Maurice Thatcher

Maurice Thatcher

Maurice Hudson Thatcher (born August 15, 1870 in Chicago , Illinois , †  January 6, 1973 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician . Between 1923 and 1933 he represented the state of Kentucky in the US House of Representatives . He was also governor of the Panama Canal Zone from 1910 to 1913 .

Career

In 1874, Maurice Thatcher and his family moved to Butler County , Kentucky, where they settled near the town of Morgantown . There he attended private and public schools. He later worked in agriculture and in the newspaper business. He also held several local offices in the district administration. In 1892 he became a clerk at the Butler County District Court. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1898, he began to work in this profession in Frankfort .

Between 1898 and 1900, Thatcher was the Assistant Attorney General of Kentucky. In 1900 he moved to Louisville . From 1901 to 1906, Thatcher served as the assistant federal attorney for western Kentucky. He then worked between 1908 and 1910 as a state inspector and examiner for the state government of Kentucky. He also became a member of the Panama Canal Commission . From 1910 to 1913 he was military governor of the Canal Zone. In the following years he practiced again as a lawyer in Louisville. From 1917 to 1919, during World War I , he was a member of the Louisville City Security Commission. He then served as Department Counsel for the Kentucky state government from 1919 to 1923 .

Thatcher was a member of the Republican Party . In the 1922 congressional elections he was elected to the United States House of Representatives in Washington in the fifth constituency of Kentucky, where he succeeded Charles F. Ogden on March 4, 1923 . After four re-elections, he was able to complete five legislative terms in Congress by March 4, 1933 . Since 1929, the work of the Congress was also shaped by the Great Depression. Shortly before the end of his last term, the 20th Amendment was ratified, bringing forward the beginning of the legislative periods of the Congress and the terms of office of the President from March to January.

In 1932, Thatcher waived another candidacy for the US House of Representatives in favor of a failed application for the US Senate . After that he worked as a lawyer again. Between 1939 and 1969, he was Vice President and Advisor to the Gorgas Memorial Institute of Tropical and Preventative Medicine ; then he became honorary president of this institute. Maurice Thatcher died in Washington on January 6, 1973 at the age of 102. He was buried in Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky.

Web links

Commons : Maurice H. Thatcher  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Maurice Thatcher in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Maurice Thatcher in the database of Find a Grave (English)