William V. Allen

William Vincent Allen (January 28, 1847 – January 12, 1924) was a jurist and twice a U.S. Senator from Nebraska.

Allen was born in Midway, Ohio. He moved with his parents to Iowa in 1857, where he attended the common schools and Upper Iowa University at Fayette, Iowa. He served as a private with the 32nd Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War; he then studied law at West Union, Iowa and was admitted to the bar in 1869. Allen practiced in Iowa until 1884, when he moved to Madison, Nebraska. He served as judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska from 1891-1893.

Allen was the permanent chairman of the Populist State conventions in 1892, 1894 and 1896. Allen was elected as a Populist to the United States Senate by the Nebraska State Legislature and served from March 4, 1893, to March 4, 1899. During his term, he served as the chairman of the Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection (Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses). Allen championed various bills for public buildings and drought relief along the Missouri River Valley and authored the bill that would establish the 1898 Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1899. After that, he was appointed and subsequently elected judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska and served from March 9, 1899 to December 1899, when he resigned to return to the Senate, because he was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his successor, Monroe L. Hayward. He served from December 13, 1899, to March 28, 1901, when a successor was elected; he was not a candidate for election to the vacancy.

Allen then resumed the practice of law in Madison, where was again elected judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska in 1917 and served until his death. He died in Los Angeles, California on January 12, 1924. He was interred in Crown Hill Cemetery at Madison, Nebraska.

Committee assignments

At various times during his tenure as a United States Senator, Allen served on 10 standing committees^[1] and 3 select or special committees.^[2] During his first term in the Senate, he chaired the Select Committee on Forest Reservations, and retained his chairmanship when the committee became the standing Committee on Forest Reservations and the Protection of Game during the 54th Congress.^[3] When he returned to the Senate for his second term during the 56th Congress, he was again appointed to this committee, but did not serve as chairman.^[4]

References

• American National Biography
• Dictionary of American Biography
• Coletta, Paolo E. “A Tempest in a Teapot? Governor Poynter’s Appointment of William V. Allen to the United States Senate.” Nebraska History 38 (June 1957): 155-63.

• William V. Allen at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• William V. Allen papers at the Nebraska State Historical Society

Further reading

• Hoelscher, David W. "Genuine Populist: William V. Allen in the United States Senate, 1893-1901." M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2003.
• 1898 bio w/photo
• William V. Allen at Find a Grave