George Dexter Robinson (born George Washington Robinson; January 20, 1834 – February 22, 1896) was an American lawyer and

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

politician from

Chicopee, Massachusetts Chicopee ( ) is a city located on the Connecticut River in Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 55,560, making it the second-largest city in Western Massachusetts after Springfield. C ...

. After serving in the

Massachusetts General Court The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...

and

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

, Robinson served three one-year terms as

Governor of Massachusetts The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces. Massachusetts ...

, notably defeating

Benjamin Franklin Butler Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best ...

in the 1883 election. After leaving office, his most famous legal client was

Lizzie Borden Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was an American woman tried and acquitted of the August 4, 1892 axe murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. No one else was charged in the murders, and despite ost ...

, notoriously accused of killing her father and stepmother. She was acquitted in a highly sensationalized trial. Born in Lexington and educated at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Robinson taught high school before becoming a lawyer. He gained a reputation as a fine Parliamentarian while serving in Congress. As governor, he promoted the passage of civil service reform legislation and labor-friendly wage and dispute-resolution laws. He aligned with the state's industrial leaders against public health advocates, and banned discrimination in the issuance of life insurance policies. As a lawyer, he gained notoriety for Borden's defense, and was criticized for defending fraudulent fraternal benefit societies.

Early years

George Washington Robinson was born in

Lexington, Massachusetts Lexington is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is 10 miles (16 km) from Downtown Boston. The population was 34,454 as of the 2020 census. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans, and was firs ...

to Charles and Mary (Davis) Robinson. The son of farmers, he attended Lexington Academy and

Hopkins Classical School The Hopkins Classical School (1839–1854) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a secondary school located near the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Dana Street. It received financial support from the bequest of Edward Hopkins. Staff included John Be ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, and graduated from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1856.Gleason, p. 231 While at Harvard he was admitted to the

Zeta Psi Zeta Psi () is a collegiate fraternity. It was founded in June 1, 1847 at New York University. The organization now comprises fifty-three active chapters and thirty-four inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand members, and is a f ...

fraternity. In 1855, he had his name legally changed to "George Dexter Robinson", supposedly because someone else in Lexington had a similar name to his.Gleason, p. 232 Although he had intended to study medicine, Robinson entered the teaching profession, serving as the principal of Chicopee High School in

from 1856 to 1865. During this time, he engaged in some study of medicine. In 1865, he engaged in the study of law with his brother, and was admitted to the bar in 1866, opening a practice in Chicopee. Robinson entered politics in 1873, winning election to the

Massachusetts House of Representatives The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from 14 counties each divided into single-member ...

as a

. He was then elected to the

Massachusetts Senate The Massachusetts Senate is the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court, the bicameral state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Senate comprises 40 elected members from 40 single-member senatorial districts in the ...

in 1875, in each case representing Chicopee. He served on judiciary committees in both chambers, as well as a committee on constitutional amendments in the Senate. Robinson was one of a small number of legislators who refused free travel passes offered by the railroads. In 1876, Robinson was elected to the

, where he served most of four terms. He gained a reputation in the chamber as an experienced Parliamentarian and debater. He sat on a number of committees, including the

House Judiciary Committee The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, a ...

, and was considered a "doer" who moved the business of the body forward.

Governor

While serving in Congress, Robinson was nominated to run for

in 1883, against the colorful incumbent Democrat

Benjamin Butler Benjamin Franklin Butler (November 5, 1818 – January 11, 1893) was an American major general of the Union Army, politician, lawyer, and businessman from Massachusetts. Born in New Hampshire and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, Butler is best ...

. He ran on a platform of civil service reform (seeking to deal with issues of patronage), and defeated Butler by 10,000 votes. Robinson served three terms, winning by wider margins against other opponents. He was generally regarded as a fiscal conservative. During his tenure, legislation was enacted banning discrimination in the issuance of

