Lyman Judson Gage (June 28, 1836 – January 26, 1927) was an American financier and Presidential Cabinet officer.

Biography

Early life

He was born in DeRuyter, New York, educated at an academy in

Rome, New York Rome is a city in Oneida County, New York, United States, located in the Central New York, central part of the state. The population was 32,127 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Rome is one of two principal cities in the Utica–Ro ...

, and at the age of 17 became a bank clerk. In 1853 he moved to Chicago, served for three years as bookkeeper, and in 1858 entered the Merchants Loan and Trust Company, where he was cashier in 1861–1868. Afterwards he became successively assistant cashier, vice-president, and president of the

First National Bank of Chicago First Chicago Bank was a Chicago-based retail and commercial bank tracing its roots to 1863. Over the years, the bank operated under several names including The First National Bank of Chicago and First Chicago NBD (following its 1995 merger with ...

, one of the strongest financial institutions in the

Midwestern United States The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

. He was chosen in 1890 to be president of the board of directors of the

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordi ...

. Following the exposition, he became president of the newly formed

Chicago Civic Federation The Civic Federation is a Chicago-based non-partisan research organization focused on governments in the Chicago area and the state of Illinois. The Civic Federation's mission is to help local and state governments reduce their costs and improve ...

, which sought to reform city governance.

Political career

In politics he was originally a Republican, and was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1880, and chairman of its finance committee. In 1884, however, he supported

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 ...

for the

presidency A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a ...

, and came to be looked upon as a Democrat. In 1892 President Cleveland, after his second election, offered Gage the post of secretary of the treasury, but Gage declined the offer. In the free-silver campaign of 1896, Gage labored effectively for the election of Republican candidate

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...

, and from March 1897 until January 1902 he served as Secretary of the Treasury in the cabinets successively of Presidents McKinley and

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 ...

GAGE, Lyman J-Treasury (BEP engraved portrait)

As Secretary of the Treasury, Gage was influential in securing passage of the

Gold Standard Act The Gold Standard Act was an Law_of_the_United_States#Federal_law, Act of the United States Congress, signed by President William McKinley and effective on March 14, 1900, defining the United States dollar by gold weight and requiring the United ...

of March 14, 1900, which reestablished a currency backed solely by gold. Since this limited the amount of

currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...

in circulation, it initiated a period, continuing until 1912, in which the Secretary of Treasury was obliged to interact in the money market by introducing into circulation the Treasury surplus. The inability of the Treasury to respond to the needs of the market as well as the perceived need for a currency which would expand and contract with the needs of the nation, led to the creation of the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

in 1913 to regulate the money market. Gage resigned in 1902 to become a banker in New York. From April 1902 until 1906 he was president of the

United States Trust Company Bank of America Private Bank (formerly U.S. Trust) was founded in 1853 as the United States Trust Company of New York. It operated independently until 2000, when it was acquired by Charles Schwab, and Co. and subsequently sold to, and became a ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. His administration of the treasury department, through a more than ordinarily trying period, was marked by a conservative policy, looking toward the strengthening of the gold standard, the securing of greater flexibility in the currency, and a more perfect adjustment of the relations between the government and the National banks. Lyman J. Gage was instrumental in creating the San Diego Panama–California Exposition of 1915. Later he was president of the committee to preserve the Expo's characteristic buildings in Balboa Park.

Final years

Grave of Lyman Judson Gage at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago 1

Gage was one of the 30 founding members of the

Simplified Spelling Board The Simplified Spelling Board was an American organization created in 1906 to reform the spelling of the English language, making it simpler and easier to learn, and eliminating many of what were considered to be its inconsistencies. The board oper ...

, founded in 1906 by

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

to make English easier to learn and understand through changes in the

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

. He died in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California in 1927, and is buried at Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago.

Private life

Lyman Gage married Sarah Etheridge in 1864, and the couple had four children: Locke, Eli Alexander, Fanny, and Mary; only Eli survived to adulthood. Sarah died in 1874, when son Eli was 7 years old. Eli Gage married Sophie R Weare in 1893 in Iowa, but committed suicide in Seattle in 1906 leaving his wife and two young sons, Lyman J. Gage II (1896-1954) and John Weare Gage (1900-1962). After Sarah's death, Lyman Gage married Cornelia Lansing, who died childless in 1901. In the late 1910s, Gage remarried a third time with Frances Ballou, and the two had a son, Lyman Judson. Frances died in 1943, around 16 years after Gage's death. In 1906, Gage indulged his longtime interest in

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

phenomena by purchasing property on and subsequently living at

Lomaland Lomaland was a Theosophical community located in Point Loma in San Diego, California from 1900 to 1942. Theosophical Society leader Katherine Tingley founded it in 1900 as a school, cultural center, and residential facility for her followers. T ...

, a Theosophist retreat in Southern California. Though this came as something of a shock to the American public, those who knew him privately were not surprised, as Gage had previously studied

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (when not lowercase) ...

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...

, and prophesied the death of his own brother through a " psychic flash".Chronicling America – The Library of Congress
at www.loc.gov

Notes

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gage, Lyman, J. 1836 births 1927 deaths 19th-century American politicians 20th-century American politicians People from Madison County, New York New York (state) Republicans Burials at Rosehill Cemetery United States Secretaries of the Treasury Theodore Roosevelt administration cabinet members McKinley administration cabinet members Politicians from Rome, New York California Republicans