Background
Reed was born on November 9, 1861 on a farm in Richland County, Ohio. He was a descendant of David Reed. He moved with his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the age of 3.
Reed was born on November 9, 1861 on a farm in Richland County, Ohio. He was a descendant of David Reed. He moved with his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the age of 3.
He went to public schools and attended Coe College. He became a lawyer and moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1887. Reed completed high school in nearby Cedar Rapids, but was denied his diploma because of a graduation speech he wrote on "Free Thought. "
After brief attendance at Coe College, Reed read law in a Cedar Rapids office and began practice in 1885.
In 1887 Reed moved to Kansas City, Missouri, then a wide-open, graft-ridden city, and was soon deep in local politics. He made a remarkable record as county counselor and prosecuting attorney and in 1900 became mayor of Kansas City.
Running for governor of Missouri in 1904, he was defeated--the only election ever lost. In 1910 he won election to the United States Senate, where he served three terms, from 1911 until his retirement in 1929.
Reed sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1928 but received only 48 votes in the convention. He supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, but thereafter opposed him.
Reed died in Fairview, Michigan, on September 8, 1944.
(Put Your Mindset to WorkReed, James, Stoltz, Paul G.)
In 1910, he was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri as a Democrat.
In the Senate Reed was at first a fairly dependable party regular, but after World War I he joined the Republican irreconcilables in opposing the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty.
An ardent nationalist, he also opposed the World Court, the Four-Power Pact, and the Mellon war-debt settlement.
He fought to expand the immigration restrictions in that bill so that it would prevent the immigration of anyone African ancestry, in addition to its prohibitions against immigration from Asian nations
Quotations: Reed reflected the deep racial prejudices of his region. In the debate over the Immigration Act of 1917, he declared that "no man not of the white race ought to be permitted to settle permanently in the United States of America. "
He was a member of the Senate Banking Committee.
Quotes from others about the person
In 1929, as Reed was retiring from the Senate, H. L. Mencken wrote a tribute to him, praising Reed for his opposition to what Mencken called "demagogues" and "charlatans" from both political parties.
He was married twice. His first wife was Lura M. Olmsted (died 1932) and after her death he married Nell Donnelly Reed (1933–1944; his death).