Charles G. Dawes

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Charles G. Dawes
30th Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1925 – March 4, 1929
President	Calvin Coolidge
Preceded by	Calvin Coolidge
Succeeded by	Charles Curtis
1st Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget
In office June 23, 1921 – June 30, 1922
President	Warren G. Harding
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Herbert Lard
Comptroller of the Currency
In office 1898 – 1901
Born	August 27, 1865(1865-08-27) Marietta, Ohio, U.S.
Died	April 23, 1951 (aged 85) Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Caro Blymyer Dawes
Children	Rufus Fearing Dawes, Carolyn Dawes, Dana McCutcheon (adopted), Virginia (adopted)

Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American banker and politician who was the thirtieth Vice President of the United States. For his work on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served in the First World War, was U.S. Comptroller of the Currency and the first director of the Bureau of the Budget, and in later life the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Dawes was married to Caro Blymyer on January 24, 1889, and they had two biological children, Rufus Fearing Dawes and Carolyn Dawes, and two more adopted children, Dana McCutcheon and Virginia (Waller 1998: 273).

[edit] Early life, family, and career

Born in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio, Dawes graduated from Marietta College in 1884, and from the Cincinnati Law School in 1886. While attending Marietta College he joined The Delta Upsilon Fraternity. He was admitted to the bar and practiced in Lincoln, Nebraska, between 1887 and 1894. When Lt. John Pershing, the future Army general, was appointed military instructor at the University of Nebraska while attending the law school, he and Dawes became acquainted, forming a lifelong friendship.

Dawes' lineage made him the great-great-grandson of the Revolutionary War figure William Dawes and the son of Brigadier General Rufus Dawes, who commanded the 6th Wisconsin regiment of the Iron Brigade from 1863-1864 during the U.S. Civil War. His brothers were Rufus C. Dawes, Beman Gates Dawes, and Henry May Dawes, all prominent businessmen or politicians.

In 1894, Dawes acquired interests in a number of midwestern gas plants and became president of both the Lacrosse Gas Light Company in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and the Northwestern Gas Light and Coke Company in Evanston, Illinois.

[edit] Early political career

Those prominent positions caught the attention of Republican party leaders, who put Dawes in charge of managing the Illinois portion of William McKinley's bid for the Presidency of the United States in 1896. Following McKinley's election, Dawes was rewarded for his efforts by being named Comptroller of the Currency, United States Department of the Treasury. Serving in that position from 1898-1901, he collected more than $25 million from banks that had failed during the Panic of 1893, and also changed banking practices to try to prevent a similar event in the future.

In October 1901, Dawes left the Department of the Treasury in order to pursue a U.S. Senate seat from the State of Illinois. Dawes believed that with the help of the McKinley Administration, he could win the Senate seat, however after McKinley's assassination, Dawes's hopes of winning faded because President Theodore Roosevelt preferred Dawes's opponent (Waller 1998:274). In 1902, following this unsuccessful attempt at elective office, Dawes declared that he was done with politics. He organized the Central Trust Company of Illinois, serving as president of the company until 1921.

In 1912, Dawes' son, Rufus, drowned in Geneva Lake while on summer break from Princeton University. In his memory, Dawes created residence homes for down-and-out individuals in both Chicago and Boston.

[edit] World War I participation

During the First World War, Dawes was commissioned Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Brigadier General of the Seventeenth Engineers. He served with the American Expeditionary Force as chief of supply procurement and was a member of the Liquidation Commission, United States War Department. After the war, the U.S. Senate held hearings on overcharges by military suppliers, and during heated testimony, Dawes burst out, "Hell and Maria, we weren't trying to keep a set of books over there, we were trying to win a war!" He was later known as "Hell and Maria Dawes" (although he always insisted the expression was "Helen Maria").

After his resignation from the Army in 1919, and upon the creation of the Bureau of the Budget was appointed its first Director in 1921. He was appointed to the Allied Reparations Commission in 1923. For his work on the Dawes Plan, a program to enable Germany to restore and stabilize its economy, Dawes shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. Unfortunately, the Dawes Plan was unworkable and was replaced with the Young Plan.

[edit] Vice Presidency

Dawes (r) and Calvin Coolidge.

At the 1924 Republican National Convention, Calvin Coolidge was quickly selected almost without opposition to be the Republican Presidential Nominee.^[1] The Vice Presidential Nominee, on the other hand, was more contested. At first Illinois Governor Frank Lowden was nominated for the Vice Presidency, but he declined the nomination. Coolidge's next choice was Idaho Senator William Borah, but he also declined the nomination. The Republican National Chairman, William Butler, pledged to nominate then Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, but he proved to be too unpopular to garner the nod.^[2] Eventually, the delegates chose Dawes to be the Vice Presidential Nominee. Though Coolidge had already sent a congratulatory statement to Lowden, Coolidge quickly accepted the delegates' choice and felt that Dawes would be loyal to him and make a strong addition to his campaign.^[3]

Dawes was elected Vice President of the United States on November 5, 1924 with more popular votes than the candidates from the Democratic and Progressive parties combined.^[4] Dawes and Coolidge were inaugurated March 4, 1925 for the term ending March 4, 1929.

I should hate to think that the Senate was as tired of me at the beginning of my service as I am of the Senate at the end. — Charles G. Dawes^[5]

Dawes' Vice Presidency was one of the most disastrous on record. Soon after his election he sent an insulting letter to President Coolidge informing him that he would not be attending cabinet meetings. This is believed to be the beginning of a feud between the two which brought the Vice Presidency to its nadir for the 20th century.

