Carter Glass

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"Senator Glass" redirects here. For other uses, see Senator Glass (disambiguation).

Carter Glass
Frederick Hale
Succeeded byKenneth McKellar
United States Senator
from Virginia
In office
February 2, 1920 – May 28, 1946
Preceded byThomas S. Martin
Succeeded byThomas G. Burch
47th United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office
December 16, 1918 – February 1, 1920
PresidentWoodrow Wilson
Preceded byWilliam McAdoo
Succeeded byDavid F. Houston
Chair of the House Banking Committee
In office
March 4, 1913 – December 16, 1918
Preceded byArsène Pujo
Succeeded byMichael Francis Phelan
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia's 6th district
In office
November 4, 1902 – December 16, 1918
Preceded byPeter J. Otey
Succeeded byJames P. Woods
Member of the Virginia Senate
from the 20th district
In office
December 6, 1899 – November 4, 1902
Preceded byAdam Clement
Succeeded byDon P. Halsey
Personal details
Born(1858-01-04)January 4, 1858
Lynchburg, Virginia, U.S.
DiedMay 28, 1946(1946-05-28) (aged 88)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Signature

Carter Glass (January 4, 1858 – May 28, 1946) was an American

Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
.

After working as a newspaper editor and publisher, Glass won election to the

Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1902, where he was an influential advocate for segregationist policies. Historian J. Douglas Smith described him as “the architect of disenfranchisement in the Old Dominion.”[1] He also promoted progressive fiscal and regulatory reform but these contributions were often superficial since Glass generally opposed the most reformist aspects of federal legislation and was a New Deal critic.[2] Glass won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1902 and became Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1913. Working with President Wilson, he passed the Federal Reserve Act, which established a central banking system for the United States. Glass served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1918 until 1920, when he accepted an appointment to represent Virginia in the United States Senate. Glass was a favorite son candidate for the presidential nomination at the 1920 Democratic National Convention
.

Glass served in the Senate from 1920 until his death in 1946, becoming Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1933. He also served as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1941 to 1945. He co-sponsored the 1933 Banking Act, also known as the Glass–Steagall Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and enforced the separation of investment banking firms and commercial banks. An ardent supporter of states' rights, Glass opposed much of the New Deal and clashed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt over the control of federal appointments in Virginia.

Early life and education

Carter Glass was born on January 4, 1858, in Lynchburg, Virginia, the last child born to Robert Henry Glass and his first wife, the former Augusta Elizabeth Christian. His mother died on January 15, 1860, when Carter was only two years old, so his sister Nannie, ten years older (and Elizabeth's only daughter), became his surrogate mother. Carter, a slight boy, got his nickname, "Pluck", for his pugnacious willingness to stand up to bullies.[3]

His father, Robert Henry Glass, was Lynchburg's postmaster beginning in 1853, and in 1858 bought the Lynchburg Daily Republican newspaper (where he had worked since 1846). The city's other newspaper was the Lynchburg Daily Virginian, then published by Joseph Button, who on June 23, 1860, (while R. H. Glass was out of town) died in a duel with Glass's editor at the time, George W. Hardwicke, over accusations that Glass used his postal office to disadvantage the rival paper.[4]

When the

Confederate Army, where he became a major on the staff of Brigadier General John B. Floyd, a former Governor of Virginia. Major Glass ultimately remarried and had seven more children, including Meta Glass (president of Sweet Briar College
) and Edward Christian Glass (Lynchburg's school superintendent for five decades).

In poverty-stricken Virginia during the post-War period, Glass received only a basic education at a private school run by one-legged former Confederate Henry L. Daviess.[5] However, his father kept an extensive library. He became an apprentice printer to his father (and Hardwicke) when he was 13 years old, and continued his education through reading Plato, Edmund Burke and William Shakespeare, among others who stimulated his lifelong intellectual interest. He thought that Shakespeare's works were not written by William Shakespeare, refusing to accept that their author could have risen from humble origins.[6] In 1876, Major Glass accepted an offer to edit the Petersburg News, and Carter joined him as a journeyman printer. Not long afterward, Major Glass accepted the editorship of the Danville Post, but Carter did not join him, instead returning to Lynchburg.[7]

Early career

When Glass was 19 years old, he moved with his father to

Norfolk and Western (N&W). However, by then Glass had found the newspaper job he had initially wanted. His formative years as Virginia struggled to resolve a large pre-War debt (Mahone being a leading figure in the Readjuster Party
) and dealing with boom-and-bust economic cycles (some linked with stock speculation), helped mold Glass' conservative fiscal thinking, much as it did many other Virginia political leaders of his era.

