Preceded by Henry Wasson Name Boies Penrose Succeeded by George Pepper Succeeded by Henry Wasson Siblings Spencer Penrose | ||
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Died December 31, 1921, Washington, D.C., United States Books The City Government of Philadelphia Education Harvard University, Harvard Law School | ||
Previous office Senator (PA) 1897–1921 | ||
Boies Penrose (November 1, 1860 – December 31, 1921) was an American lawyer and Republican politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1897 until his death in 1921. Penrose was the fourth boss of the Pennsylvania Republican machine, following Simon Cameron, Donald Cameron, and Matthew Quay. Penrose was the longest-serving Pennsylvania Senator until Arlen Specter surpassed his record in 2005.
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Personal life and early career
Born into a prominent Philadelphia family of Cornish descent, he was brother to Richard Penrose, Spencer Penrose and Charles Bingham Penrose. Penrose graduated second in his class from Harvard University in 1881, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1883. Although Penrose wrote two books on political reform, he joined the political machine of Matthew Quay, a Pennsylvania political boss. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1884, and was elected to the State Senate in 1886, where he served as president pro tempore from 1889 to 1891.
In 1903 Boies, along with his brothers and father, invested in the formation of the Utah Copper Company.
Penrose was an avid outdoorsman and took pleasure in mountain exploration and big-game hunting. A mountain in Montana and another in the Dickson Range in the Bridge River Country in British Columbia were climbed and named by him. The Senator was a large, heavy man and according to his hunting guide, W.G. (Bill) Manson, they had to shop all over the place to get a horse big enough to fit Penrose and his custom saddle. The horse was called "Senator", and was retired to the pasture because no standard saddle would fit him.
Political career
Penrose stepped down from his position as a State Senator in 1897 to take office as a United States Senator, defeating John Wanamaker for the position. He was elected Chairman of the State Republican Party in 1903, succeeding fellow Senator Matthew Quay. A year later, Quay died, and Penrose was appointed to succeed him as the state's Republican National Committeeman.
He quickly became a power broker in the state, enabling figures like Richard Baldwin to advance through loyalty to his organization. He was forced out of power by the progressive faction of the party, led by William Flinn, in 1912. At that year's party convention, Penrose did not stand for re-election to his national committee post. Following Flinn's departure from the party to support Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 presidential election, Penrose was able to garner enough support to return to his post as national committeeman; he would remain in the position until his death. In 1914, Penrose faced his first direct election (following the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment); Penrose publicly campaigned for the first time in his life and defeated Democrat A. Mitchell Palmer and Progressive Gifford Pinchot.
In the 1912 presidential election, Penrose strongly supported incumbent President William Howard Taft over former President Theodore Roosevelt. After a campaign that consisted of heavy attacks on Penrose, Roosevelt won the state in the 1912 election, although Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the national vote. Penrose was also a major supporter of Warren Harding, and helped the Ohio Senator win the 1920 Republican nomination. Penrose's role in Harding's election helped earn Pennsylvanian Andrew W. Mellon the role of Secretary of the Treasury.
Penrose was a dominant member of the Senate Finance Committee and supported high protective tariffs. He had also served on the United States Senate Committee on Banking, United States Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, United States Senate Committee on Post Office and Post Roads, United States Senate Committee on Education and Labor, and United States Senate Committee on Immigration. One of Penrose's most important legislative actions was adding the "oil depletion allowance" to the Revenue Act of 1913. Penrose consistently supported "pro-business" policies, and opposed labor reform and women's rights.
In November 1915, Penrose accompanied the Liberty Bell on its nationwide tour returning to Pennsylvania from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco; Penrose accompanied the bell to New Orleans and then to Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell has not been moved from Pennsylvania again. A statue of Penrose has been in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's Capitol Park since September 1930.
Death and legacy
Penrose died in his Wardman Park penthouse suite in Washington, D.C. in the last hour of 1921, after suffering a pulmonary thrombosis. He was buried in the family grave section in Philadelphia's Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Following Penrose's death, his lieutenant Joseph Grundy became one of the leaders of the Republican machine, but no one boss dominated the party like Penrose and his predecessors had.
Quotes
"Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel." — Boies Penrose
"I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money...and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money." — Senator Boies Penrose (R-Pa.), 1896, citing the relationship between his politics and big business.
"All physical and economic tests that may be devised are worthless if the immigrant, through racial or other inherently antipathetic conditions, cannot be more or less readily assimilated..." — Boies Penrose, 1902, Chinese Exclusion and the Problem of Immigration
"Yes, but I'll preside over the ruins." — Boies Penrose's reply to a Republican Party reformer's accusation that Penrose was ruining the party's prospects for victory (and the reformer's chances for dominance over the party's apparatus) by putting up a slate of candidates who were stand-pat party hacks with no chance of winning.
"I would rather have seated beside me in this chamber a polygamist who doesn't polyg than a monogamist who doesn't monag." — Penrose speaking during hearings on whether to seat Utah-elected Senator Reed Smoot, who was a member of the [then-polygamous] LDS church, but who did not himself practice polygamy.