Nelson W. Aldrich

For more information on Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Foster, Rhode Island, 6 Nov. 1841; d. 15 Apr. 1915) US; member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives 1875 – 77, member of the US House of Representatives 1879 – 83, US Senator 1881 – 1911 Aldrich was educated at the East Greenwich academy, Rhode Island, after which he gained employment in the wholesale grocery trade with Walden and Wightman of Providence, Rhode Island. During the Civil War he enlisted in the Republican army but after only a few months' active service contracted typhoid fever and was medically discharged. Returning to his former employers, his business acumen soon gained him a partnership in the firm and election to directorships in a variety of banking, railroad, and public utility establishments in Providence.

Aldrich's success in business was complemented by a distinguished political career spanning over forty-five years. In 1869 he gained election as an independent Republican to the Providence Common Council, over which he presided 1972 – 3. In 1875 he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives, was re-elected in 1876, and served as Speaker 1876 – 7. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1878 and 1880, but, in 1881, before the end of his second term, the Rhode Island state legislature elected him US Senator to complete the term of the late General Ambrose E. Burnside. He represented Rhode Island in the Senate for the next thirty years.

During his long senatorial career, Aldrich became a dominant figure in Republican Party politics. He was recognized as the head of a clique of fellow Republicans known as the senate "oligarchy" which succeeded in imposing its will on Republican congressmen in both Houses, directing legislation and dictating party policy.

Aldrich's particular sphere of interest was banking and public finance. He was associated with the introduction of several controversial tariff acts at the turn of the century, and with the 1909 Act which led to a split in the Republican Party, and with drafting the 1900 Gold Standard Act. In 1910 he did not seek re-election to the Senate but remained a prominent political figure as chairman of the national monetary commission.

Aldrich was a reticent man who made few concessions to public opinion and who was scornful of political rhetoric. He built his political career on his skill as a parliamentary strategist and a complete mastery of his brief in the field of public finance.

United States senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (1841-1915) was the ablest of a group of Republican conservatives who fought a rearguard action against progressivism during the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Adescendant of Roger Williams, Nelson Aldrich was born in Foster, R.I., on Nov. 6, 1841, and educated in the common schools of the area. His marriage to Abby Chapman in 1865 brought him a measure of wealth and gave him entry to society, but he was essentially a self-made man. After service in the Civil War, he rose to partnership in a wholesale grocery business. He invested shrewdly and ultimately became one of Rhode Island's foremost financiers.

A resourceful leader, Aldrich was a man of extraordinary charm, lucidity, and willpower. He served two terms in the Rhode Island Legislature and one in Congress before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1881. There for 30 years he represented the corporate and financial world's point of view with wit, irony, and intelligence. He shared power with a half dozen other conservatives through the McKinley and first Roosevelt administrations but stood virtually alone as the spokesman of the Old Guard thereafter. More than any other senator, he was able to thwart, retard, or modify Roosevelt's progressive recommendations between 1905 and 1909.

Aldrich's conservatism reflected the arrogance of the self-made man and an almost unqualified belief that what was good for big business was good for the nation. He supported the gold standard and the protective tariff and generally opposed the regulation of business. He was also unsympathetic to social-justice measures and democratic procedural reforms. Yet he was realistic enough to accept the inevitability of change, and he endeavored to shape change along lines congenial to his own views.

In 1906 Aldrich succeeded in having the Hepburn rate bill amended to the railroads' partial satisfaction. The next year he sponsored the Aldrich-Vreeland emergency banking bill. As head of the National Monetary Commission created by that measure, he declared, "I am going to have a central bank in this country." In 1911 his proposals, the so-called Aldrich Plan, were unveiled with strong banking and civic support. Many of these recommendations were incorporated in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Significantly, however, Aldrich opposed two of the act's key provisions: public control of the central board and the issuance of government notes.

For all his indomitable qualities, Aldrich was a gracious, pleasure-loving man. A connoisseur and collector of paintings, he maintained a luxurious estate and consorted almost exclusively with the social and economic elite. His daughter Abby was the wife of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Aldrich died on April 16, 1915.

Further Reading

There is no modern biography of Aldrich. Nathaniel Wright Stephenson, Nelson W. Aldrich: A Leader in American Politics (1930), is a brilliant character study which suffers from its uncritical tone. Background studies of the period include Mathew Josephson, The President Makers: The Culture ofPolitics and Leadership in an Age of Enlightenment, 1896-1919 (1940) and The Politicos: 1865-1896 (1938); George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of Modern America, 1900-1912 (1958); and David J. Rothman, Politics and Power: The United States Senate, 1869-1901 (1966).

