Oscar Underwood

Oscar Underwood

Oscar Wilder Underwood (* 6. May 1862 in Louisville , Kentucky ; †  25. January 1929 at Accotink , Virginia ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ), of the state of Alabama in both houses of Congress represented.

Oscar Underwood was the grandson of Joseph R. Underwood , who had served in both houses of Congress for Kentucky. After attending the public schools of his home country, the Rugby School in Louisville and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1884, whereupon he began to practice in Birmingham, Alabama.

His political career began with the election to the House of Representatives of the United States , which he belonged from March 4, 1895 as a representative of the ninth electoral district of Alabama. On June 9, 1896, he had to cede his seat to the Republican Truman H. Aldrich , who had successfully challenged the election of Underwood. The following year, however, he returned to Congress, in which he remained as a member until March 3, 1915. During this time he was, among other things, the first whip of the democratic minority faction after the introduction of this post between 1900 and 1901. From 1911 to 1915 he served as the majority leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives and was during this time also chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means .1913 Woodrow Wilson backed him for the introduction of the Revenue Act of 1913 , also known as the Underwood Act.

In 1915, Underwood moved to the Senate within Congress . There, too, he quickly achieved a leading role and served as a minority leader of the Democrats from 1920 to 1923 . He was confirmed in office in 1921; after a further six years he no longer ran for re-election. Among other things, he was chairman of the Committee on Relations with Cuba ; In 1921 and 1922 he served as the representative of the United States at the international conference on disarmament. In 1928 he took part as a US delegate at the 6th Conference of American States in Havana .

Within his party, Underwood ran in the run-up to the 1912 presidential election for the nomination as vice president ; In 1924 he failed when trying to become a Democratic presidential candidate . As an opponent of Prohibition , he led the wing of his party that was in opposition to the Ku Klux Klan .

After retiring from his political career, Underwood retired at his Woodlawn Mansion in Virginia, where he died in January 1929. He was buried in Birmingham.

Web links

• Oscar Underwood in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Oscar Underwood in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Statistics of Income, 1926 | FRASER | St. Louis Fed. Retrieved October 6, 2017 .