the school. She filed a suit against Marshall demanding $20,000 for libel. Marshall sought the help of future United States President Benjamin Harrison, then a prominent lawyer in the area. Harrison was able to get the suit dropped, charged Marshall no fee, but gave him a lecture on ethics.[3]
Marshall was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during his final year at college. He graduated in June of 1873. As a result of his libel case, Marshall had become increasingly interested in law, and began seeking someone to tutor him. His uncle Woodson Marshall first began to teach him, but soon moved away from the area. Marshall returned to live with his parents, who had moved to Columbia City, were he took up law study again in the office of Walter Olds, a future member of the Indiana Supreme Court. He studied in the office for over a year and was admitted to the bar on April 26, 1875.[3]
[edit] Lawyer
Marshall opened a law practice in Columbia City with William F. McNagny the following year. The functioned well as partners; McNagny would work out their legal arguments and Marshall would argue the cases and work the juries. After trying numerous cases before the circuit court his firm became well-known in the region. In 1880 Marshall ran for public office for the first time. As a Democrat candidate for the prosecuting attorney of his district, he was defeated as most of the district was Republican. Although he lost, he remained active in the party and began delivering speeches around the state, stumping for candidates, and helping to organize party rallies. His involvement gave him greater exposure among the state party and helped to further raise his popularity.[3]
Marshall was involved in many other private organizations. He was active in the Presbyterian Church and taught Sunday school. He served on the county fair board, and contributed to many area charities as he grew wealthy from the income he earned through his law firm. An active Mason, he rose to the grade of the Scottish Rite of the thirty-third degree by 1898. In 1895, Marshall married to Lois Kimsey. The couple were unable to have children, and they adopted an infant son who they named Morrison. The son became ill and died at age thirteen. [4]
Despite his active life, Marshall became an alcoholic which began to cause him trouble in his busy life. When he married, his wife helped him to overcome the problem and he gave up liquor. Afterwards he became active in temperance organizations and delivered several speeches about the dangers of liquor. Although he had stopped drinking liquor, his former alcoholism was later raised during his gubernatorial election campaign.[4]
[edit] Governor
[edit] Campaign
In 1906, Marshall was nominated to run for Congress, but he declined the offer. He did hint to state Democrat party leaders that he would be interested in running for governor in the upcoming 1908 election. He soon gained the support of several key labor unions, and was endorsed by a reporter of the Indianapolis Star. At the state convention, party boss Thomas Taggart attempted to prevent him from winning the nomination because of Marshall's support of prohibition. Taggart wanted the party to nominate Samuel Ralston, but in the voting the prohibitionist and anti-Taggart factions united in support of Marshall, giving him the votes needed to win the nomination for governor.[4]
Marshall's opponent in the election was Republican Congressman James E. Watson and the campaign focused predominantly on temperance and prohibition. The Republican controlled state government passed a local-option law allowing counties to ban the sale of liquor during the campaign. The Democrats proposed that the local option be made available at the city and town level, rather than county level. This drew the support of the anti-prohibition men in the state, while retaining their own prohibition supporters. The Republican party was in the process of splitting along progressive and conservative lines, and that proved to be the deciding factor in the election, giving Marshall a narrow victory.[5]
[edit] Progressive agenda
Marshall was inaugurated to serve as Governor of Indiana on January 11, 1909. Marshall tried to avoid becoming directly involved in the state's patronage system by granting offices to the different factions of the party and appointing very few of his own choices. He allowed Taggart pick the candidates, and he would sign off on their appointment. Marshall was an advocate of making United States Senators elected by popular election. The constitutional amendment to allow the change was ratified by the Indiana General Assembly during his term. He also overhauled the state auditing agencies and claimed to have saved the government millions of dollars.[6] He was a strong opponent of Indiana's recently-passed eugenics and sterilization laws, ordering state institutions not to follow them. He was one of the earliest and most prominent opponents of such laws, and he carried his opposition into the Vice-Presidency. His governorship is also noted as the first in which no state executions took place in Indiana, due to his opposition to capital punishment and his pardoning and commuting sentences of people condemned to execution.[7]
During his term, Marshall focused primarily on advancing the progressive agenda. He successfully advocated the passage of a child labor law and some anti-corruption legislation, but was unsuccessful in passing most of his progressive platform through the state legislature or in raising a convention to rewrite the state constitution to give the government wider powers in regulating businesses. He regularly attacked corporations and used the recently created anti-trust laws to try and break several up. Rewriting the state constitution was his greatest goal during his term. He and close friend Jacob Piatt Dunn wrote a new constitution that granted the state a large increase in regulatory powers, set minimum wage standards, granted constitutional protections to unions, and other items that were part of the Eugene V. Debb's socialist platform.[8] The state government was also to be partially reorganized to allow for direct-democracy initiatives and referendums to be held. He presented the proposed document to the General Assembly in 1911 and recommended they submit it to voters in the next election for acceptance. The Democrat controlled assembly agreed to the request and put the measure on the ballot.[8]
