James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. (August 12, 1877June 21, 1952) was an American politician, a
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 ...
from
New York. He was the son of
New York State Comptroller
The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State Comptroller is the highest-paid state auditor or ...
James Wolcott Wadsworth
James Wolcott Wadsworth (October 12, 1846 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – December 24, 1926 in Washington, D.C.) was an American farmer, soldier and statesman.
Early life
He was the son of Civil War General James Samuel Wadsworth (1 ...
, and the grandson of
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
General
James S. Wadsworth
James Samuel Wadsworth (October 30, 1807 – May 8, 1864) was a philanthropist, politician, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was mortally wounded in battle during the Battle of the Wilderness of 1864.
Early years
Wadswor ...
.
Early life
Wadsworth was born in
Geneseo, New York
Geneseo is a town in Livingston County in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. It is at the south end of the five-county Rochester Metropolitan Area. The population of the town was 10,483 at the 2010 census.
The English name ...
on August 12, 1877. He was the son of
New York State Comptroller
The New York State Comptroller is an elected constitutional officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the New York state government's Department of Audit and Control. The New York State Comptroller is the highest-paid state auditor or ...
James Wolcott Wadsworth
James Wolcott Wadsworth (October 12, 1846 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – December 24, 1926 in Washington, D.C.) was an American farmer, soldier and statesman.
Early life
He was the son of Civil War General James Samuel Wadsworth (1 ...
(1846–1926) and Louisa (née Travers) Wadsworth (1848–1931).
His paternal grandparents were
Union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
General
James S. Wadsworth
James Samuel Wadsworth (October 30, 1807 – May 8, 1864) was a philanthropist, politician, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was mortally wounded in battle during the Battle of the Wilderness of 1864.
Early years
Wadswor ...
and Mary Craig (née Wharton) Wadsworth (1814–1874). His grandfather built a 13,000 square-foot house in Geneseo in 1835.
Wadsworth attended
St. Mark's School, then graduated from
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...
in 1898, where he was a member of
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...
.
Career
After Yale, he served as a private in the Volunteer Army in the
Puerto Rican Campaign during the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (cloc ...
. Upon leaving the Army, he entered the livestock and farming business, first in New York and then
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
.
He became active early in Republican politics. He was a member of the
New York State Assembly (Livingston Co.) in
1905
As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia ( Shostakovich's 11th Symphony ...
,
1906
Events
January–February
* January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...
,
1907
Events
January
* January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000.
February
* February 11 – The French warship ''Jean Bart'' sinks off the coast of Morocco ...
,
1908
Events
January
* January 1 – The British ''Nimrod'' Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton sets sail from New Zealand on the ''Nimrod'' for Antarctica.
* January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean, and is the 4 ...
,
1909
Events
January–February
* January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes.
* January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama.
* Jan ...
and
1910
Events
January
* January 13 – The first public radio broadcast takes place; live performances of the operas '' Cavalleria rusticana'' and ''Pagliacci'' are sent out over the airwaves, from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York C ...
; and was
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** I ...
from 1906 to 1910.
In
1912, he ran for
Lieutenant Governor of New York on the Republican ticket with Job. E. Hedges, but was defeated. In
1914
This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...
, at the first popular election for the U.S. Senate (until 1911, the U.S. senators had been elected by the
New York State Legislature
The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an officia ...
), Wadsworth defeated Democrat
James W. Gerard (the incumbent
United States Ambassador to Germany
The United States has had diplomatic relations with the nation of Germany and its principal predecessor nation, the Kingdom of Prussia, since 1835. These relations were broken twice (1917 to 1921, and 1941 to 1955) while Germany and the United St ...
) and Progressive
Bainbridge Colby
Bainbridge Colby (December 22, 1869 – April 11, 1950) was an American politician and attorney who was a co-founder of the United States Progressive Party and Woodrow Wilson's last Secretary of State. Colby was a Republican until he helped co-f ...
. Wadsworth was the
Senate Minority Whip
The positions of majority leader and minority leader are held by two United States senators and members of the party leadership of the United States Senate. They serve as the chief spokespersons for their respective political parties holding t ...
in 1915 because the Democrats held the majority of Senate seats. He was re-elected in 1920 but defeated by Democrat
Robert F. Wagner in 1926. In 1921, Wadsworth was considered for the post of
Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...
by President
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
but was ultimately passed over in favor of
John W. Weeks.
Wadsworth was a proponent of individual rights and feared what he considered the threat of federal intervention into the private lives of Americans. He believed that the only purpose of the
United States Constitution is to limit the powers of government and to protect the rights of citizens. For this reason, he voted against the
Eighteenth Amendment when it was before the Senate. Before
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcohol ...
went into effect, Wadsworth predicted that there would be widespread violations and contempt for the law.
By the mid-1920s, Wadsworth was one of a handful of congressmen who spoke out forcefully and frequently against prohibition. He was especially concerned that citizens could be prosecuted by both state and federal officials for a single violation of prohibition law. This seemed to him to constitute
double jeopardy
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...
, inconsistent with the spirit if not the letter of the
Fifth Amendment.
In 1926, he joined the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment and made 131 speeches across the country for the organization between then and repeal. His political acumen and contacts proved valuable in overturning prohibition.
