Frank Leslie Smith was an American politician from Illinois.
Background
He was born on November 24, 1867 in Dwight, Illinois, United States, the second of the three sons of John Jacob Smith and Jane E. (Ketcham) Smith. His mother was from New York state. His father, whose family name had originally been Schmidt, was a native of Baden, Germany, who had grown up in America.
Education
Frank Smith completed high school.
Career
After a year of teaching at a country school, he began work in the freight department of the Chicago and Alton Railroad at Dwight. A similar job with the Rock Island line took him to Chicago in 1887, but he returned four years later to Dwight and began a profitable real estate and insurance business.
A chief client for productive farm land was Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, developer and promoter of the "Keeley cure" for alcoholics, whose thriving business was situated at Dwight. Smith shared in this prosperity, and by 1904, with Keeley's backing, he established the First National Bank of Dwight.
Long interested in politics, Smith had already gained a foothold in state Republican circles. He was elected village clerk in 1894, and his campaign support, two years later, for Gov. John R. Tanner won him appointment to the governor's staff with the rank of colonel. In 1904 Smith sought the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, but lost, despite the support of the Chicago Republican boss William Lorimer.
In 1905 United States Sen. Shelby M. Cullom secured Smith a presidential appointment as collector of internal revenue for the Springfield district, a post he held until 1909. Smith managed President Taft's reelection campaign in Illinois in 1912. His ambition was to be governor, and he sought the nomination in 1916, only to lose to Frank O. Lowden.
In 1918 he was named to the first of three terms as chairman of the Republican state committee (1918-1920, 1920 - 1922, 1924-1926), a post that gave him new power in party councils. Smith won election from his district to a seat in Congress. Instead of seeking reelection in 1920, he set his eye on higher office. He was generally regarded as a Lowden man, but in his successful attempt to retain the state party chairmanship in 1920 he accepted support from the Republican faction led by Fred Lundin and Mayor William Hale Thompson of Chicago. As a result, Lowden refused to back Smith's bid for the governorship, and Smith turned instead toward the United States Senate.
Although he lost the senatorial primary to William B. McKinley, congressman and head of an extensive electric traction system, Smith's prestige in the party remained high. His name was urged on President Harding for a cabinet post, and early in 1921 Gov. Len Small, one of the few successful Lundin candidates, appointed Smith to the important office of chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission, responsible for regulating public utilities.
Along with William S. Vare of Pennsylvania, Smith quickly became identified with campaign expenditures on a scale so lavish as to cause 1926 to be called the year of the "golden primaries. "
An even more damaging factor in the Smith case was the disclosure that, while still chairman of the Commerce Commission, he received a contribution of $125, 000 from the utility magnate Samuel Insull, as well as lesser amounts from two other utilities industrialists, Ira C. Copley and Clement Studebaker, Jr. Smith's acceptance of such funds, which boosted his campaign total to $500, 000, was a direct violation of state law. These facts, brought out by a special Senate investigating committee headed by Sen. James A. Reed, engendered a public outcry and led to the independent Senate candidacy of reformer Hugh S. Magill. Smith won the three-way race in November, but he was never to sit in the Senate.
Ironically, Senator McKinley died in December 1926, and Smith was appointed to fill out the remainder of McKinley's term. Although there was no connection between this term and the one to which Smith had been elected, the Senate refused to seat him. When the Seventieth Congress convened in late 1927, the matter was again taken up by the Reed committee. On January 19, 1928, after extended debate, the committee's resolution, describing Smith's credentials as tainted with "fraud and corruption".
Smith formally "resigned" his seat on February 9. He quickly sought vindication in the special April primary by running again for the Senate, but was resoundingly defeated. His attempt to win nomination as congressmanat-large in 1930 was also rejected at the polls.
The party organization was more kind. He was elected to the Republican national committee in 1932 and continued as a regular delegate to the party's national conventions. He also carried on his banking activities until his death. Smith died of pneumonia in his eighty-third year at his home in Dwight.
Achievements
Personality
He was energetic and aggressive.
Connections
On February 8, 1893, Smith married Erminie Ahern, a Dwight classmate and teacher. They had no children. She was a Roman Catholic.