Republicans attacked the proposed constitution, and were infuriated that the Democrats were attempting to pass a new constitution without calling a constitutional convention. They took the issue to court and an injunction was placed by a circuit court removing the constitution from the 1912 ballot. The Indiana Supreme Court upheld the decision in a judgment where it stated that the Constitution of Indiana could not be replaced in total without the calling of a constitutional convention. Marshall was angry with the decision and attacked the court claiming it overstepped its constitutional authority. He appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court, but left office in January 1913 while the review was still pending. The court declined to accept the case later that year, stating the issue was within the sole jurisdiction of the state courts. Subsequent historians have noted the method for adopting the constitution and the document itself was "hopelessly flawed", and would have likely had large parts ruled unconstitutional by the federal courts if it had passed. The opponents believed that the direct-democracy portions were a violation of the United States Constitution that required states to operate republican forms of government.[9]
[edit] Vice Presidency
[edit] First term
Although he was not in attendance at the 1912 Democratic national convention in Baltimore, Marshall's name was put forward as Indiana's choice for President. For a time it looked as if Marshall might actually end up as a compromise nominee, but ultimately William Jennings Bryan agreed to endorse Woodrow Wilson; Indiana's delegates successfully lobbied to have Marshall named the vice presidential candidate. Indiana was at that time an important swing state , and Wilson hoped that Marhsall’s popularity would help him carry Indiana in the general election. Initially, Marshall turned down the nomination, assuming the job would be boring given its limited role in national affairs, but accepted after assurances from Wilson that he would be given plenty to do. Finally accepting the nomination, he traveled across the United States delivering speeches on behalf of the ticket. The Wilson-Marshall ticket easily won the 1912 election.[10]
Marshall was not particularly fond of Wilson, as Wilson was considerably more progressive than Marshall. Though Wilson invited Marshall to cabinet meetings, Marshall's ideas were rarely considered for implementation. In 1913 Wilson took the then unheard-of step of meeting personally with members of the Senate in the Capitol building. Before this, Presidents had made a habit of using the Vice President (who serves as President of the Senate) as a go-between with the Senate; Wilson took advantage of the opportunity to show that he had no intention of trusting Marshall with delicate business. Since that time, presidents have rarely relied on their vice presidents in dealing with the Senate until the term of President George W. Bush .[11]
As Marshall made little news and was somewhat viewed as a comic figure in Washington, a number of Democratic party leaders wanted him removed from the 1916 reelection ticket. Wilson, after deliberating, ultimately decided that it would demonstrate party unity if he kept Marshall on; thus in 1916 Marshall became the first Vice President re-elected since John C. Calhoun in 1828, and Wilson and Marshall became the first President and Vice President team to be re-elected since Monroe and Tompkins in 1820. Marshall served as Vice President until 1921, and he remains the last state governor to serve two full terms as Vice President. [10]
[edit] Second term
During his second term, the United States enter World War I. Wilson sent Marshall out on the road, speaking across the country to encourage Americans to buy war bonds and support the war effort. This was a job to which Marshall was well suited; he had been earning extra money as a public speaker while Vice President, and gladly accepted the new responsibility. As the war neared its end, Marshall became the first Vice President to conduct cabinet meetings; Wilson left him with this responsibility while traveling in Europe to sign the Versailles treaty and gather support for his League of Nations idea.[10]
President Wilson experienced a mild stroke in September 1919. On October 2, he was struck by a much more severe stroke that left him partially paralyzed and almost certainly incapacitated.[10] Though Marshall was advised that the President had suffered an infirmity and despite the requests of many to do so, Marshall did assume Wilson’s duties and become Acting President of the United States. The process for declaring a President incapacitated was at that time unclear, and Marshall was fearful of the precedent that might be set if forcibly removed the President. He wanted instead for the President to voluntarily allow the powers to devolve to the Vice President. While Marshall performed ceremonial functions for the remainder of Wilson's term, First Lady Edith Wilson performed most of the routine duties and details of government. Marshall did not have opportunity to meet with Wilson to ascertain his true condition until his final day in office. It remains uncertain who was making the decisions in the executive branch during the period of Wilson’s incapacity but was likely the first lady or members of the cabinet. [12]
[edit] Death and legacy
Marshall opted not to seek the presidential nomination in 1920. Instead, he endorsed the Democratic Party nominated James M. Cox as president and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as vice president; the Republican ticket of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge won at the election that year. [12] Marshall returned to Indianapolis after his term as Vice President and resumed his law practice. He also wrote a number of books on the law as well as his Recollections, a memoir. From 1922 and through 1923 he served as chair of the Federal Coal Commission.
