Background
He was born on November 1, 1860 into a prominent Philadelphia family of Cornish descent, he was brother to Richard Penrose, Spencer Penrose and Charles Bingham Penrose.
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This booklet is one of a series planned by the Folger Library to describe various aspects of the cultural history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Illustrated with 16 b&w plates.
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He was born on November 1, 1860 into a prominent Philadelphia family of Cornish descent, he was brother to Richard Penrose, Spencer Penrose and Charles Bingham Penrose.
He prepared for college with private tutors and also attended the Episcopal Academy and the public schools before graduating magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1881.
After graduating from Harvard University in 1881 he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1883. During the 1886 Penrose showed some affinity for an independent, reform approach to politics, but he soon decided that his ambition for political office would be advanced more readily through the Republican state organization.
He became the protégé and lieutenant of the machine's leader, Matthew Quay, and was elected to the state legislature of 1885 and the senate from 1886 to 1897, serving as president pro tem of the latter body after 1890.
With Quay's backing, he was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1897.
In both state and national politics, Penrose took a conservative line.
His legislative efforts were mainly on behalf of higher tariff rates.
An opponent of most reform ideas (except for the direct primary), Penrose represented Pennsylvania on the Republican National Committee from 1904 until 1912.
Although known as a party boss, Penrose avoided the graft that marred the records of many such men of his time.
In November 1915, Penrose accompanied the Liberty Bell on its nationwide tour returning to Pennsylvania from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco; Penrose accompanied the bell to New Orleans and then to Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell has not been moved from Pennsylvania again.
Penrose died in his Wardman Park penthouse suite in Washington, D. C. in the last hour of 1921, after suffering a pulmonary thrombosis.
(This booklet is one of a series planned by the Folger Lib...)
(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)
He devoted himself to leading the Republican state organization and defending corporate interests, thus leaving behind a record of successful pursuit of power but virtually no legacy of idealism or statesmanship.
Quotations:
"Public office is the last refuge of a scoundrel. "
"I believe in the division of labor. You send us to Congress; we pass laws under which you make money. .. and out of your profits, you further contribute to our campaign funds to send us back again to pass more laws to enable you to make more money. "
"All physical and economic tests that may be devised are worthless if the immigrant, through racial or other inherently antipathetic conditions, cannot be more or less readily assimilated. .. "
"Yes, but I'll preside over the ruins. "
Pennsylvania Senate, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Quick-witted, cynical, and aloof.
Chairman