American historian and politician (1862?1927)
Albert Beveridge
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Beveridge, 1922
|
|
|
In office
March 4, 1899 ? March 3, 1911
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Preceded by
| David Turpie
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Succeeded by
| John W. Kern
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Born
| Albert Jeremiah Beveridge
(
1862-10-06
)
October 6, 1862
Highland County, Ohio
, U.S.
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Died
| April 27, 1927
(1927-04-27)
(aged 64)
Indianapolis
,
Indiana
, U.S.
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Political party
| Republican
(before 1912, 1920?1927)
Progressive
(1912?1920)
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Spouses
|
Katherine Langsdale
(
m.
1887; died 1900)
|
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Education
| Indiana Asbury University
(
PhB
)
|
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Awards
| Pulitzer Prize
(1920)
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Signature
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Albert Jeremiah Beveridge
(October 6, 1862 ? April 27, 1927) was an American
historian
and
United States Senator
from
Indiana
. He was an intellectual leader of the
Progressive Era
and a biographer of Chief Justice
John Marshall
and President
Abraham Lincoln
.
Early years
[
edit
]
Beveridge was born on October 6, 1862, in
Highland County, Ohio
, near
Sugar Tree Ridge
; his parents moved to Indiana soon after his birth. Both of his parents, Thomas H. and Frances Parkinson, were of
English
descent. His childhood was one of hard work and labor. Beveridge graduated from
Sullivan Township High School
in 1881.
[1]
Securing an education with difficulty, he eventually became a law clerk in Indianapolis. In 1887, he was admitted to the Indiana bar, practiced law in Indianapolis
[2]
and married Katherine Langsdale. After Katherine's death in 1900, Beveridge married
Catherine Eddy
in 1907.
[3]
Beveridge graduated from Indiana Asbury University (now
DePauw University
) in 1885, with a
Ph.B.
degree. He was a member of
Delta Kappa Epsilon
fraternity. He was known as a compelling
orator
, delivering speeches supporting territorial expansion by the US and increasing the power of the
federal government
.
Beveridge was a
Freemason
and a member of
Oriental Lodge No. 500
in Indianapolis.
[4]
Political career
[
edit
]
Beveridge entered politics in 1884 by speaking on behalf of presidential candidate
James G. Blaine
and was prominent in later campaigns, particularly in 1896, when his speeches attracted general attention.
[2]
In 1899, Beveridge was appointed to the U.S. Senate as a
Republican
and served until 1911.
[5]
He supported
Theodore Roosevelt
's progressive views and was the keynote speaker at the new
Progressive Party
convention which nominated Roosevelt for
U.S. President
in 1912.
Beveridge is known as one of the most prominent American
imperialists
. He supported the annexation of the
Philippines
and, along with Republican leader
Henry Cabot Lodge
, campaigned for the construction of a new navy. In 1901, Beveridge became chair of the Senate Committee on Territories, which allowed him to support statehood for Oklahoma. However, he blocked statehood for New Mexico and Arizona because he deemed the territories too sparsely occupied by white people. In his opinion, they contained too many Hispanics and Native Americans, whom he described as intellectually incapable of understanding the concept of self-governance.
[6]
He celebrated the "white man's burden" as a noble mission, part of God's plan to bring civilization to the entire world: "It is racial.... He has marked the American people as His chosen nation...."
[7]
After Beveridge's election in 1905 to a second term, he became identified with the reform-minded faction of the Republican Party. He championed national child labor legislation,
[8]
broke with President
William Howard Taft
over the
Payne?Aldrich Tariff
, and sponsored the
Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906
, adopted in the wake of the publication of
Upton Sinclair
's
The Jungle
. Furthermore, Beveridge joined insurgents in supporting postal savings bank legislation and railroad regulations with the
Mann?Elkins Act
of 1910.
[9]
During the
1908 Republican Convention
, the vice-presidential nomination was urged upon Beveridge by
Frank Hitchcock
as manager of Taft's campaign, by Senator
Reed Smoot
of Utah, and by the Nebraska delegation, but Beveridge refused.
