Frank L. Smith
Frank L. Smith | |
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Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 17th district | |
In office March 4, 1919 – March 3, 1921 | |
Preceded by | John Allen Sterling |
Succeeded by | Frank H. Funk |
Personal details | |
Born | Dwight, Illinois, U.S. | November 24, 1867
Died | August 30, 1950 Dwight, Illinois, U.S. | (aged 82)
Political party | Republican |
Frank Leslie Smith (November 24, 1867 – August 20, 1950) was an Illinois politician.
Biography
Smith was born in Dwight, Illinois, in Livingston County He served as a United States Congressman from 1919 to 1921. He was elected by the people of Illinois to the United States Senate in 1926, but the Senate never allowed him to take his seat.
Run for the candidate
Smith first ran for the Republican primary nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1920. In that first year of suffrage, women's votes were counted separately from men's in Illinois. He was beating William B. McKinley by 27,000 votes after the male votes were counted, but once the female votes were counted, McKinley had won by 11,000 votes. McKinley went on to win the general election as well.
In 1921, Smith became the chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, which oversaw utilities in the state. He prepared to run again for the Senate in 1926. At the time, Illinois had no campaign finance laws. Smith collected donations from several wealthy executives who ran public utilities, including $125,000 from Samuel Insull. He used this money to defeat McKinley in the Republican primary held in the summer of 1926. Smith went on to win the general election held in November of that year, although Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Roebuck & Company offered him $550,000 stock to withdraw.[1]
McKinley, whose lame duck term would normally have extended until March 1927 under the laws of the time, died in December 1926. Illinois Governor Len Small (R) appointed Smith to fulfill the rest of McKinley's term, a fairly common practice when the incumbent senator has died or otherwise ceased to serve, but when Smith went to Washington to present his credentials as the appointed Senator, the U.S. Senate voted to not allow him to qualify as a senator, based upon alleged fraud and corruption in his campaign for the full term. In a special election he tried to again qualify as the elected Senator in March 1927, but was again denied. He finally resigned his seat on February 9, 1928.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Ascoli, P. M. (2016). Julius Rosenwald the man who built Sears, Roebuck and advanced the cause of black education in the American South. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
- ^ Frank Lloyd Wright Library, Frank L. Smith photographs, US Senate campaign brochure, accessed 2017-09-16
- "Frank L. Smith, 82, Lost Senate Seat," New York Times, August 31, 1950, p 22.
- Carroll Hill Wooddy, The Case of Frank L. Smith: A Study in Representative Government, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1931.
External links
- United States Congress. "Frank L. Smith (id: S000534)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
- 1867 births
- 1950 deaths
- Appointed United States Senators
- Members of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois
- Politicians from Chicago
- Republican Party United States Senators
- Illinois Republicans
- Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
- People from Dwight, Illinois