A MAN NAMED MARSHALL
Who was Thomas Riley Marshall?
He was Vice-President of the United States in the year of 1916, the year I was a born , and he was popular enough politically to have been re-elected to serve to 1921. I should have remembered him but that's the way it has always been for Vice-Presidents. So many Veeps go unappreciated for years after their careers end or change radically.
But, Tom Riley Marshall is not among those totally forgotten at all. He has a remarkable niche in history because, he, in a short statement concerning the greatest need of our nation a that time. You, perhaps, are among the millions who have quoted him.
Thomas Marshall was born March 14th in 1854 in North Manchester Indiana. He graduated from Wabash College in 1873, was admitted to the bar in Indiana in 1875 and practiced law in Columbia City until 1908 when he was elected Governor of the State of Indiana. He is, of course, remembered by many for that service. His administration was an active one. He worked hard for new employer's liability laws, added child labor legislation by his efforts to give the state a new constitution a bit short in the legislature..
At the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore 1912, we was the favorite-son nominee of Indiana, but that was not to be. Woodrow Wilson was the nominee and Thomas R. Marshall was elected our Vice-President. As Presiding Office of the Senate he enjoyed great popularity and it was there that his sense of humor found expression.
Woodrow Wilson, by this time, by internationally occupied and Marshall presided over cabinet meetings during the President's absence to attend the peace conference re-hashing problems which had caused World War I switching them about as best they could at that time.
Later, during Wilson's severe and continuing illness, Marshall had to consider the possibility of naming himself as Acting President of the United States. Thus was a critical decision,and Thomas Marshall decided it would dangerously divide the nation at a time when unity was most urgent. Few men have had to face such a decision involving such drastic potential. I wonder what must have gone through his mind in the year until June 1, 1925 when he died. He must have thought at length and deeply concerning the fate of Wilson's League of Nations plans.
But, do we remember Thomas R. Marshall for that decision to refrain from naming himself Acting President of our nation? .
No.
Tom Marshall is best remembered as the man who stated before the U.S. Senate: “What this country needs is a really good five cent cigar.”
A.L.M. May 29, 2003 [c711wds]
