Nathan Lewis Miller

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nathan Lewis Miller
46th Governor of New York
In office 1921 – 1922
Lieutenant(s)	Jeremiah Wood
Preceded by	Alfred E. Smith
Succeeded by	Alfred E. Smith

Born	October 10, 1868 Cortland, New York
Died	June 26, 1953
Political party	Republican

Nathan Lewis Miller (October 10, 1868 – June 26, 1953) was a Governor of the U.S. state of New York.

The son of a tenant farmer, Miller was born in Cortland, New York in 1868. He graduated from the Cortland Normal School and studied law in Cortland. He never went to law school but was allowed to read a lawyer's texts in return for tending to his office. He was admitted to the state bar in 1893.

He was a New York State Comptroller (1902-1913) and a Justice of the New York Supreme Court (1903 -1913, and the New York State Court of Appeals (1913-1915). He served as President of the New York State Bar Associate in 1920. Miller was the Governor of New York from January 1921 to December 1922. He was a member of the United States Republican Party.

He started his legal career in Cortland as corporation counsel and eventually moved into corporate law and his rise in politics was strongly helped by his relationship with Andrew Carnegie and the United States Steel Corporation. Miller helped to effect the mergers that created this early mega-corporation. The merger helped Carnegie get out of the steel business and make him the richest man in the world at the time.

Miller was a fairly conservative politician. He was against women's rights, telling the League of Women Voters in 1921 as Governor of New York that they were "dangerous." He even told their convention they were “a menace to American institutions.” He was defeated in a bid for re-election by his predecessor Al Smith, whom he had unseated in 1920. Miller was a strong supporter of the Roman Catholic Church, his wife's religion, and converted to Catholicism on his deathbed.

As governor he instituted numerous economy measures and estimated he saved taxpayers $20 million. Against opposition from New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, Miller fashioned the law creating the New York City Transit Commission. His Lieutenant Governor was former Assemblyman Jeremiah Wood (c. 1877-January 16, 1962), Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman.

Miller nominated Herbert Hoover for president at the 1920 Republican National Convention.

From 1925 on he served as general counsel for U.S. Steel. He, like his old adversary Smith was active in the American Liberty League, a bipartisan anti-New Deal group founded by wealthy conservatives. While still the leading partner at his law firm in 1938, Carnegie's Pittsburgh Steamship Company named a ship "Governor Miller" in his honor.

In January 1952 the New York State Bar Association awarded Miller its first gold medal for "distinguished service to the legal profession."

He died in 1953 at his New York hotel residence after fracturing his hip following a vacation in Arizona. He was survived by his widow, Elizabeth Davern Miller, who he married in 1896, and their seven daughters.