\"Iowa Senator\" William B. Allison Clipped Signature For Sale
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\"Iowa Senator\" William B. Allison Clipped Signature:
$90.99
Up for sale "Iowa Senator" William B. Allison Clipped Signature.
ES-7441E
William
Boyd Allison (March 2, 1829 –
August 4, 1908) was an American politician. An early leader of the Iowa Republican Party, he
represented northeastern Iowa in the United
States House of Representatives before representing his state
in the United States Senate. By
the 1890s, Allison had become one of the "big four" key Republicans
who largely controlled the Senate, along with Orville H.
Platt of Connecticut, John Coit Spooner of Wisconsin and Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island. Born in Perry, Ohio, Allison established a legal practice in Dubuque, Iowa and became a prominent member of the
nascent Iowa Republican Party. He was a delegate to the 1860 Republican
National Convention and won election to the House of
Representatives in 1862. He served four terms in the House and won election to
the Senate in 1872. He became chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, serving for all but two years
between 1881 and 1908. Four different Republican presidents asked Allison to
join their Cabinet, but
Allison declined each offer. A significant number of delegates supported his
presidential nomination at the 1888 and 1896
Republican National Conventions. Allison emerged as a centrist and
pragmatic leader in the Senate, and he helped pass several important bills.
The Bland–Allison Act of
1878 restored bimetallism, but in a less inflationary manner than had been sought by
Congressman Richard P. Bland. A
prominent advocate of higher tariffs,
Allison played a major role in the passage of the McKinley Tariff and the Dingley Act. He also helped pass the Hepburn Act by offering the Allison amendment, which
granted courts the power to review the Interstate Commerce
Commission's railroad rate-setting. Allison sought a record seventh
term in 1908, but died shortly after winning the Republican B. Cummins. Born in Perry, Ohio, Allison was educated at Wooster
Academy. Afterward, he spent a year at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, then graduated from Western Reserve College (then
located in Hudson, Ohio) in 1849. He
then studied law and began practicing in Ashland, Ohio. While practicing law there from 1852 until
1857, he was a delegate to the 1855 Ohio Republican Convention and an
unsuccessful candidate for district attorney in 1856. In 1857, he moved
to Dubuque, Iowa, which would
serve as his hometown for the last fifty years of his life. Born in Perry, Ohio, Allison was educated at Wooster
Academy. Afterward, he spent a year at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, then graduated from Western Reserve College (then
located in Hudson, Ohio) in 1849. He
then studied law and began practicing in Ashland, Ohio. While practicing law there from 1852 until
1857, he was a delegate to the 1855 Ohio Republican Convention and an
unsuccessful candidate for district attorney in 1856.[1] In 1857, he moved to Dubuque, Iowa, which would serve as his hometown for the last
fifty years of his life. Following the war, Allison continued to serve in the
House after winning re-election in 1866 and 1868. In January 1870, he was an
unsuccessful candidate for election by the Iowa General Assembly to
the United States Senate seat
for 1871–1877, losing to Iowa Supreme Court Justice George G. Wright. Allison declined to be a candidate for
renomination to his own House seat later that year, but instead focused on
laying the groundwork to run for Iowa's other Senate seat (then held by James Harlan), which was
up in January 1872, following November 1871 state legislative races. In the 1871 state legislative races, candidates
were nominated and elected on the direct issue of whether they would vote for
Harlan, Allison or James F. Wilson for
senator.] Enough legislators who favored Allison were
nominated and elected in 1871 that in January 1872 he won the required number
of votes to take Harlan's U.S. Senate seat, effective March 4, 1873. Allison
was reelected to six-year terms in the U.S. Senate six times – in 1878, 1884,
1890, 1896, and 1902. He chaired the 1884–1886 Allison Commission, a
bipartisan joint the first to explore the question of
whether federal intervention politicizes scientific research." It
considered the charge that parts of the government were engaged in research for
theoretical, not practical, purposes. The majority report favored the status
quo, and Congress upheld it. In 1885, the Commission's finding of misuse of
funds at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic
Survey led to the dismissal of several officials but
exonerated Charles Sanders Peirce. As
Allison earned seniority, he also earned one of the most powerful committee
positions. From 1881–93 and again from 1895 to 1908, he was chairman of
the Senate Appropriations
Committee, where he had great influence. Allison's combined years as
chairman of the committee make him the longest-serving chairman to date. He was
also a member of the Senate Committee of Indian Affairs (and its chairman from
1875 to 1881), the Senate Finance Committee,
and the Committee on Engrossed
Bills. He became chairman of the Senate Republican
Conference in 1897. He was asked three times to serve as
the Secretary of the Treasury, first by President James A.
Garfield, whose offer he accepted, but later he asked for his name to be
withdrawn after being pressured out of it by the Stalwart faction of
the Republican Party, of which he was a part of. Later, President Chester Arthur offered (to which Allison again agreed but
then the next day declined),[8] then by President Benjamin Harrison. In 1897, President William McKinley offered him the position of U.S. Secretary of State.[1] Again, Allison declined. It
was just as well. No Republican senator was so well fitted for the duties of
responsible statesmanship, or positioned so well. For thirty years he sat on
the Senate Finance Committee and took a critical role in framing legislation.
In 1881, he became chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and continued to
serve there until his death in 1908. After 1897, he was chosen as chairman of
the Republican caucus, an unofficial position, but one generally accorded to
the most venerable and respected party member in the Senate. Eminently
conservative, trusted by the railroad interests, Allison's pragmatism made him
the centrist that everybody could deal with, even the Democrats. When in 1888 a
Republican alternative was needed to the Mills tariff bill coming out of the
House, Allison handled the details. The bill that emerged from committee was
purely for campaign purposes. Nobody thought that it could pass, but it put the
best face on protectionist principles and later served as a model for the 1890
McKinley Tariff, which Allison played a large part in framing. In 1897, when
the Dingley Tariff bill reached the Senate, Allison did most of the work
reconciling discontented interests. When the Bland bill, allowing the free
coinage of silver, came to the Senate, Allison altered it. The resulting Bland–Allison Act of
1878 simply had the government buy a certain, more limited amount of silver,
which the Treasury was permitted to put into circulation as silver dollars. It
was far less inflationary than Bland's original bill. The Act passed over the
veto of President Rutherford B. Hayes. It
remained unchanged until the Sherman Silver Purchase
Act of 1890. In 1892, Allison chaired the Brussels Monetary
Conference and in 1900 was one of the fathers of the Gold Standard Act. In
1896, he became a dark-horse candidate for the presidency. However, support for his candidacy faded when
it became clear that McKinley would be nominated on the first ballot. "Allison
is the man of experience," an admiring reporter wrote in 1906, "the
sage old pilot of the Senate. They say that no man who has ever been in the
Senate knew so much about it as he does. He is the political forecaster, the
compromiser, the weather prophet, the man who brings irreconcilable things
together. It is said that the oldest inhabitant cannot recall having heard
Allison give utterance to an opinion on any subject whatever. Doubtless he does
give utterance to them, but never except in the inner councils of the Caesars.
Sagacious to the point of craft, it does not annoy him to know that the epithet
most frequently applied to him is 'the Old Fox.'...When he rises in his place
in the Senate, he disdains to talk as if he were making a speech; he leaves all
that to the youngsters, whose sum of knowledge does not equal all that he has
forgotten. He never rises except to shed light on some knotty point, and when
he does it is always as briefly as possible, and in a conversational voice that
is almost an undertone. Then he drops back into his seat and, with sublime
indifference, lets the talk go on."[12]
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