Arthur Pue Gorman

Arthur Pue Gorman

Arthur Pue Gorman (* 11. March 1839 in Woodstock , Howard County , Maryland , †  4. June 1906 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . There Gorman was one of the Bourbon Democrats , a conservative-liberal wing that campaigned for the interests of banks, companies and railroad companies.

Life

Arthur Gorman, from a suburb of Baltimore , had his first contact with politics as a teenager in 1852 when he got the job of a page in the US House of Representatives through a program for high school eleventh graders . The pages are responsible for numerous tasks; Among other things, they long served as messengers between the individual parliament buildings and the Capitol . Through the influence of Stephen A. Douglas , US Senator from Illinois , Gorman rose within the hierarchy to the postmaster of the Senate and was at times also Douglas' private secretary.

After serving in the Senate in September 1866, Gorman received an appointment as a collector of internal revenue for the fifth district of Maryland. He later became director and president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company .

politics

In 1869 Arthur Pue Gorman was elected to the Maryland House of Representatives, where he remained until 1875. Among other things, he acted as speaker of the chamber during this time , succeeding Ferdinand Claiborne Latrobe . In 1875 he moved to the Maryland Senate for another six years .

Finally, in 1880, he was elected to the United States Senate. In Washington, Gorman quickly rose to become one of the leading figures in the Bourbon Democrats . From 1890 to 1898 he was democratic group chairman ( caucus chairman ); he also served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Printing . He played a crucial role in customs legislation; with the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act , a law was even named after him and the MP William L. Wilson from West Virginia , in which case he also prevailed against the plans of US President Grover Cleveland .

In 1886 and 1892 Gorman was sustained for an additional six years; In 1898, however, he was defeated by the Republican Louis E. McComas . The return to the Senate was a quick one: in 1902 Gorman won Maryland's second Senate seat. After taking office in March 1903, he was re-elected as caucus chairman , but died on June 4, 1906 in Washington.

Web links

• Arthur Pue Gorman in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)