[10]
He lost his senate seat to
John Worth Kern
when the Democrats took Indiana in the 1910 elections. In 1912, when Roosevelt left the
Republican Party
to found the short-lived
Progressive Party
, Beveridge left with him and ran campaigns as that party's Indiana nominee in the 1912 race for governor and the 1914 race for senator, losing both. When the Progressive Party disintegrated, he returned to the Republicans with his political future in tatters; he eventually ran one more race for Senate in 1922, winning the primary against incumbent
Harry S. New
but losing the general to
Samuel M. Ralston
and would never again hold office.
[11]
Another contribution towards his political downfall was the fact he was a great critic of
Woodrow Wilson
. He encouraged Wilson to take a more interventionist policy with the
Mexican Revolution
but disliked Wilson's
League of Nations
, which Beveridge felt would undermine American independence.
[9]
In the twilight of his life, Beveridge came to repudiate some of the earlier expansion of governmental power that he had championed in his earlier career. In one notable address, delivered before the
Sons of the Revolution
's annual dinner in June 1923, Beveridge decried the growth of the regulatory state and the proliferation of regulatory bodies, bureaus and commissions. "America would be better off as a country and Americans happier and more prosperous as a people," he suggested, "if half of our Government boards, bureaus and commissions were abolished, hundreds of thousands of our Government officials, agents and employees were discharged and two-thirds of our Government regulations, restrictions and inhibitions were removed."
[12]
Historian
[
edit
]
As his political career drew to a close, Beveridge dedicated his time to writing scholarly biographies.
[13]
He was a member and secretary of the
American Historical Association
(AHA). His four-volume biography of John Marshall,
The Life of John Marshall
,
[14]
published in 1916?1919, won Beveridge a
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography
and connected events in
John Marshall
's life with his later rulings on the
U.S. Supreme Court
.
Beveridge spent most of his final years writing a four-volume biography of
Abraham Lincoln
, only half-finished at his death, posthumously published in 1928 as
Abraham Lincoln, 1809?1858
(2 vols.).
[15]
It stripped away the myths and revealed a complex and imperfect politician. In 1939, the AHA established the
Beveridge Award
in his memory through a gift from his widow and from donations from members.
Tolstoy film
[
edit
]
In 1901, a decade before
Leo Tolstoy
died, American travel lecturer
Burton Holmes
visited
Yasnaya Polyana
with Beveridge. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that evidence of his having met with a radical Russian author might hurt his chances of running for the presidency.
[16]
Selected works
[
edit
]
- "The March of the Flag" (1898)
- "In Support of an American Empire" (1900)
Archived
June 24, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine
- "The Russian Advance" (1903)
- The Young Man and the World
(1905)
at
Project Gutenberg
.
- The Life of John Marshall
, in 4 volumes (1919),
Volume I
,
Volume II
Archived
2009-01-31 at the
Wayback Machine
,
Volume III
and
Volume IV
at
Internet Archive
.
- The Meaning of the Times and other Speeches
(Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill
, 1909) at
Open Library
.
- Americans of Today and Tomorrow
(1908)
- Pass Prosperity Around
(1912)
- What is Back of the War?
(Indianaopolis:
Bobbs-Merrill
, 1916) at Internet Archive.
- Beveridge, Albert J. (December 13, 1925).
"Bowers Sustains Reputation, Says Beveridge"
.
Indianapolis Star
. pp. 41?43 (Section 4, pp. 1?3)
Part 2
,
Part 3
.
- Abraham Lincoln 1809?1858,
2 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin) (1928)
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Tilden, Richard Arnold (1930).
"Albert J. Beveridge: Biographer"
.
Indiana Magazine of History
.
26
(2): 77?92.
JSTOR
27786434
. Retrieved
June 22,
2023
.
- ^
a
b
Alexander K. McClure, ed. (1902).
Famous American Statesmen & Orators
. Vol. VI. New York: F. F. Lovell Publishing Company. p. 3.
- ^
Albert J. Beveridge Correspondence and Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library
http://www.in.gov/library/finding-aid/L016_Beveridge_Alfred_J_Correspondence_and_Pape
[
permanent dead link
]
rs.pdf
- ^
Denslow, William R. (1957).
10,000 Famous Freemasons Vol.1
. Harry S. Truman. [Place of publication not identified]: Kessinger Pub. Co.
ISBN
1-4179-7578-4
.
OCLC
63197837
.