• Born: Nov. 6, 1841, Foster, R.I.
• Political party: Republican
• Senator from Rhode Island: 1881–1911
• Died: Apr. 16, 1915, New York, N.Y.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a powerful group of conservative Republicans known as the Senate Four held enormous influence over federal policy. “The four bosses of the Senate can and do control that body,” one journalist wrote of senators Nelson Aldrich, William Allison, Orville Platt, and John C. Spooner. “This means that these four men can block and defeat anything that the president or the House may desire.”

Of the four, Nelson Aldrich wielded the greatest power because he was chairman of the Finance Committee, which determined all tariff legislation (tariffs are taxes placed on imported goods and materials). American industry sought protection from foreign competition through high tariffs, and business leaders looked to Aldrich to protect their interests. Aldrich strongly opposed President Theodore Roosevelt's proposals to regulate big business and fought the attempts of progressive reformers to lower tariff rates. The press called Aldrich a “dictator,” “tyrant,” and “boss of the Senate,” making him a symbol of the need for reform through direct election of senators.

Sources

• Horace Samuel Merrill and Marion Galbraith Merrill, The Republican Command, 1897–1913 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1971)

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich
United States Senator from Rhode Island
In office 1881 – 1911
Preceded by	Ambrose Burnside
Succeeded by	Henry F. Lippitt
Born	November 6, 1841(1841-11-06) Foster, Rhode Island
Died	April 16, 1915 (aged 73) New York, New York
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Abigail "Abby" Pearce Truman Chapman
Profession	Businessman

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1911.

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 all tariff and monetary policies in the first decade of the 20th century. In a career that spanned three decades, Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition. He rebuilt the American financial system along Progressive lines through the institution of the federal income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve System. He claimed that this would lead to greater efficiency. Aldrich became wealthy with investments in street railroads, sugar, rubber and banking. His son Richard Steere Aldrich became a U.S. Representative, and his daughter, Abby, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller. Her son, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, served as Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford.

Contents 1 Family Background 2 Political career 2.1 Congressional committee assignments 3 Further reading 4 Notes 5 External links

Family Background

Portrait of Senator Aldrich

Aldrich was born into a family descended from John Winthrop, William Wickenden, and Roger Williams.^[1][2] His branch passed through generations of declining circumstances. His mother was Abby Burgess and his father was Anan E. Aldrich, an industrial mill hand. The first of the American Aldrich ancestors was the immigrant George Aldrich, who settled in Mendon, Massachusetts in the 1600s. Today, the Aldrich Family Association, and the family cemetery, is located in the neighboring community of Uxbridge, Massachusetts on the Rhode Island border. It was in Rhode Island that Nelson Aldrich grew up and prospered. The Aldrich family has grown to become a political dynasty on the American landscape, with senators, a vice president, and various political figures in a number of states.

Political career

Aldrich's home in Providence, a National Historic Landmark

His first job was clerking for the largest wholesale grocer in the state, where he worked his way up to become a partner in the firm. On October 9, 1866 he married Abigail "Abby" Pearce Truman Chapman, a wealthy woman with impressive antecedents. By 1877, Nelson had a major effect on state politics, even before his election to the United States Congress.^[3] He served as the president of the Providence city council and Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives.

In 1878 the Republican bosses of Rhode Island endorsed him for the US House of Representatives; in 1881 he was elected to the Senate. He served in the Senate from 1881 to 1911 as an influential Republican, becoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

In 1906 Aldrich sold his interest in the Rhode Island street railway system to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, whose president was J. P. Morgan's loyal ally, Charles Sanger Mellen. Also in 1906 Aldrich and other American financiers invested heavily in mines and rubber in the Belgian Congo. They supported Belgium's King Leopold II, who had imposed slave labor conditions in the colony.^[4]

As co-author of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909, Aldrich removed restrictive import duties on fine art, which enabled Americans to bring in very expensive European artworks that became the foundation of many leading museums.

In 1909, Aldrich introduced a constitutional amendment to establish an income tax, although he had declared a similar measure "communistic" a decade earlier. In 1908 he became the chief sponsor of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act which created the National Monetary Commission, which drew up the Aldrich Plan that formed the basis for the Federal Reserve system.

Taft tries to get progressive ideas into Aldrich

He also served as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. During his Senate tenure he chaired the committees on Finance, Transportation Routes to the Seaboard, Rules, and the Select Committee on Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia.

A deep believer in the progressive themes of efficiency and scientific expertise, Aldrich led a team of experts to study the European national banks. After his trip, he came to believe that Britain, Germany and France had a much superior central banking system.^[5] He worked with several key bankers and economists, including Paul Warburg, Abram Andrew and Henry Davison, to design a plan for an American central bank in 1911. In 1913 Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, which was patterned after Aldrich's vision.

