John G. Warwick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John George Warwick (December 23, 1830 - August 14, 1892) was a U.S. Representative from Ohio.
Born in County Tyrone, Province of Ulster, Ireland, Warwick attended the common schools of his native land. Immigrated with his brother to the United States about 1850 and resided in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a short time. He moved to Navarre, Ohio, and became a bookkeeper in a dry-goods establishment. He moved to Massillon, Ohio, and clerked in a dry-goods store, subsequently becoming interested in flour milling, coal mining, and agricultural pursuits. He also was a promoter of railroad construction.
Warwick was elected as Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and served from 1884 to 1886. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1886.
Warwick was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-second Congress and served from March 4, 1891, until his death in Washington, D.C., August 14, 1892.
He defeated William McKinley. This was the only election that McKinley ever lost. McKinley was in favor of an import tariff on tinware. Warwick sent peddlers out into the rural 16th district who charged outrageously high prices for tinware goods. When asked why the prices were so high, the peddlers replied: "This is the result of McKinley's tariff!". Warwick's early example of 'hard-ball politics' was repaid in full, when he suffered a fatal bout of 'food-poisoning' after eating 'tainted oysters' at a meeting in New York City of the board of directors of a railroad on whose board he served. He was interred in Protestant Cemetery, Massillon, Ohio.