- ^
"S. Doc. 58-1 - Fifty-eighth Congress. (Extraordinary session -- beginning November 9, 1903.) Official Congressional Directory for the use of the United States Congress. Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing by A.J. Halford. Special edition. Corrections made to November 5, 1903"
.
GovInfo.gov
. U.S. Government Printing Office. November 9, 1903. p. 27
. Retrieved
July 2,
2023
.
- ^
Gomez, Laura E. (2007).
Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race
.
New York University Press
. pp. 73?78.
ISBN
978-0-8147-3174-1
.
- ^
"
"No Dad at Home:" James Harrison, Colin Cowherd and the Case Against the Black Family"
.
www.newblackmaninexile.net
. Retrieved
February 24,
2018
.
- ^
Braeman, John (1964). "Albert J. Beveridge and the First National Child Labor Bill".
Indiana Magazine of History
(March): 1?36.
- ^
a
b
Briley, Ron. "Beveridge, Albert". Encyclopedia of the United States Congress, Facts On File, 2006, American History, online.infobase.com/HRC/Search/Details/166695?q=albert beveridge.
- ^
Bowers, Claude G.
,
Beveridge and the Progressive Era
,
pp.286-287
(New York,
Literary Guild
, 1932) (retrieved Dec. 25, 2023).
- ^
Braeman, John (Summer 2004).
"Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln"
.
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
.
25
(2).
hdl
:
2027/spo.2629860.0025.203
.
ISSN
1945-7987
. Archived from
the original
on June 13, 2021.
- ^
"Address on the Occasion of the Dinner of the General Society, Sons of the Revolution" June 18, 1923, reprinted in Holdridge Ozro Collins, ed.,
Proceedings of Regular Triennial Meeting, General Society, Sons of the Revolution
1923.
- ^
Richard Arnold Tilden, "Albert J. Beveridge: Biographer."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1930): 77-92
online
.
- ^
Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah (1916).
The Life of John Marshall
. Houghton Mifflin.
- ^
"Abraham Lincoln, 1809?1858 ? Vol. 1 by Albert J. Beveridge, 1928"
. Archived from
the original
on June 11, 2015
. Retrieved
June 10,
2015
.
- ^
Wallace, Irving, 'Everybody's Rover Boy', in
The Sunday Gentleman
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965. p. 117.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Braeman, John.
Albert J. Beveridge: American Nationalist
(1971)
- Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and Statehood for the Southwest 1902-1912."
Arizona and the West
10.4 (1968): 313-342.
online
- Braeman, John. "The Rise of Albert J. Beveridge to the United States Senate."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1957): 355-382.
online
- Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and the First National Child Labor Bill."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1964): 1-36.
online
- Braeman, John. "Albert J. Beveridge and Demythologizing Lincoln."
Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association
25.2 (2004): 1-24.
online
- Bowers, Claude G.
(1932).
Beveridge and the progressive era
. New York:
Literary Guild
.
OCLC
559747386
.
- Carlson, A. Cheree. "Albert J. Beveridge as imperialist and progressive: The means justify the end."
Western Journal of Communication
52.1 (1988): 46-62.
- Coffin, John A. "The Senatorial Career of Albert J. Beveridge."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1928): 139-185.
online
- De La Cruz, Jesse. "Rejection Because of Race: Albert J. Beveridge and Nuevo Mexico's Struggle for Statehood, 1902-1903."
Aztlan
(1976)
online
.
- Levine, Daniel. "The social philosophy of Albert J. Beveridge."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1962): 101-116.
online
- Remy, Charles F. "The election of Beveridge to the Senate."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1940): 123-135.
online
- Sawyer, Logan Everett. "Constitutional Principle, Partisan Calculation, and the Beveridge Child Labor Bill"
Law & History Review
(2013), 31#2, pp 325?353.
- Thompson, John A. "An Imperialist and the First World War: the Case of Albert J. Beveridge."
Journal of American Studies
5.2 (1971): 133-150.
- Tilden, Richard Arnold. "Albert J. Beveridge: Biographer."
Indiana Magazine of History
(1930): 77-92.
online
- Wilson, Clyde N.
Twentieth-Century American Historians
(Gale: 1983,
Dictionary of Literary Biography
, volume 17) pp. 70?73
External links
[
edit
]
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International
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National
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People
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Other
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