Preceded by District created | Name Miles Poindexter Resigned March 4, 1923 | |
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Born April 22, 1868Memphis, Tennessee ( 1868-04-22 ) Died September 21, 1946, Rockbridge County, Virginia, United States | ||
Previous office Senator (WA) 1911–1923 | ||
Miles Poindexter (April 22, 1868 – September 21, 1946) was an American politician and author. As a Republican and later a Progressive, he served as a United States Representative and United States Senator from the state of Washington.
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Early life
Poindexter was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He attended the Fancy Hill Academy in Virginia, and Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he graduated with an LL.B. degree in 1891.
Legal career
After he graduated, he settled in Walla Walla, Washington, where he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law. In 1892 he became the prosecuting attorney of Walla Walla County. He moved to Spokane, Washington in 1897 where he continued the practice of law. He served as the assistant prosecuting attorney for Spokane County from 1898 to 1904, and as a judge of the superior court from 1904 to 1908.
Political life
He was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-first Congress, and served from March 4, 1909 to March 3, 1911 representing Washington's newly created 3rd congressional district. He was then elected to the United States Senate in 1910 and was reelected in 1916, serving from March 4, 1911 to March 3, 1923. Poindexter left the Republican Party in 1913 to join the Progressive Party, rejoining the Republicans in 1915. He was unsuccessful in his candidacy for reelection in 1922. On June 1, 1916, he was one of only three Republican Senators to vote to confirm Louis Brandeis as a Supreme Court Justice—the other two being Robert M. La Follette and George W. Norris.
Positions on Committees
Later life
Poindexter ran in the 1920 Republican Party presidential primaries, but was not a serious contender; he received the votes of 20 delegates on the first ballot at the 1920 Republican National Convention, and the nomination went to Warren G. Harding on the 10th ballot. After Harding won the presidency, he appointed Poindexter as United States Ambassador to Peru, where he served from 1923 to 1928. In 1928, Poindexter was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate.
After the death of his wife, Poindexter returned to his home, "Elk Cliff" in Greenlee, near Natural Bridge Station, Virginia. He died there on the morning of September 21, 1946; according to the account of Hallie Fisher Williams, he was discovered by her mother Mary Wilhelm Fisher, a Poindexter employee, after having died in his sleep. He was interred at Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia.