John J. Esch

John J. Esch (1914)

John Jacob Esch (born March 20, 1861 in Norwalk , Monroe County , Wisconsin , †  April 27, 1941 in La Crosse , Wisconsin) was an American politician . Between 1899 and 1921 he represented the state of Wisconsin in the US House of Representatives , after which he was a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission until 1928 .

Career

His father Henry Esch emigrated from Westphalia to America in 1843 at the age of 16 and settled in Milwaukee . His mother Mathilda Menn was born in St. Charles, Missouri and was also of German descent. Due to his poor health and low income, Henry Esch gave up his work as a pastor and opened a small business enterprise.

In 1871 the family moved to Sparta . There John Jacob attended public schools. He then studied until 1882 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison . To finance his law studies, he worked from 1883 to 1887 as a teacher at Sparta High School and Madison High School. After studying law at the University of Wisconsin, he graduated in 1887 with an LL.B. and was admitted to the bar.

At the same time he became involved in military defense from 1883. He organized the Sparta Rifles Company. This was later used as part of the Company 3rd Regiment of the Wisconsin I National Guard .

John J. Esch began working in La Crosse in 1887 as a partner in the law firm Winter, Esch & Winter in his new profession. In La Crosse, too, he organized a National Guard unit with the Gateway City Guards (later Company M, the 3rd Regiment of the Wisconsin National Guard). Between 1894 and 1896 he was Acting Judge Advocate General of the Wisconsin National Guard (National Guard attorney).

Politically, Esch was a member of the Republican Party . In 1894 and 1896 he was a delegate at their regional party conventions in Wisconsin.

In the congressional election of 1898 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in the seventh constituency of Wisconsin , where he succeeded Michael Griffin on March 4, 1899 . After ten re-elections, he was able to complete eleven consecutive terms in Congress by March 3, 1921 . Initially, he was a member of the committees for the military and public properties. The focus here was on the political consequences of the Spanish-American War . From 1905 he also worked on the committee for foreign and domestic trade. From 1907 he concentrated only on this committee. He was chairman of that committee in his last term. In particular, he focused on various bills that should regulate rail traffic in the United States. This began with the Hepburn Act passed in 1906 , which was based on one of the draft legislation (Esch-Townsend Bill). He was also a co-author of the Transportation Act of 1920 ( Esch-Cummins Act ). Other laws that he initiated or introduced were the Esch Car Service Act 1917, the Hours of Service Act 1907, the Accident Reports Act 1910, a supplement to the Boiler Inspection Act 1915 and the Federal Water Power Act 1920.

In the 1920 election he lost the Republican primary against Joseph D. Beck .

On March 11, 1921, President Harding nominated for the vacant seat of Robert W. Woolley on the Interstate Commerce Commission. Since the US Senate made no decision by the end of the special season on March 15, 1921, he was temporarily installed in office by the President on March 21, 1921, and he took his oath of office on March 28, 1921. In contrast to previous practice, this was done in front of a notary in La Crosse. After another nomination, the Senate was confirmed on April 16, 1921.

With the Transportation Act of 1920, the rights of the Interstate Commerce Commission were strengthened and the railroad companies were returned to their owners from the federal administration of the United States Railroad Administration . There were hardly any references for the problems to be solved, so that in many cases new territory had to be broken. For John J. Esch, the difference between drafting a law and its implementation quickly became apparent.

In 1927 Esch was rotating chairman of the ICC. On December 19, 1927, he was nominated for another term by President Coolidge , was temporarily installed in office by the President, but rejected by the Senate on March 16, 1928 after lengthy deliberations. On May 29, 1928 he ended his activity. He was succeeded by Patrick J. Farrell . The reason for the rejection is considered to be the behavior in the Lake Cargo Coal Case. In this case, after a repeated hearing in the Interstate Commerce Commission, he changed his mind. South MPs believed that this was one of the prerequisites for President Coolidge to nominate him again.

From October 1928 he worked again in a law firm (Esch, Kerr, Wolley & Shipe). In June 1938 he retired. John Esch died on April 27, 1941 in La Crosse.

He had been married to Anna Herbst since 1889, with whom he had seven children.

Web links

• John J. Esch in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• John J. Esch in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Clarence Altha Miller: The lives of the Interstate Commerce Commissioners and the Commission's secretaries. Washington, 1946 ( hathitrust.org [accessed July 1, 2019]).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-SENATE 1934, p. 34 , accessed on June 28, 2019 .