Person:Nelson Aldrich (1)

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Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (//; November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, where he represented Rhode Island from 1881 to 1911. By the 1890s, he was one of the "Big Four" key Republicans who largely controlled the major decisions of the Senate, along with Orville H. Platt, William B. Allison, and John Coit Spooner. 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 tariff and monetary policy in the first decade of the 20th century.

Born in Foster, Rhode Island, Aldrich served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After the war, he became a partner in a large wholesale grocery firm and won election to the Rhode Island House of Representatives. He served a single term in the United States House of Representatives before winning election to the Senate. In the Senate, he helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition, and he was a cosponsor of the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act. He also helped win Senate approval of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish–American War.

Aldrich led the passage of the Aldrich–Vreeland Act, which established the National Monetary Commission to study the causes of the Panic of 1907. He served as chair of that commission, which drew up the Aldrich Plan as a basis for a reform of the financial regulatory system. The Aldrich Plan strongly influenced the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which established the Federal Reserve System. Aldrich also sponsored the Sixteenth Amendment, which allowed for a direct federal income tax.

Deeply committed to the efficiency model of the Progressive Era, he believed that his financial and trade policies would lead to greater efficiency. Reformers, however, denounced him as representative of the evils of big business. His daughter Abigail married American financer John Davison Rockefeller Jr. who was the son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. His descendants, including namesake Nelson A. Rockefeller, became powerful figures in American politics and banking.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations - Biographical. (New York: The American Historical Society, Inc., 1920).

   The late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich was one of the most conspicuous figures in the public life of recent years. Beyond that simple statement of fact, a biography of his life needs no further introduction. He was a man of National reputation, and his work as a conscientious and able legislator in the United States Senate is now a matter of history.
   
   Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich was a native of the State of Rhode Island, born in the town of Foster, Nov. 6, 1841, the son of Anan F. and Abby (Burgess) Aldrich. He was a member of the famous old Aldrich family of Rhode Island, and a lineal descendant of several of the early founders of the Colony. The family has been prominent in the history of the Colony since its founding, and its original land holdings extended to the boundary line between Rhode Island and Connecticut.
   
   Nelson W. Aldrich received his early education in the town of Killingly, Connecticut, where he attended the elementary schools. He later studied at the Providence Seminary and at the Academy at East Greenwich, Rhode Island. At the age of sixteen years he discontinued his studies in the latter institution and went to Providence, where he entered the employ of the firm of Waldron & Wightman, wholesale grocers, in the capacity of bookkeeper. He remained in this position for eight years, and at the end of this time became a partner in the business, the name of the firm becoming Waldron, Wightman & Company.
   
   Mr. Nelson made his entrance into the world of politics and public affairs in the late sixties, in that turbulent period of reconstruction following the Civil War. From the very beginning of his public career he was a firm and staunch believer in the principles and doctrines of the Republican party. He was a man of signal ability, and devoted much energy to work in the interests of the people of Providence. He became a member of the Common Council of Providence in 1869, and for six years remained in that office, rendering especially conspicuous services to the city during the years 1871-72-73. In 1875 he was elected a member of the Lower House of the Rhode Island Legislature, and in that year became Speaker of the House. Three years later he was elected to represent his district in the United States Congress, and was reelected in 1880, serving four years. During his terms in the House of Representatives he was influential in bringing about much-needed and beneficial legislation, with the cooperation of the other delegates from Rhode Island. During his second term in the Lower House of Congress, the death of Ambrose E. Burnside, Senator from Rhode Island, left a vacancy in the United States Senate, and on October 5, 1881, Mr. Aldrich was elected to fill the unexpired term, which had five years to run. In 1886 he was reelected, and served in every Congress thereafter until 1911, when at the end of thirty years' service he refused a renomination and retired from active participation in politics and public life.
   
   While Senator Aldrich was not noted as an eloquent speaker, he was conspicuous for his sound judgement, application and shrewdness, and he at once took rank in the Forty-seventh Congress among his contemporaries, including such recognized leaders as Allison, Ingalls, Sherman, Dawes, Hoar and Edmunds. The brilliant Conkling and the politic Blaine had retired from the Seante to enter other fields of strife. Senator Aldrich came to the Senate after an experience in the Lower House, and during the first session voted for the establishment of a tariff commission for which he had persistently cast his votes as a member of the House of Representatives. This experience in public life was supplemented by an active business career and an instinct of watchfulness, and his acquirements soon placed him in the foremost ranks among the originators and moulders of legislation and public opinion. He was chairman of the committee on finance, on which he served during his entire term of Senatorial service. Because of his industrious study of the problems placed before him, he became thoroughly familiar with all of the intricate questions of finance and tariff, and when he had occasion to present his views the Senators accorded him an attentive hearing. In the Fifty-first Congress he offered an amendment to the McKinley Tariff Measure, involving the reciprocity features originated by Secretary of State Blaine, and strongly advised their acceptance. By force of his arguments and influence the amendment was passed and became a part of the bill. In his subsequent career in the Senate, Mr. Aldrich was prominent in the discussions of the great financial questions, and he was the father, the originator and the organizer of the present financial system of the Nation. He visited Europe as the chairman of the commission appointed by Congress to study the financial systems then in use abroad, and after many years of study brought forward the present national banking law, substantially in the form adopted by the administration succeeding that from which he retired. Senator Aldrich was conspicuous as an untiring advocate of monometallism. The measures with which Senator Aldrich's name is most conspicuously associated are known as the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Law and the Vreeland-Aldrich Emergency Currency Act of 1908. As chairman of the monetary commission he achieved fame, but he was always busy with every legislative programme which affected the tariff or the national finances.
   
   Senator Aldrich was the owner of the finest and most comprehensive library on economics in the entire country. The collection of books dealing with economics covers the following range of subjects: Economic theory, economic history and conditions, commerce and trade, shipping and subsidies, commercial treaties and reciprocity, tariff policy, tariff administration, industries, capitial and labor, prices and wages, the cost of living, trusts and monopolies, transportation, money, general works, banking, coinage, exchange, money and banking, public finance, taxation, social science, statistics, etc. The entire library falls into three main divisions, the first comprising books on travel, history and art, fine literary works, standard authors, etc.; the second, the economic collection, above mentioned; the third, books and papers, and various material relating to the history of Rhode Island, past and present. In private life, Senator Aldrich was conspicuously identified with the largest business and financial interests of his native State.
   
   Senator Aldrich died in New York, April 16, 1915, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, R. I.
   
   Senator Aldrich married, Oct. 8, 1866, Abby Pearce Truman Chapman, a daughter of Francis Morgan and Lucy Ann (Truman) Chapman, and a member of one of the oldest families of Rhode Island. Their children were: 1. Lucy T., of Warwick, R. I. 2. Edward B., resides at Warwick; married Lora E. Lawson, of Troy, N. H. 3. Abby Greene, who became the wife of John D. Rockefellow [sic], Jr. 4. Stewart M., married Martha L. Clackwell, of St. Louis. 5. William Truman, married Dorothea Davenport, of Boston. 6. Richard S. 7. Winthrop, married W. Harriet Alexander. 8. Elsie, wife of Stephen Maurice Edgell.

2. ↑ Nelson W. Aldrich, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.