Photographic portrait of Carter Glass as a young man

At the age of 22, Glass finally became a reporter, a job he had long sought, for the Lynchburg News. He rose to become the morning newspaper's editor by 1887. The following year, the publisher retired and offered Glass an option to purchase the business. Desperate to find financial backing, Glass received the unexpected assistance from a relative who loaned him enough for a $100 down payment on the $13,000 deal.

newspaper publisher
; the modern-day Lynchburg News and Advance is the successor publication to his newspapers.

Entry into politics

As a prominent and respected newspaper editor, Glass often supported candidates who ran against Virginia's Democrats of the post-

State Corporation Commission to regulate railroads and other corporations, replacing the former Virginia Board of Public Works.[10]

Advocacy of segregation and disenfranchisement

The 1902 Constitution required that to be eligible to vote a man prove that he had paid a

poll tax of US$1.50 (equivalent to about $51 in 2023) in each of the past three years,[11] making voting a luxury. The Constitution also required that voters pass a literacy test with their performance graded by the registrar. When questioned as to whether these measures were potentially discriminatory, Glass exclaimed, "Discrimination! Why that is exactly what we propose. To remove every negro voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate."[12] Indeed, the number of African-Americans qualified to vote dropped from 147,000 to 21,000 immediately.[13] Carter Glass remained one of the strongest advocates of segregation and continued to dedicate much of his political career to the perpetuation of Jim Crow laws in the South.[14]

Congress, Secretary of the Treasury

Glass's former residence, in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

Glass was elected to the

Secretary of the Treasury, succeeding William Gibbs McAdoo. His signature as Secretary of the Treasury can be found on series 1914 Federal Reserve Notes, issued while he was in office. At the 1920 Democratic National Convention Glass was nominated for President as a favorite son
candidate from Virginia.

Glass served at the Treasury until 1920, when he was appointed to the

Franklin Roosevelt. Both Glass and Byrd were opposed to Roosevelt's New Deal policies. Each was a strong supporter of fiscal conservatism and states' rights. Glass and Byrd invoked senatorial courtesy to defeat Roosevelt's nomination of Floyd H. Roberts
to a federal judgeship, as part of a broader conflict over control of federal patronage in Virginia.

Glass served in the U.S. Senate for the remainder of his life, turning down the offer of a new appointment as Secretary of the Treasury from President Roosevelt in 1933. When the Democrats regained control of the Senate that year, Glass became Chairman of the

Glass–Steagall Act, which separated the activities of banks and securities brokers and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Glass, however, opposed the concept of bank deposit insurance and was “very unhappy” about this reform.[15] A less successful minor legislative initiative from Glass was a 1930 resolution to ban dial telephones[16]
from the Senate, a measure that was successfully resisted by younger senators who favored dial telephony.

Electoral history

Family, decline, death

Gravestone of Carter Glass, U.S. politician.
Gravesite shared by Glass and his wife at Spring Hill Cemetery, Lynchburg.
Virginia

Carter Glass was a Methodist.[18] When he was twenty-eight, Glass married Aurelia McDearmon Caldwell, a school teacher. They had four children. She died of a heart ailment in 1937.[19] Glass remarried in 1940 at the age of 82. His second wife, Mary Scott, was his constant companion as his health began to fail over the next few years. They lived at the Mayflower Hotel Apartments in Washington, D.C. Starting in 1942, Glass began suffering from various age-related illnesses and could not attend Senate meetings after that time. However, he refused to resign from the Senate, despite many requests that he do so, and even kept his committee chairmanship. Many visitors were also kept away from him by his wife.[20]

A confidential 1943 analysis of the

reciprocal trade pacts
, but on all other questions he has loyally supported the President's anti-Isolationist policy. He cannot have many years of active service before him."

Glass died of

Robert Latham Owen
, lies nearby.