Marshall died of a heart attack on a visit to Washington, D.C. on June 1,1925. His remains were returned to Indianapolis were he lay in state for two days; his bier was attended by thousands. His funeral service was held June 9, and he was interred in Crown Hill Cemetery, next to the grave of his adopted son Morrison. [12]
Marshall was known for having a quick wit and his good humor. One of his favorite jokes was about a woman with two sons, one of whom ran away and went to sea and one of whom was elected Vice President of the United States. Neither was ever heard of again. Upon his election as vice president, Marshall sent President-elect Woodrow Wilson a book, inscribed "From your only Vice." [13] He was known to greet citizens walking by his office on the White House tour by asking them “If you look on me as a wild animal, be kind enough to throw peanuts at me.” Upon hearing of his nomination as Vice President, Marshall quipped that he was not surprised, as "Indiana is the mother of Vice Presidents, home of more second-class men than any other state."[13]
Marshall is also remembered for a phrase he introduced to the American lexicon. During a Senate debate in 1917 as one Senator catalogued a long list of what he felt the country needed, Marshall quipped, "What this country needs is more of this; what this country needs is more of that." He then leaned over to one of his clerks and said, "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar."[14]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Notes
- ^ Gugin. p. 232
- ^ Gugin, p.233
- ^ a b c Gugin, p. 234
- ^ a b c Gugin, p. 235
- ^ Gugin, p. 236
- ^ Gugin, p. 237
- ^ "Indiana's Five". Dan Quayle Musem. http://www.quaylemuseum.org/Vice_Presidency/Indiana_Five.htm. Retrieved on 2009-07-09.
- ^ a b Gugin, p. 238
- ^ Gugin, p. 239
- ^ a b c d Gugin, p. 240
- ^ Pershing, Ben (Dec. 14, 2005). "Cheney Still a Player: On Hill, His Role Is Undiminished". http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_63/news/11565-1.html. Retrieved on 2009-07-09.
- ^ a b c Gugin, p. 241
- ^ a b Boller, p. 198
- ^ Keyes, p. 30
Bibliography
- Bennett, David J.He Almost Changed the World: The Life And Times Of Thomas Riley Marshall, Freeman & Costello, ISBN 978-1425965624
- Bodenhamer, David J (1994). The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253312221.
- Boller, Paul F. Jr. (2004). Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195167163.
- Gray, Ralph D (1994). Indiana History: A Book of Readings. Indiana University Press. ISBN 025332629X.
- Gugin, Linda C. & St. Clair, James E, ed (2006). The Governors of Indiana. Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 0871951967.
- Keyes, Ralph (2006). The quote verifier: who said what, where, and when. Macmillian.
Further reading
- Marshall, Thomas R. (1925). Recollections. Boobs-Merrill.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas R. Marshall |
- "Thomas Riley Marshall.com". http://www.thomasrileymarshall.com. Retrieved on 2009-07-09.
- Marshall, Thomas Riley. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000164. Retrieved on 2009-07-09.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by J. Frank Hanly |
Governor of Indiana 1909-1913 |
Succeeded by Samuel M. Ralston |
| Vacant
Title last held by
James S. Sherman |
Vice President of the United States March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1921 |
Succeeded by Calvin Coolidge |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by John W. Kern |
Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate 1912 (won), 1916 (won) |
Succeeded by Franklin D. Roosevelt |
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