Talk:Homer Stille Cummings
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Not having the time to re-write now, below is cut from DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, Supplement six, 1956-1960 (http://www.kichline.com/carrie/ICFA/homer.htm):
"U.S. attorney general, was born April 30, 1870 in Chicago, Ill., son of Uriah C. Cummings manufacturer and authority on cement, and Audie Schuyler Stille. Homer graduated from the Heathcote School in Buffalo, N.Y. He received the Ph.B degree from the Sheffield School of Yale University in 1891 and the L.L.B. from Yale Law School in 1893. He then practiced law in Stamford, Conn., and in 1909 joined with Charles D. Lockwood to form Cummings and Lockwood. He remained a partner in the firm until 1933.
Cummings entered politics almost immediately. In 1896 he supported William Jennings Bryan, and Connecticut Democrats nominated him for secretary of state. The decision for Bryan rested on his conviction that government, law, and the Democratic party were the instruments for the achievement of social justice in America. His progressive sensibility was reinforced by his gifts as an orator. He was an incisive, dramatic trial lawyer, and an astute, imperturtable, and loyal political manager.
In 1900, 1901, and 1904, Cummings was elected mayor of Stamford, where he instituted a progressive municipal program. He constructed and improved streets and sewers, reorganized the police and fire departments, and secured a shorefront park, later named for him. He was nominated for congressman-at-large in 1902 and for U.S. Senator in 1910 and 1916. Each time he lost narrowly. He served as state's attorney for Fairfield County from 1914 to 1924. During Cummings' last year as county prosecutor, a vagrant, Harold Israel, was indicted for the murder of a popular parish priest on a street corner in Bridgeport. The evidence, including a confession, appeared overwhelming, but Cummings, after scrupulous investigation, became convinced of Israel's innocence. In a gripping courtroom scene he asked for and secured dismissal of the charge. In 1931 the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (the Wickersham Commission) praised this act, and a film "BOOMERANG" (1947) dramatized the affair.
Cummings began his association with the national Democratic party in 1900, when he was named committeeman from Connecticut, a post he held until 1925. He was a delegate-at-large to the 1900 Democratic convention, the first of many conventions he was to attend. In the 1912 campaign he directed the Democratic speaker's bureau from Washington, D.C. He served as vice-chairman of the national committee from 1913 to 1919 and as chairman from 1919 to 1920. Cummings greatly admired Woodrow Wilson and delivered a passionate keynote address at the 1920 convention in praise of the stricken president.
Cummings vainly attempted to calm the bitterly divided Democratic convention of 1924. As chairman of Committee on Resolutions, he tried to formulate a compromise plank on the controversial issue of the Ku Klux Klan. Unlike most Northeasteners, however, he supported William G. McAdoo over Alfred E. Smith for the presidential nomination. For the rest of the decade his political activity was restrained.
Cummings married four times. His marriage to Helen W. Smith in 1897 ended in divorce in 1907. They had one son (Dickinson Schuyler CUMMINGS). His 1909 marriage to Marguerite T. Owings was dissolved in 1928. The marriage to Mary Cecilia Waterbury in 1929 was happy; she died ten years later. He published a memoir. "The Tired Sea" (1939), as a tribute to Cecilia. In 1942 he married Julia Alter, who died in 1955.
With the coming of the Great Depression, Cummings reentered politics. In 1932 he helped persuade twenty-four senators and numerous congressmen to announce their support for Franklin D. Roosevelt. At Chicago he planned strategy, operated as floor manager, and delivered a resounding seconding speech. Following the election, Roosevelt chose Cummings as governor-general of the Philippines. However, when Senator Walsh, who had been designated attorney general, died on Mar. 2, 1933, Roosevelt named Cummings to lead the Justice Department on Mar. 4. Cummings accepted the post on a temporary, emergency basis, and then, a few weeks later, permanently. He served almost six years as attorney general; only William Wirt served longer (1817-1829).
Cummings transformed the Department of Justice. He established uniform rules of practice and procedure in federal courts. Appalled by the crime waves of the Prohibition era, he secured the passage of twelve laws that buttressed the "Lindbergh law" on kidnapping, made bank robbery a federal crime, cracked down on interstate transportation of stolen property, and extended federal regulations over firearms. He strengthened the Federal Bureau of Investigation, called a national crime conference, supported the establishment of Alcatraz as a model prison for hardened offenders, and reorganized the internal administration of the department. In 1937 Cummings published "We Can Prevent Crime, and, with Carl McFarlan, an assistant attorney general, "Federal Justice," a departmental history, "The Selected Papers of Homer Cummings" (1939), edited by Carl B. Swisher, supplemented the history.
Cummings's path as protector of New Deal programs was thorny. During his first week as attorney general, he advised Roosevelt that the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917 permitted the president to close banks and regulate gold hoarding and export. Cummings personally argued the right of the government to ban gold payments before the Supreme court and won the "gold clause" cases. The department's defense of subsequent administration measures was notoriously unsuccessful, however. During 1935-1936, the Court, frequently by 5 to 4 votes, overthrew eight key statutes, including the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA).
The obtuseness of the conservative Court majority rankled. Cummings was eager to expand the judiciary and was outraged by the proliferation of lawsuits and injunctions against the government. After the election of 1936, Roosevelt instructed him to draft legislation for court reform. Neither wished to alter the Constitution. Both were attracted by an idea proposed earlier by conservative Justice James McReynolds, to add a judge for every judge who refused to retire at age seventy at full pay. Such a measure might give the president the opportunity to appoint fifty new judges, including six to the Supreme Court. Roosevelt launched the proposal, prepared secretly by Cummings, on Feb. 5, 1937. The uproar that confronted the "court-packing plan" is well known. After 168 days the Senate killed the bill by returning it to committee.
Cummings retired on Jan 2, 1939. He entered private law practice in Washington and instituted a spring golf tournament that annually brought executives, lawyers, and politicians together. He also retained his interest in the Connecticut Democratic party, along with a residence in Greenich, and served on the Greenich Town Committee until 1951. He died September 10, 1956 in Washington, D.C." --Tony Hecht 14:46, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