Having insulted the President, he then proceeded to publicly insult the entire US Senate. The inauguration of the Vice President was held in the Senate Chamber in those days, and the VP would give an inaugural address before everyone headed on to the outside platform where the President would take the oath. Dawes made a fiery, half-hour address denouncing the rules of the Senate, the seniority system and many other things that Senators held dear.^[6]

Everyone was so shocked at the speech that President Coolidge's own inaugural address was completely overshadowed, leaving him even angrier at Dawes than ever before.

Both President Coolidge and members of the Senate would have their revenge on Dawes. On March 10, only days after Dawes started presiding over the Senate, the president's nomination of Charles B. Warren to be attorney general was being debated. In the wake of the Teapot Dome scandal and other business-related scandals, Democrats and Progressive Republicans objected to the nomination because of Warren's close association with the "Sugar Trust." At midday six speakers were scheduled to address Warren's nomination. Desiring to return to his room at the Willard Hotel for a nap, Dawes consulted the majority and minority leaders, who assured him that no vote would be taken that afternoon. After Dawes left the Senate, however, all but one of the scheduled speakers decided against making formal remarks, and a vote was taken. When it became apparent that the vote would be tied, Republican leaders hastily called Dawes at the Willard. The roused vice president jumped in a taxi and sped toward the Capitol. But enough time intervened to persuade the only Democratic senator who had voted for Warren to switch his vote against him. By the time Dawes arrived there was no longer a tie to break, and the nomination had failed by a single vote—the first such rejection in nearly sixty years. ^[7]

Dawes convinced the Senate to pass the McNary-Haugen farm relief bill; Coolidge vetoed the bill.^[8]

In 1928 the Republican nomination went to Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, whose supporters considered putting Dawes on their ticket as vice president. But President Coolidge let it be known that he would consider Dawes' nomination to be a personal affront. Instead the nod went to Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas.

[edit] The Court of St. James's and the RFC

After Dawes finished his term as Vice President, he became the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James's (i.e., to the United Kingdom), an office that he held from 1929 to 1932. However, Dawes found his duties as Ambassador, which included introducing American girls to the King, to be insulting. He further alienated his hosts by refusing to wear the customary knee breeches.

As the Great Depression continued to ravage the country, a desperate President Herbert Hoover asked Dawes to head up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and for a few months he chaired the agency. However, he was forced to resign because the City National Bank and Trust Co., Chicago, of which he was a board member, was going under and he had to save it. This marked the end of his career in public service.

[edit] Later life

Dawes resumed a role in the banking business, becoming chairman of the board of the City National Bank and Trust Co. from 1932 until his death in Evanston. He is interred in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago. His landmark lakeshore home in Evanston is owned by Northwestern University and operated by the Evanston History Center as a museum.

Dawes was also a self-taught pianist and composer. His 1912 composition "Melody in A Major," became a well-known piano and violin piece, and was played at many official functions as his signature tune. It was transformed into a pop song ("It's All In The Game") in 1951, when Carl Sigman added lyrics. The song was a number one hit in 1958, for Tommy Edwards (Hatfield 1997: 360), and has since become a pop standard recorded hundreds of times by artists including The Four Tops, Van Morrison, Cliff Richard,Nat "King" Cole, Brook Benton, Elton John, Barry Manilow, and Keith Jarrett. He was also a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music.

[edit] Selected Bibliography

The list below was retrieved from Haberman's 1972 Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925. This list can also be obtained here.

• Dawes, C. G. (1894). The Banking System of the United States and Its Relation to the Money and the Business of the Country. Chicago: Rand McNally.
• Dawes, C. G. (1915). Essays and Speeches. New York: Houghton.
• Dawes, C. G. (1921). Journal of the Great War. 2 vols. New York: Houghton.
• Dawes, C. G. (1923). The First Year of the Budget of the United States. New York: Harper.
• Dawes, C. G. (1935). Notes as Vice President, 1928-1929. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Dawes, C. G. (1937). How Long Prosperity? New York: Marquis.
• Dawes, C. G. (1939). Journal as Ambassador to Great Britain. New York: Macmillan.
• Dawes, C. G. (1939). A Journal of Reparations. New York: Macmillan.
• Dawes, C. G. (1950). A Journal of the McKinley Years. B. N. Timmons (Ed.). La Grange, IL: Tower.

[edit] See also

United States Army Portal

[edit] References

• Haberman, F. W. (Ed.). (1972). Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925. Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing. [1]
• Hatfield, M. O. (1997). Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789-1993. Senate Historical Office. Washington: United States Government Printing Office [2]PDF (66.0 KiB)
• Pixton, J. E. (1952). The Early Career of Charles G. Dawes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Sortland, R. A. (1958). Charles G. Dawes: Businessman in Politics. Unpublished manuscript, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.
• Timmons, B. N. (1953). Portrait of an American: Charles G. Dawes. New York: Holt.
• Waller, R. A. (1998). The Vice Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary. Purcell, L. E. (Ed.). New York: Facts On File.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Evanston History Center, headquartered in the lakefront Dawes house
• Charles G. Dawes at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Notes As Vice President 1928 1929 by Charles G. Dawes
• Portrait Of An American by Charles G. Dawes

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