life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

policies. He proposed successful legislation to extend free public education to every student, and required that textbooks be provided to each student free of charge. He also signed legislation requiring that corporations pay workers weekly, and established the state's first Board of Arbitration, which resolved disputes between workers and employers.Rundell, p. 655 A civil service reform bill, at the time the strictest in the nation, passed in 1884. It required even laborers hired by state and municipal governments to have minimal certification from a civil service commission established for the purpose. This effectively reduced certain types of patronage dispensed by elected officials, and may have been a Republican move to curtail the growing power of predominantly Democratic Irish-American urban party bosses. An attempt to weaken the civil service reform, by exempting veterans from its requirements, was vetoed by Robinson in 1886. One controversy that Robinson inherited from the Butler administration concerned the state's board of health, charity and lunacy. This board had been created by merging several previously independent boards, and Butler had appointed as its chairman an activist concerned with industrial pollution. Butler had made this appointment following criticism that its public health mission had been diluted by the merger. The state's textile and manufacturing interests, hostile to the board's calls for more significant pollution control legislation, prevailed on Robinson to replace the chairman with a more business-friendly choice. A petition campaign by activists followed, prompting Robinson to separate the public health functions into a separate board. Robinson refused to run for reelection in 1886, and resumed the practice of law in

Springfield Springfield may refer to: * Springfield (toponym), the place name in general Places and locations Australia * Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast) * Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council) * Springfield, Queenslan ...

. He refused an offer from

Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...

of a seat on the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

in 1887, and a seat on the

Cherokee Commission The Cherokee Commission, was a three-person bi-partisan body created by President Benjamin Harrison to operate under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, as empowered by Section 14 of the Indian Appropriations Act of March 2, 1889. Sec ...

from

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...

in 1889. He was elected a member of the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

in 1891.

Later legal work

In 1892, Robinson took on his most famous client,

. Borden stood accused of the murder of her father and stepmother, and had been compelled to give testimony in the coroner's

inquest An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coro ...

into their deaths. Robinson's addition to her defense team may have been due to the fact that he had, while governor, appointed the presiding judge to the bench. He was able to get Borden's inconsistent inquest testimony excluded from the criminal trial (on the grounds that she had not been represented in those hearings), and was also able to cast significant doubt on the reliability of several witnesses to the events surrounding the murders. Borden was ultimately acquitted of the criminal charges, and Robinson was a highly visible presence in the

media circus Media circus is a colloquial metaphor, or idiom, describing a news event for which the level of media coverage—measured by such factors as the number of reporters at the scene and the amount of material broadcast or published—is perceived to ...

that attended the trial. Another well-known client that Robinson took on was the Order of the Iron Hall, nominally a

fraternal benefit society A benefit society, fraternal benefit society, fraternal benefit order, friendly society, or mutual aid society is a society, an organization or a voluntary association formed to provide mutual aid, benefit, for instance insurance for relief fr ...

founded in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

in 1881.Dunn, p. 362Bennett, p. 518 The organization was essentially a fraudulent investment vehicle that was a combination of a

tontine A tontine () is an investment linked to a living person which provides an income for as long as that person is alive. Such schemes originated as plans for governments to raise capital in the 17th century and became relatively widespread in the 18 ...

(where increased benefits accrue to survivors as investors die) and a

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

(where deposits of later investors are used to pay off earlier ones). Tontines were illegal under Massachusetts insurance regulations, and the Iron Hall was threatened in 1887 with an injunction to stop doing business in the state. It hired Robinson to appear before the legislature, and he was able to secure legislative alteration to the statute governing fraternal societies that would permit continued operation. Iron Hall went into receivership in 1892, and the state insurance commissioner criticized Robinson for his defense of the organization in his reports, which he charged exacerbated the financial losses incurred by Iron Hall and similar organizations. (The Iron Hall was one of the more high-profile of a large number of similar investment schemes, in which the operators of the organization also frequently siphoned funds away in the guise of salaries and expenses.) Robinson remained a prominent lawyer until his death in Chicopee; he is buried in Chicopee's Fairview Cemetery. His law firm remains in business, and is now known as Robinson Donovan P.C.

Family

Robinson was married twice. The first marriage was in 1859 to Hannah Stevens, with whom he had one child before her death in 1864. He then married Susan Simonds in 1867, with whom he also had one child. Robinson was active in the Unitarian Church.Rundell, p. 654

Notes

Sources

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External links

*
Robinson Donovan, P.C.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, George Dexter 1834 births 1896 deaths People from Lexington, Massachusetts Republican Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Republican Party Massachusetts state senators Republican Party governors of Massachusetts Harvard College alumni People from Chicopee, Massachusetts Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts 19th-century American politicians Civil service reform in the United States Members of the American Antiquarian Society