Legacy

"Montview", also known as the "Carter Glass Mansion", was built in 1923 on his farm outside of the-then boundaries of Lynchburg in Campbell County. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and now serves as a museum on the grounds of Liberty University. It lies within the expanded city limits of Lynchburg. The front lawn of "Montview" is the burial site of Dr. Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University.[22]

The

James River between Lynchburg and Amherst County.[23]

A chair in the Department of Government was created in Glass's honor at Sweet Briar College. It has been held by notable faculty including Dr. Barbara A. Perry.

An administrative building at Harvard Business School was named for Glass in the late 1920s. In 2020, the name Glass was removed from this building due to the efforts by Glass to "strip Black citizens of their voting rights through means such as a poll tax and literacy test — efforts that intentionally disenfranchised Blacks and promulgated segregation, with pernicious and long-lasting effects." In a letter to the Harvard community, Dean Nitin Nohria said, "We therefore cannot allow the Glass name to remain at the School." The building was renamed as Cash House, in honor of James Cash Jr., a distinguished Professor who served at Harvard for 36 years beginning in 1976.

Glass is one of the few Americans to appear on a U.S. coin during his lifetime. As a very prominent citizen of the city of Lynchburg, the 1936 Lynchburg Sesquicentennial commemorative half dollar has his image and name on the obverse. Only 20,000 were minted as they were not intended for regular circulation.[24]

See also

  • List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)

Works

  • Glass, Carter (1927). An Adventure in Constructive Finance. Doubleday, Page & Co. p. 448.

References

  1. ^ Smith, J. Douglas (2002). Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 67.
  2. ^ Shaw 2020.
  3. ^ Palmer 1938, pp. 15–20.
  4. ^ Palmer 1938, pp. 14–15.
  5. ^ Palmer 1938, p. 20.
  6. ^ Shaw 2020, p. 313.
  7. ^ Palmer 1938, pp. 22–24.
  8. ^ Current Biography 1941, pp. 321–23.
  9. ^ "Carter Glass – The Region – Publications & Papers | Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis". Minneapolisfed.org. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  10. ^ Shannon, Preston C. (March 1973). "The Evolution of Virginia's State Corporation Commission". William & Mary Law Review. 14 (3): 533.
  11. ^ Tarter, Brent. "Early History of the Poll Tax". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
  12. ^ Damon W. Root, When bigots become reformers: the Progressive Era's shameful record on race, May 2006.
  13. ^ Wilkinson III 1968, p. 38.
  14. ^ "Editorial: Is it time to reappraise Carter Glass?". The Roanoke Times. November 23, 2019. Retrieved June 29, 2020.
  15. ^ Shaw 2019, p. 194.
  16. ^ "U.S. Senate: Senate Considers Banning Dial Phones". www.senate.gov. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  17. ^ ""Glass, Carter"". Biograhical Directory of the United States Congress. United States Congress. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
  18. ISBN 9781400857494
    .
  19. ^ "Milestones, Jun. 14, 1937". Time. June 14, 1937. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  20. ^ "Elder Statesman". Time. February 19, 1945. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  21. JSTOR 4634869. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on October 21, 2013.
  22. ^ "National Register of Historical Places – VIRGINIA (VA), Lynchburg County". Nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  23. ^ "Designated Interstate and Primary Route Numbers, Named Highways, Named Bridges and Designated Virginia Byways" (PDF). Virginia Department of Transportation. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 1, 2015. Retrieved October 17, 2010.
  24. ^ Silver Commemoratives 1936 LYNCHBURG 50C MS

Bibliography

Further reading


External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Carter Glass.
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from Virginia's 6th congressional district

1902–1918 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chair of the House Banking Committee
1913–1918 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by United States Secretary of the Treasury
1918–1920 		Succeeded by
Preceded by President pro tempore of the United States Senate
1920–1946 		Succeeded by
U.S. Senate
Preceded by U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Virginia
1920–1946
Served alongside: Claude A. Swanson, Harry F. Byrd 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
Frederick Hale
 Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee
1933–1946 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by
U.S. Senator from Virginia
(Class 2)
1920, 1924, 1930, 1936, 1942
 Succeeded by
Absalom Willis Robertson
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Cover of Time
June 9, 1924 		Succeeded by
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