Dawes, Charles Gates, 1865-1951

DAWES, CHARLES GATES, (son of Rufus Dawes and brother of Beman Gates Dawes), a Vice President of the United States; born in Marietta, Washington County, Ohio, August 27, 1865; attended the common schools; graduated from Marietta College in 1884 and from the Cincinnati Law School in 1886; admitted to the bar in 1886 and practiced in Lincoln, Nebr., 1887-1894; interested in public utilities and banking 1894-1897; Comptroller of the Currency, United States Treasury Department 1898-1901; unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1902; during the First World War was commissioned major, lieutenant colonel, and brigadier general of the Seventeenth Engineers; served with the American Expeditionary Forces as chief of supply procurement and was a member of the Liquidation Commission, War Department; resigned from the Army 1919; upon the creation of the Bureau of the Budget was appointed its first Director in 1921; appointed to the Allied Reparations Commission in 1923; for his work on a program to enable Germany to restore and stabilize its economy, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925; elected on November 5, 1924, Vice President of the United States on the Republican ticket with President Calvin Coolidge and was inaugurated March 4, 1925, for the term ending March 3, 1929; Ambassador to Great Britain 1929-1932; resumed the banking business and was chairman of the board of the City National Bank and Trust Co., Chicago, Ill., from 1932 until his death in Evanston, Ill., April 23, 1951; interment in Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago, Ill.

<p>Charles Gates Dawes was born on August 27, 1865, in Marietta, Ohio, and grew up to be an outstanding public servant. His father was a Civil War veteran and one-term Republican congressman. His ancestors included William Dawes, who had ridden with Paul Revere to warn colonists of the approaching British. Charles Dawes graduated from Marietta College in 1884 and received his law degree from Cincinnati Law School in 1886. He married Caro Blymyer in 1889.

Shortly after finishing law school, the governor of Ohio hired him to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, to look after his real estate holdings. Dawes did so and opened his law practice there. His law office was two floors above that of William Jennings Bryan, who opened his practice the same year. The two became lifelong friends in spite of their political differences.

In 1895, Dawes moved to Chicago, Illinois, to pursue business opportunities. There he met William McKinley and was eventually put in charge of McKinley's Chicago headquarters for the 1896 presidential election. When McKinley won, he made Dawes comptroller of the currency at the Treasury Department. Dawes resigned in 1901 to run for the United States Senate, expecting McKinley's support. When McKinley was assassinated in September and Theodore Roosevelt became President, Dawes no longer had support from the administration or from local party bosses and went down to defeat. Returning to business, Dawes became president of the Central Trust Company of Illinois. When the United States entered World War I, Dawes, 52, was commissioned as a major in the 17th Railway Engineers. He eventually became the chief of supply procurement for American troops in Europe and later served as the U.S. member of the Military Board of Allied Supply after Allied command was unified.</p>

<p>Dawes emerged as a national figure in 1921 when he was called to testify before a congressional committee investigating war expenditures. He had served with distinction and was frustrated with the request to testify. When he was pressed on prices formulas, Dawes became enraged and berated the committee for their "peanut politics." His testimony, expletives deleted, became a Government Printing Office best-seller and earned him the nickname "Hell and Maria," for one the colorful ejaculations he blurted out. When the Bureau of the Budget was created the next year, President Warren Harding named Dawes as its first director. In 1923, when the economy of Germany faltered, he was appointed to devise a plan to address it. The Dawes Plan introduced mechanisms to balance the German budget, reorganize the Reichsbank, and stabilize the currency. Although the plan later proved inadequate, it seemed successful at the time and stood as Dawes's best known contribution to history. It won him the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize.</p>

<p>In 1924, Calvin Coolidge selected Dawes as his running mate, and the two won in a landslide. However, the relationship between the two quickly turned sour. In accordance with a tradition dating back to 1789, Dawes was to deliver a brief Inaugural Address to the Senate. His lengthy tirade against Senate rules stole headlines and the spotlight from the Inaugural Address that Coolidge delivered afterwards. Dawes exacerbated problems by declining to sit in on cabinet meetings before Coolidge had even offered him the right to do so. Another incident of contention arose over Coolidge's second nominee for attorney general, Charles Warren. Dawes, after being assured that no vote would be taken in his absence, left the Senate floor to take a nap at the Willard Hotel during the confirmation proceedings. While he was gone, a vote was taken and resulted in a tie, which Dawes, as the presiding officer of the Senate, could have resolved. By the time he arrived, however, a supporter of Warren's had switched his vote, and the nominee was rejected. It was the first rejection of a cabinet appointee since the presidency of Andrew Johnson, and Coolidge held Dawes responsible. When Coolidge declined in 1927 to seek another term, Dawes was floated as a candidate for President but support quickly coalesced around Herbert Hoover. Hoover appointed Dawes as the U.S. ambassador to Britain, a post he held from 1929 to 1932. Dawes then served briefly as the head of the new Reconstruction Finance Corporation, created to help ease credit problems during the Great Depression. Dawes left the latter position when the bank of which he had previously been director failed and needed to take loans from the corporation. He eventually reorganized the bank and paid back all its loans. He remained chairman of the board for the Chicago City National Bank and Trust Co. until his death on April 23, 1951.</p>

<p>Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American banker, general, diplomat, composer, and Republican politician who was the 30th vice president of the United States from 1925 to 1929. For his work on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations, he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925.</p>

<p>Born in Marietta, Ohio, Dawes attended Cincinnati Law School before beginning a legal career in Lincoln, Nebraska. After serving as a gas plant executive, he managed William McKinley's 1896 presidential campaign in Illinois. After the election, McKinley appointed Dawes as the Comptroller of the Currency, and he remained in that position until 1901 before forming the Central Trust Company of Illinois. Dawes served as a general during World War I, holding the position of chairman of the general purchasing board for the American Expeditionary Forces. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Dawes as the first Director of the Bureau of the Budget. Dawes also served on the Allied Reparations Commission, where he helped formulate the Dawes Plan to aid the struggling German economy, though the plan was eventually replaced by the Young Plan.</p>

<p>The 1924 Republican National Convention nominated President Calvin Coolidge without opposition. After Frank Lowden declined the vice presidential nomination, the convention chose Dawes as Coolidge's running mate. The Republican ticket won the 1924 presidential election and Dawes was sworn in as vice president in 1925. Dawes helped pass the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill in Congress, but the bill was vetoed by President Coolidge. Dawes was a candidate for re-nomination at the 1928 Republican National Convention, but Coolidge's opposition to Dawes helped ensure that Charles Curtis was nominated for the vice presidency instead. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover appointed Dawes to be the Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Dawes also briefly led the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which organized a government response to the Great Depression. He resigned from that position in 1932 to return to banking, and he died in 1951 of coronary thrombosis.</p>