He served in the
U.S. House
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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
from 1933 to 1951, and, like
Alton Lennon,
Garrett Withers
Garrett Lee Withers (June 21, 1884 – April 30, 1953) was an American politician and lawyer. As a Democrat, he represented Kentucky in the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives.
Withers was born on a farm in Webster Co ...
,
Claude Pepper
Claude Denson Pepper (September 8, 1900 – May 30, 1989) was an American politician of the Democratic Party, and a spokesman for left-liberalism and the elderly. He represented Florida in the United States Senate from 1936 to 1951, and the Mi ...
,
Hugh Mitchell,
Matthew M. Neely, and
Magnus Johnson
Magnus Johnson (September 19, 1871September 13, 1936) was an American farmer and politician. He served in the United States Senate and United States House of Representatives from Minnesota as a member of the Farmer–Labor Party. Johnson is the on ...
, is one of the few modern Senators to serve later in the House of Representatives. In the House of Representatives, he opposed the
isolationism of many of his conservative Republican colleagues, opposed anti-lynching legislation on
state's rights grounds, rejected
minimum wage laws and most of FDR's domestic policy. Although Wadsworth never ran for president, his name was mentioned as a possible candidate in 1936 and 1944.
A confidential 1943 analysis of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee
The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, also known as the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a standing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives with jurisdiction over bills and investigations concerning the foreign affairs o ...
by
Isaiah Berlin for the British
Foreign Office described Wadsworth as
He was a hereditary companion of
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States
The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), or simply the Loyal Legion is a United States patriotic order, organized April 15, 1865, by three veteran officers of the Army. The original membership was composed of members ...
and was also a member of the
United Spanish War Veterans
The United Spanish War Veterans was an American veterans' organization which consisted of veterans of the Spanish–American War, Philippine–American War and China Relief Expedition.
Origins
Soon after the Spanish–American War ended, in earl ...
.
Personal life
![Miss Alice Hay](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Miss_Alice_Hay.jpg)
Wadsworth was married to Alice Evelyn Hay (1880–1960). She was the daughter of former
United States Secretary of State
The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
John Hay under President
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
. Through her sister
Helen Hay Whitney
Helen Julia Hay Whitney (March 11, 1875 – September 24, 1944) was an American poet, writer, racehorse owner/breeder, socialite, and philanthropist. She was a member by marriage of the prominent Whitney family of New York.
Early life
She was ...
, she was the aunt of
John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the '' New York Herald Tribune'', and president of the Museum of Modern Art. He was a member of the Whitney family.
Early life
Whi ...
, the
U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom
The United States ambassador to the United Kingdom (known formally as the ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James's) is the official representative of the president of the United States and the American government to the monarc ...
.
Alice, who opposed
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
, served as president of the
National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage, which Wadsworth also opposed. Together, they were the parents of:
* Evelyn Wadsworth (1903–1972),
who married
Stuart Symington
William Stuart Symington III (; June 26, 1901 – December 14, 1988) was an American businessman and Democratic politician from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a United States Senator from ...
(1901–1988) in 1924.
Symington was the first
Secretary of the Air Force
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a wh ...
and a Democratic U.S. Senator from
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960.
*
James Jeremiah Wadsworth
James Jeremiah "Jerry" Wadsworth (June 12, 1905 – March 13, 1984)"James J(eremiah) Wadsworth." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 27 Apr. 2011. was an American politician and diplomat from New Yor ...
(1905–1984), who served as
United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
* Reverdy J. Wadsworth (1914–1970),
who married Eleanor Katherine Roosevelt (1915–1995), the daughter of
Henry Latrobe Roosevelt
Henry Latrobe Roosevelt (October 5, 1879 – February 22, 1936) was an Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy and a member of the Roosevelt family.
Early life
Roosevelt was born on October 5, 1879 in Morristown, New Jersey, to Lieutenan ...
, the
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Assistant Secretary of the Navy (ASN) is the title given to certain civilian senior officials in the United States Department of the Navy.
From 1861 to 1954, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy was the second-highest civilian office in the Depar ...
.
Wadsworth died on June 21, 1952, in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Temple Hill Cemetery in Geneseo.
Descendants
Through his daughter Evelyn, he was the grandfather of
James Wadsworth Symington (b. 1927), who served in the
U.S. 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 chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
from Missouri as a Democrat, from 1969 to 1977.
Through his son James, he was the grandfather of Alice Wadsworth (1928–1998) who was married to Trowbridge Strong (1925–2001) in 1948 at the home of Wadsworth's grandfather, General James Wadsworth.
See also
*
List of people on the cover of Time Magazine: 1920s. December 28, 1925.
Notes
Sources
*
External links
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wadsworth, James W. Jr.
1877 births
1952 deaths
20th-century American politicians
American Episcopalians
Military personnel from New York (state)
People from Geneseo, New York
People from the Texas Panhandle
Ranchers from Texas
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
Republican Party United States senators from New York (state)
Speakers of the New York State Assembly
St. Mark's School (Massachusetts) alumni
Candidates in the 1932 United States presidential election
Wadsworth family
Yale University alumni