Because of his control of the Senate (and his daughter Abby Greene Aldrich's marriage to John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and son Winthrop Aldrich's later chairmanship of the Chase National Bank), Aldrich, who represented the smallest state in the Union, was regarded as one of the most powerful politicians of his time^{[citation needed]}. His grandson and namesake Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller became one of the most powerful politicians of a later era and served as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford.

Aldrich was very active in the Freemasons and was the Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island. He died on April 16, 1915, in New York, New York, and was buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, Rhode Island. The Nelson W. Aldrich House on 110 Benevolent Street in Providence is open as a museum run by the Rhode Island Historical Society.

Congressional committee assignments

	Committee	Congresses	Notes
House	District of Columbia	46
Senate	District of Columbia	47-48
	Education and Labor	47-48
	Finance	47-61	Chairman (55-61)
	Steel Producing Capacity of the United States (Select)	48-49
	Transportation Routes to the Seaboard	48-55	Chairman (48-49)
	Pensions	49
	Examine the Several Branches of the Civil Service	50-51
	Rules	50-61	Chairman (50-52; 54; 55)
	Corporations Organized in the District of Columbia	53-60	Chairman of the Select Committee, (53)
	Revolutionary Claims	53-54
	Interstate Commerce	54-61
	Cuban Relations	56-60
	Industrial Expositions	59-60
	Public Expenditures	61

Further reading

• Kert, Bernice. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family. New York: Random House, 1993.
• Phillips, David Graham, "The Treason of the Senate: Aldrich, The Head of It All," Cosmopolitan, March 1906.
• Steffens, Lincoln, "Rhode Island: A State For Sale," McClure's Magazine, February 1904, 337 - 353.
• Stephenson, Nathaniel W. Nelson W. Aldrich: A Leader In American Politics. 1930.
• Sternstein, Jerome L. "Corruption in the Gilded Age Senate: Nelson W. Aldrich and the Sugar Trust," Capitol Studies 6 (Spring 1978): pp.13-37.
• Wicker, Elmus. The Great Debate on Banking Reform: Nelson Aldrich and the Origins of the Fed, Ohio State University Press, 2005.

Notes

1. ^ William G. McLoughlin, Rhode Island, a History, (W.W. Norton & Co. 1986), 149[1]
2. ^ James Pierce Root, Steere Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of John Steere, who Settled in Providence, Rhode Island, about the year 1660, (Providence: Riverside Press, 1890).
3. ^ Bernice Kert, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller: The Woman in the Family, 1993, p. 17
4. ^ Jerome L. Sternstein, "King Leopold II, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, and the Strange Beginnings of American Economic Penetration of the Congo," African Historical Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1969), pp. 189-204
5. ^ Europe and Central Banks, New York Times, January 9, 1910, Annual Financial Review, pg 8.

External links

• Nelson W. Aldrich at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Benjamin T. Eames	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Rhode Island's 1st district March 4, 1879 – October 4, 1881	Succeeded by Henry J. Spooner
United States Senate
Preceded by Ambrose Burnside	United States Senator (Class 1) from Rhode Island October 5, 1881 – March 3, 1911 Served alongside: Henry B. Anthony, William P. Sheffield, Jonathan Chace, Nathan F. Dixon, George Peabody Wetmore	Succeeded by Henry F. Lippitt
Legal offices
Preceded by Justin Morrill Vermont	Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance 1899 – 1911	Succeeded by Boies Penrose Pennsylvania

v • d • e United States Senators from Rhode Island Class 1 Foster • Potter • Howland • Malbone • Champlin • Hunter • De Wolf • Robbins • Dixon I • Sprague III • Francis • A. Greene • James • Simmons • Arnold • Sprague IV • Burnside • Aldrich • Lippitt • Gerry • Hebert • Gerry • McGrath • Leahy • Pastore • J. Chafee • L. Chafee • Whitehouse Class 2 Stanton • Bradford • R. Greene • Ellery • Fenner • Mathewson • Howell • Burrill • Knight • Simmons • Clarke • Allen • Anthony • Sheffield • Chace • Dixon III • Wetmore • Colt • Metcalf • Green • Pell • Reed

v • d • e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Finance Campbell • Eppes • Sanford • Holmes • Lowrie • Smith • Webster • Wright • Clay • Evans • Woodbury • Calhoun • Lewis • Atherton • Dickinson • Hunter • Pearce • Fessenden • Sherman • Fessenden • Sherman • Morrill • Bayard • Morrill • Voorhees • Morrill • Aldrich • Penrose • Simmons • Penrose • McCumber • Smoot • Harrison • George • Millikin • George • Millikin • Byrd • Long • Dole • Packwood • Bentsen • Moynihan • Packwood • Roth • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus • Grassley • Baucus

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