Background

George Wharton Pepper was born on March 16, 1867 in Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of George Pepper, a physician, and of Hitty Markoe Wharton. His father died when Pepper was five.

Education

George Wharton Pepper was taught at home, first by his mother and later by a tutor, because poor eyesight prevented him from attending school. In 1883, Pepper entered the University of Pennsylvania. His eyesight had vastly improved, and he enthusiastically participated in athletics, drama, and the school paper. After receiving the B. A. , first in his class, in 1887, he entered the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Career

George Wharton Pepper worked for the law firm of Biddle and Ward while in school and graduated, again first in his class, in 1889. Over twenty-one years Pepper developed an increasingly successful private law practice while also teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and editing and writing legal material. After four years as a teaching fellow, he became Biddle Professor of Law in 1893. With William Draper Lewis he produced the Digest of Decisions and Encyclopaedia of Pennsylvania Law, 1754 - 1898 (1898 - 1906). By 1892 Pepper had abandoned his early affiliation with the Democratic party, and he remained a loyal Republican thereafter. Because of his expanding private practice, he resigned his faculty position in 1910.

In 1910 George Wharton Pepper was counsel to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot during the investigation of Secretary of the Interior Richard Ballinger's administration of coal lands in Alaska and the dismissal of Pinchot for criticizing him. Pepper's first involvement in a national political event won him praise, but the political nature of the controversy disturbed him. During World War I, Pepper served as chairman of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense. After the war he was a leading opponent of the Versailles Treaty and of American entry into the League of Nations. He felt it was wrong to threaten use of military force to preserve the status quo and thought the treaty too harsh toward the Central Powers.

After Senator Boies Penrose died on December 31, 1921, Pennsylvania Governor William C. Sproul appointed Pepper to his seat. Pepper had earlier declined to serve on the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals and to run for mayor of Philadelphia. But Sproul's promise to support him in the 1922 special election for the remaining four years of Penrose's term led him to accept. On January 9, 1922, he was sworn in as Pennsylvania's junior senator. The contrast between Penrose, the last and most powerful of Pennsylvania's Republican "bosses, " and Pepper, a reform-minded Republican, was significant and upsetting to most members of the Pennsylvania Republican organization, but Pepper won the Republican primary handily in May.

In 1922 George Wharton Pepper helped mediate settlement of a strike by anthracite coal workers, which aided him in winning the November election. During his five years as senator, Pepper served on the Military Affairs, Naval Affairs, and Foreign Relations committees, and he was chairman of the committees on Banking and Currency and the Library of Congress. He was called upon by the U. S. Supreme Court to argue the congressional side in Myers v. United States, involving the right of the president to remove a postmaster without the approval of Congress. Pepper lost the 1926 Republican senatorial primary, an expensive and bitterly contested campaign, to Philadelphia "boss" William S. Vare in a three-way race that included Governor Gifford Pinchot.

Although Pepper, who had the backing of the Andrew Mellon and Joseph Grundy forces, easily outdistanced Pinchot and won in sixty-two of the state's sixty-seven counties, Vare's huge lead in Philadelphia and the backing of antiprohibitionists won him the nomination. But Vare's election was marked by controversy. Campaign expenses and vote-fraud charges were investigated by the U. S. Senate after the primary and again after Vare's victory in the general election. Nearly $2 million had been spent on behalf of the ticket of Pepper and gubernatorial candidate John S. Fisher, and Vare's primary-campaign expenditures were even larger. Vare was barred from taking his Senate seat because of excessive campaign expenditures, so in 1929, Governor Fisher appointed Grundy, one of his strongest backers, to the vacant seat. Pepper resumed his law practice.

In 1936 George Wharton Pepper represented the defendants in United States v. Butler, the Supreme Court case that resulted in the invalidation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. He published his autobiography, Philadelphia Lawyer, in 1944, and he continued to practice law and to serve professional organizations into his eighties. He died in Devon, Pennsylvania on May 24, 1961.

Achievements

• George Wharton Pepper was a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer and United States Senator from Pennsylvania. He was a chairman of the Pennsylvania Council of National Defense during the First World War. He was also the founder of the law firm of Pepper Hamilton.

Works

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  • A Voice from the Crowd

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • The Safety Point in Railway Regulation; Address

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Philadelphia Lawyer

    (No often is it given to a man to lead such a full, rich a...)

Personality

Pepper was a many-talented man, representative of the finest conservative thinking, the personification of "respectable" Philadelphia.

Connections

On November 25, 1890, George Wharton Pepper married Charlotte Root Fisher, daughter of a Yale professor. They had three children.

Father:

George Pepper

Mother:

Hitty Markoe Wharton Pepper

Spouse:

Charlotte Root Pepper

Daughter :

Adeline Pepper Newbold

Son :

George Wharton Pepper