| Albert J. Beveridge | |
|---|---|
| United States Senator from Indiana |
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| In office March 4, 1899 – March 3, 1911 |
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| Preceded by | David Turpie |
| Succeeded by | John W. Kern |
| Personal details | |
| Born | October 6, 1862 Highland County, Ohio |
| Died | April 27, 1927 (aged 64) Indianapolis, Indiana |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Republican |
| Other political affiliations |
Progressive Party |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine Beveridge |
| Alma mater | Asbury University |
Albert Jeremiah Beveridge (October 6, 1862 - April 27, 1927) was an American historian and United States Senator from Indiana.
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Albert J. Beveridge was born October 6, 1862 in Highland County, Ohio and his parents moved to Indiana soon after his birth, and his boyhood was one of hard work. Securing an education with difficulty, he eventually became a law clerk in Indianapolis. He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1887 and practiced law in Indianapolis.[1]
Beveridge graduated from Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) in 1885, with a Ph.B. degree. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was known as a compelling orator, delivering speeches supporting territorial expansion by the U.S. and increasing the power of the federal government.
Beveridge entered politics in 1884 by speaking on behalf of Presidential candidate James G. Blaine and was prominent in later campaigns, particularly in that of 1896, when his speeches attracted general attention.[1] In 1899, Beveridge was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican and served until 1911. He supported Theodore Roosevelt's progressive views and was the keynote speaker at the new Progressive Party convention which nominated Roosevelt for U.S. President in 1912.
Beveridge is known as one of the great American imperialists. He supported the annexation of the Philippines and along with Republican leader Henry Cabot Lodge he campaigned for the construction of a new navy. After Beveridge's re-election in 1905 to a second term, he became identified with the reform-minded faction of the GOP. He championed national child labor legislation,[2] broke with President William Howard Taft over the Payne-Aldrich tariff, and sponsored the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906, adopted in the wake of the publication of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
He lost his senate seat to John Worth Kern when the Democrats took Indiana in the 1910 elections; in 1912, when former president Theodore Roosevelt left the Republican party to found the short-lived Progressive Party, Beveridge left with him, and ran campaigns as that party's Indiana nominee in the 1912 race for governor and the 1914 race for senator, losing both. When the Progressive party disintegrated, he returned to the Republicans with his political future in tatters; he eventually ran one more unsuccessful race for Senate in the 1922 primary against Harry S. New, but would never again hold office.[3]
In the twilight of his life, he came to repudiate some of the earlier expansion of governmental power that he had championed in his earlier career. In one notable address, delivered before the Sons of the Revolution's annual dinner in June 1923, Beveridge decried the growth of the regulatory state and the proliferation of regulatory bodies, bureaus and commissions. "America would be better off as a country and Americans happier and more prosperous as a people," he suggested, "if half of our Government boards, bureaus and commissions were abolished, hundreds of thousands of our Government officials, agents and employees were discharged and two-thirds of our Government regulations, restrictions and inhibitions were removed."[4]
As his political career drew to a close, Beveridge dedicated his time to writing historical literature. He was a member and secretary of the American Historical Association (AHA). His four-volume set The Life of John Marshall, published from 1916 to 1919, won Beveridge a Pulitzer Prize.
Beveridge spent most of his final years after his 1922 defeat writing a two volume biography of Abraham Lincoln which was published in 1928, the year after his death (he died in Indianapolis, Indiana, aged 64). That same year the AHA established the Beveridge Award in his memory, through a gift from his wife, Catherine Beveridge and donations from members.
There is a famous lost film of Leo Tolstoy made a decade before he died. In 1901, the American travel lecturer Burton Holmes visited Yasnaya Polyana with Albert J. Beveridge. As the three men conversed, Holmes filmed Tolstoy with his 60-mm movie camera. Afterwards, Beveridge's advisers succeeded in having the film destroyed, fearing that documentary evidence of a meeting with the Russian author might hurt Beveridge's chances of running for the U.S. presidency.[5]
| United States Senate | ||
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| Preceded by David Turpie |
United States Senator (Class 1) from Indiana 1899-1911 |
Succeeded by John W. Kern |
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