Background

Edward Prentiss Costigan was born on July 1, 1874 near Beulahville, King William County, Virginia, United States. He was the second in a family of two sons (a third died in infancy) of George Purcell and Emilie (Sigur) Costigan. He was of Dutch-Irish descent through his father and Spanish through his mother. Both parents had been born and brought up in Ohio, in or near Cincinnati, moving after their marriage to Chicago. Because of Mrs. Costigan's health they sought a better climate, first in Virginia and then in the recently opened San Juan country in southwestern Colorado, to which they moved about 1877. There the father practised law, served as a county judge, and engaged in mining ventures. Both Edward and his older brother, George Purcell Costigan, later a distinguished teacher of law, followed their father's legal bent.

Education

Like his brother, Edward attended Denver public schools and the preparatory school of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. In 1892 he entered Harvard College, but his studies there were interrupted by a long illness. After travel in Europe and the study of law in Utah he returned to Harvard and received the A. B. degree cum laude in 1899.

He received honorary degree of doctor of laws from the University of Colorado in 1937.

Career

Costigan early joined in the cause of good government, serving as attorney for the Honest Election League of Denver (1903 - 06), the Law Enforcement League (1906 - 08), and the Anti-Saloon League; he was president of the Civil Service Reform Association of Denver (1910 - 11) and an organizer of the Direct Primary League of Colorado. All the while he carried on a private law practice, in which two actions particularly deserve mention.

He represented Colorado and Arizona commercial interests in freight-rate litigation before the Interstate Commerce Commission (1905 - 09) in an effort, only partially successful, to compel railroads to adjust rates that were discriminatory against the Rocky Mountain region. As attorney for the United Mine Workers, he won the acquittal (1916) of four miners charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the death of a member of the state militia during the fighting that followed the so-called Ludlow massacre (1914) in the southern Colorado coal fields. This was his greatest legal victory, but it cost him the support of those who thought that the real issue was law and order.

Costigan quickly became one of the leaders of the liberal wing of the party in Colorado.

Fordney-McCumber Act led to a Senate investigation in 1926; the majority report upheld Costigan's charges of high-tariff bias leveled against certain of his colleagues appointed by Presidents Harding and Coolidge. Costigan had meanwhile resigned, with a blast at President Coolidge for alleged misfeasance.

He reopened his law office in Denver and reentered politics--now as a Democrat.

In 1930 he won election to the Senate after a spirited campaign in which his labor sympathies and tariff record were among the major issues. Costigan assumed his new office at a time of deepening depression. His proposals for more drastic remedial measures than had been taken by the Hoover administration anticipated much of the New Deal.

Nervous exhaustion brought on by overwork in the public interest forced Costigan to give up his senatorial activities in March 1936.

The immediate cause of his death, at his home in Denver, was a combination of pneumonia and heart failure. Burial was in Fairmount Cemetery, Denver.

Achievements

• He was a founding member of the Progressive Party in Colorado.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Conditions in the Coal Mines of Colorado

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Politics

He helped to organize the Progressive party in Colorado and was its unsuccessful candidate for governor in that year and again in 1914. In 1916, still as a Progressive, he supported Woodrow Wilson, who appointed him the following year to the newly created Tariff Commission. At the outset Costigan and his colleagues on the commission worked harmoniously in preparing reports which were intended to contribute to a "scientific" tariff and the resumption of normal trade relations in the postwar world. With the addition of later Republican appointees, and the passage of the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922, with its provision authorizing the president, after investigation by the Tariff Commission, to raise or lower rates, the activities of the commission changed, and internal dissension arose.

In January 1932 he and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr. , of Wisconsin introduced a bill to provide for federal cooperation with the states to relieve unemployment; though it did not pass, it laid the groundwork for subsequent similar legislation. A supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Costigan worked effectively in behalf of the New Deal legislative program in the Senate. In addition he was co-sponsor of the Jones-Costigan Sugar Act (1934), under which the principles of the Agricultural Adjustment Act were applied to sugar beets--an important Colorado crop--and to sugar cane. He also introduced, with Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York, an unsuccessful antilynching bill.

Personality

Lean and gaunt, animated but not robust, his fine facial features indicating alertness and sensitivity, Costigan was a striking figure. He was gifted with a rich, clear voice and a keen, analytical mind, and he was an effective public speaker; but behind his words was the unremitting toil of accumulating facts and marshaling the evidence. He fought hard for his causes, but he was invariably courteous in manner; even those who disagreed with him recognized his integrity and courage.

Interests

• Politicians

  Theodore Roosevelt

Connections

On June 12, 1903, he married Mabel G. Cory, a Denver high-school classmate and a woman of great charm who sympathized deeply with his ideals. They had no children.

Father:

George Purcell Costigan

lawyer

Mother:

Emilie (Sigur) Costigan

Spouse:

Mabel G. Cory

Brother:

George Purcell Costigan

teacher