Nelson W. Aldrich
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Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich
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| In office 1881-1911 |
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| Preceded by | Ambrose Burnside |
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| Succeeded by | Henry F. Lippitt |
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| Born | November 6, 1841 Foster, Rhode Island |
| Died | April 16, 1915 (aged 73) New York, New York |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Abigail "Abby" Pearce Truman Chapman |
| Profession | Businessman |
Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1911.
Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the "General Manager of the Nation", dominating all tariff and monetary policies in the first decade of the 20th century. In a career that spanned three decades, Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition. He rebuilt the American financial system along Progressive lines through the institution of the federal income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve System. He did so in the belief that it would lead to greater efficiency. Aldrich became wealthy with investments in street railroads, sugar, rubber and banking. His son Richard Steere Aldrich became a U.S. Representative, and his daughter, Abby, married the only son of John D. Rockefeller. Her son became the U.S. Vice President, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller
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[edit] Family Background
Aldrich was born into a family descended from John Winthrop, William Wickenden, and Roger Williams.[1][2] His branch passed through generations of declining circumstances. His mother was Abby Burgess, and his father was Anan E. Aldrich, as an industrial mill hand. The first of the American Aldrich ancestors, was the immigrant George Aldrich, who settled in Mendon, Massachusetts in the 1600s. Today, the Aldrich Family Association, and the family cemetery, is located in the neighboring community of Uxbridge, Massachusetts on the Rhode Island border. It was in Rhode Island that Nelson Aldrich grew up and prospered. The Aldrich family has grown to become political dynasty on the American landscape, with Senators, a Vice President, and various political figures in a number of states.
[edit] Political career
His first job was clerking for the largest wholesale grocer in the state, where he worked his way up to become a partner in the firm. On October 9, 1866 he married Abigail "Abby" Pearce Truman Chapman, a wealthy woman with impressive antecedents. By 1877, Nelson had a major effect on state politics, even before his election to the United States Congress.[3] He served as the president of the Providence city council and Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.
In 1878 the Republican bosses of Rhode Island endorsed him for the US House of Representatives; in 1881 he was elected to the Senate. He served in the Senate from 1881 to 1911 as an influential Republican, becoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
In 1906 Aldrich sold his interest in the Rhode Island street railway system to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, whose president was J. P. Morgan's loyal ally, Charles Sanger Mellen. Also in 1906 Aldrich and other American financiers invested heavily in mines and rubber in the Belgian Congo. They supported Belgium's King Leopold II, who had imposed slave labor conditions in the colony.[4]
As co-author of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, Aldrich removed restrictive import duties on fine art, which enabled Americans to bring in very expensive European artworks that became the foundation of many leading museums.
In 1909, Aldrich introduced a constitutional amendment to establish an income tax, although he had declared a similar measure "communistic" a decade earlier. In 1908 he became the chief sponsor of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act which created the National Monetary Commission, forerunner to the Federal Reserve system.
He also served as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. During his Senate tenure he chaired the committees on U.S. Senate Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, Rules, and the Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia.
A deep believer in the progressive themes of efficiency and scientific expertise, Aldrich led a team of experts to study the European national banks. After his trip, he came to believe that Britain, Germany and France had a much superior central banking system.[5] He worked with several key bankers and economists, including Paul Warburg, Abram Andrew and Henry Davison, to design a plan for an American central bank in 1911. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, which was patterned after Aldrich's vision.
Because of his control of the Senate (and his daughter Abby Greene Aldrich's marriage to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and son Winthrop Aldrich's later chairmanship of the Chase National Bank), Aldrich is considered to have been the most powerful politician of his time[citation needed]. His grandson and namesake Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller became one of the most powerful politicians of a later era and served as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.
Aldrich was very active in the Freemasons and was the Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island.
He died on April 16, 1915, in New York, New York, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island. The Nelson W. Aldrich House on 110 Benevolent Street in Providence is open as a museum run by the Rhode Island Historical Society.
[edit] Further reading
- Kert, Bernice. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House, 1993.
- Phillips, David Graham, "The Treason of the Senate: Aldrich, The Head of It All," Cosmopolitan, March 1906.
- Steffens, Lincoln, "Rhode Island: A State For Sale," McClure's Magazine, February 1904, 337 - 353.
- Stephenson, Nathaniel W. Nelson W. Aldrich: A Leader In American Politics. 1930.
- Sternstein, Jerome L. "Corruption in the Gilded Age Senate: Nelson W. Aldrich and the Sugar Trust," Capitol Studies 6 (Spring 1978): pp.13-37.
- Wicker, Elmus. The Great Debate on Banking Reform: Nelson Aldrich and the Origins of the Fed, Ohio State University Press, 2005.
[edit] Notes
- ^ William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island, a History, (W.W. Norton & Co. 1986), 149[1]
- ^ James Pierce Root, Steere Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of John Steere, who Settled in Providence, Rhode Island, about the year 1660, (Providence: Riverside Press, 1890).
- ^ Bernice Kert, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family, 1993, p. 17
- ^ Jerome L. Sternstein, "King Leopold II, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and the Strange Beginnings of American Economic Penetration of the Congo," African Historical Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1969), pp. 189-204
- ^ Europe and Central Banks, New York Times, January 9, 1910, Annual Financial Review, pg 8.
[edit] External links
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Benjamin T. Eames |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Rhode Island's 1st district March 4, 1879 - October 4, 1881 |
Succeeded by Henry J. Spooner |
| United States Senate | ||
| Preceded by Ambrose Burnside |
United States Senator (Class 1) from Rhode Island October 5, 1881 to March 3, 1911 Served alongside: Henry B. Anthony, William P. Sheffield, Jonathan Chace, Nathan F. Dixon, George Peabody Wetmore |
Succeeded by Henry F. Lippitt |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Justin Morrill Vermont |
Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance 1899-1911 |
Succeeded by Boies Penrose Pennsylvania |
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