Fur Seal Arbitration: In the Matter of the Claims of Great Britain Against the United States of America Before the Bering Sea Claims Commiss
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Fur Seal Arbitration: In The Matter Of The Claims Of Great Britain Against The United States Of America Before The Bering Sea Claims Commission. Argument For The United States In Reply
United States, Donald McDonald Dickinson, Bering Sea Claims Commission
Govt. print. off., 1897
Technology & Engineering; Metallurgy; Bering Sea controversy; Great Britain; Sealing; Technology & Engineering / Fisheries & Aquaculture; Technology & Engineering / Metallurgy; United States
Donald McDonald Dickinson was an American lawyer, politician and postmaster-general. He was the second Michigan Democrat—the first being Lewis Cass—to rise to a position of national political importance.
Background
Donald McDonald Dickinson was born on January 17, 1846 at Port Ontario, Oswego County, New York, United States; the son of Colonel Asa C. and Minerva (Holmes) Dickinson. One of his boasts was that his paternal grandfather and greatgrandfather and his maternal grandfather and great-grandfather were all natives of American soil. His ancestors had an enviable record of service in the Revolutionary army and in the formation of the federal government.
His father, as a young man, explored the shores of Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan in a birch-bark canoe and was greatly impressed with the future of the country. In 1848 he moved with his family to Michigan, settling on an island in the St. Clair River. Four years later he removed to Detroit.
Education
Don M. Dickinson attended the public schools of Detroit but was prepared for college under the instruction of private tutors.
He entered the Law School of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was graduated with the class of 1867. Admitted to the bar in the same year, he entered at once upon a brilliant and successful career.
Career
Dickinson gained a reputation as one of the leading lawyers of the Middle West and was frequently called upon to argue important cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
Worthy of particular mention in this connection are the Telephone Appeals case, in which his argument for Drawbaugh is printed in full in the stenographic record, and the Homestead cases. In the latter cases he successfully defended the rights of homesteaders upon lands covered by unearned public grants to railroads, thereby securing to many poor farmers their homes and lands.
His political career began in 1872, when he was chosen to seive as secretary of the Democratic state central committee in the Greeley campaign. Attributing the overwhelming defeat of Greeley to the Democratic party, he wrote to Dr. Foster Pratt, chairman of the state committee, declaring that Greeley’s defeat broke any link which might have bound the progressive men of the party to it, that he would never vote or act with the party again, but would await the new party which should carry forward the living principles of the dead leader, Greeley.
However, he did not carry his threat into execution. The leadership of Gov. Tilden of New York quickened the party into new life, and the campaign of 1876 found Dickinson in the position of chairman of the Democratic state central committee.
In 1880 he was chosen a member of the Democratic national committee for Michigan and served in that capacity until 1885.
He was the member for the United States of the court of arbitration formed in 1902 to adjust a controversy between the United States and the Republic of Salvador, arising from a claim against Salvador presented by an American company which had a concession for the collection of port duties at the port of El Triunfo.
He had early formed a high opinion of Grover Cleveland, and his support of Cleveland for the presidency marked the definite beginning of a close and enduring political and personal friendship between the two men. After Cleveland’s election, there being no Democratic senator from Michigan, the President recognized Dickinson as the titular head of the party in that state and consulted him on all appointments to office affecting Michigan men. Dickinson did not desire a political office for himself, but when William F. Vilas was transferred from the position of postmaster-general to that of secretary of the interior, he accepted the postmaster-generalship upon the urgent request of President Cleveland. He was nominated for the office December 6, was confirmed and commissioned January 16, and entered upon his duties the next day.
He served until the close of the administration in 1889.
In 1892 he took a leading part in the campaign which elected Cleveland to the presidency for the second time. He declined an unsolicited offer of a cabinet position, preferring to devote himself to the profession of law and to private life.
During Cleveland’s second administration and in his opposition to the free-silver wing of the party, Dickinson gave him unfailing support. He opposed the nomination of Bryan in 1896, and in 1900, when Bryan was again nominated, advocated the reelection of President McKinley.
In 1912 he again showed his independence in politics by sending a telegram to Roosevelt, dated October 16, pledging to him his unqualified support “because of the reactionary teachings of the two old parties”.
Twice in his later years he was called to the service of the government in his legal capacity. In 1896 he was senior counsel for the United States before the international high commission on the Bering Sea claims.
The majority of the commission, Dickinson and Sir Henry Strong, chief justice of the Dominion of Canada, decided against Salvador. Señor Don José Rosa Pacas, the representative of Salvador, declined to sign the award.
Achievements
In Dickinson's honor the Democratic legislature of Michigan in 1891 organized a new county in the Upper Peninsula and named it Dickinson County.
