John Daniel Miller Hamilton (March 2, 1892 – September 24, 1973) was a
Republican politician from the
U.S. state of
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...
.
Hamilton was raised in
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa language, Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the Capital (political), capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the County seat, seat of Shawnee County, Kansas, Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the ...
, where his father was general counsel of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Upon graduation from preparatory school in 1913, he stopped in Chicago to see his father's friend, Dean Wigmore, who promptly invited him to enroll in
Northwestern University Law School
Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a Private university, private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, ...
.
Hamilton went on to become Speaker of the
Kansas House of Representatives
The Kansas House of Representatives is the lower house of the legislature of the U.S. state of Kansas. Composed of 125 state representatives from districts with roughly equal populations of at least 19,000, its members are responsible for craftin ...
for the 1927 Session and 1928 Special Session. He lost the Republican Governor primary election to Clyde Reed in 1928. In the 1930 Republican Governor primary he was the campaign manager for Frank Hauke who defeated incumbent Governor Clyde Reed, but lost in the general election. As Hauke's campaign manager, Hamilton was also made Chairman of the
Kansas Republican Party
The Kansas Republican Party is the state affiliate political party in Kansas of the United States Republican Party. The Kansas Republican Party was organized in May 1859.
At the state level, the party is largely split between its moderate and con ...
from 1930 to 1932, In November 1932, following the death of Kansas Republican National Committeeman David Mulvane, Governor Alf Landon had Hamilton elected as the new Kansas Republican National Committeeman for Kansas, a role he filled from 1932 to 1940. In 1936, following the nomination of then-Governor Alf Landon to run against President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr. Hamilton was appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee. His picture was on ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
s cover on September 23, 1936. Landon lost the election in a landslide, but Mr. Hamilton continued as chairman of the Republican National Committee until 1940, due in large part to the considerable help of a freshman Illinois congressman, Everett Dirksen, whose eloquent support turned back several efforts to replace Mr. Hamilton.
Mr. Hamilton personally visited 3,000 GOP county chairmen during his four-year term, and, in the process, eliminated the huge Landon campaign debt. Mr. Hamilton presided at the 1940 Republican National Convention that nominated Wendell Willkie to run against Roosevelt. When, according to well-established custom, Willkie picked his own national party chairman, Mr. Hamilton retired from active politics.
In 1940, Hamilton at the age of 48 resigned from the RNC and two days later married
Jane Kendall Mason
Jane Kendall Mason (1909 - 1981) was an American debutante, socialite, and outdoorswoman.
Biography
Mason was born Jane Welsh in 1909. A decade later, her mother Elizabeth, a divorcée who sang at private parties for members of New York City's ...
, 30, who a month earlier divorced George Grant Mason Jr., member of the Civil Aeronautics Board in Tampa, Florida. According to former first lady
Grace Coolidge, Jane Kendall was "the most beautiful debutante who ever entered the White House".
At the urging of members of Philadelphia's Pew family, he came to
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
, rather than return to Kansas, and joined the Pepper firm. Even in private practice, he remained an active and shrewd observer of the political scene. He was a consummate raconteur of political stories, and in the days before timesheets, partners and associates drifted into his office for impromptu gatherings where they heard Hamilton tell tales of political lore.
Hamilton received national and international attention in 1950, when he was appointed to represent
Harry Gold, a Philadelphia chemist and confessed courier in the
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...
network that passed atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In 1955 he became chairman of the Pepper Law Firm and resigned the position in 1964.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, John
1892 births
1973 deaths
Republican Party members of the Kansas House of Representatives
Pennsylvania Republicans
Politicians from Topeka, Kansas
Republican National Committee chairs
Speakers of the Kansas House of Representatives
State political party chairs of Kansas
20th-century American politicians