John Jacob Esch was an American attorney and member of the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1921 serving as a Republican.
Background
He was born near Norwalk, Monroe County, Wisconsin, the second of five children, four boys and a girl, of Henry and Matilda (Menn) Esch.
His father had emigrated from Westphalia, Germany, while still a youth; his mother was born of German parents in Missouri. Henry Esch was at various times a farmer, groceryman, and preacher of the Evangelical Association.
Though beginning with little, the Esches attained moderate prosperity and passed on to their children strong religious convictions and thrifty habits. John Esch grew up in Milwaukee, where the family moved in 1865, and after 1871 in Sparta, Wisconsin.
Education
An excellent student, he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1882.
After an interlude as teacher and assistant principal of the Sparta high school, he returned to the university and took a law degree in 1887.
Career
He was admitted to the Wisconsin bar and began practice in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
The family were staunch members of the First Congregational Church of La Crosse. Esch soon became active in the Wisconsin State Guard and in Republican politics.
He helped organize guard companies in both Sparta and La Crosse that later became part of the 3rd Regiment, Wisconsin National Guard; from 1894 to 1896 he served as judge advocate general with the rank of colonel.
Esch was a delegate to the Republican state conventions of 1894 and 1896, serving in the latter year as chairman.
In 1898 he won election to Congress from the 7th Wisconsin District, a position he held for twenty-two years.
In 1908 he sought a Senate seat but lost in the preferential primary to Isaac Stephenson.
In 1905 he sponsored the Esch-Townsend Bill to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to fix maximum railroad rates.
The measure passed the House but failed in the Senate. The Hepburn Act of the following year did grant the ICC authority to establish "just and reasonable" freight rates, but failed to lay down precise guidelines.
Like most of his constituents, Esch strongly opposed American involvement in World War I.
He supported the McLemore Resolution in 1916 warning Americans to stay off armed merchant ships and, with a majority of the Wisconsin delegation, voted against the declaration of war the following year.
He wrote and sponsored, with Senator Albert B. Cummins of Iowa, the Transportation Act of 1920, designed to return the nation's railroads to their private owners after the war, compensate them for the years of federal control, and provide for the possible future amalgamation of the railroads into a number of "systems. "
This measure, popularly called the Esch-Cummins Act, became law over the strenuous opposition of Senator La Follette, who argued that the compensation was excessive and would result in higher freight rates and consumer prices; instead, La Follette advocated that federal control be extended for two years.
Charging that Esch had gone over to the reactionaries, La Follette and his allies in the Non-Partisan League brought about his defeat in the 1920 Republican primary, thus ending Esch's legislative career.
President Harding, again over La Follette's objections, appointed Esch to the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1921.
During his seven-year term, Esch served as chairman in 1927. Although he was renominated in 1928, a group of Senators from Southern coal-producing states, who felt his ICC rulings had favored Pennsylvania shippers, successfully blocked his confirmation.
Esch then resumed the practice of law, heading the Washington firm of Esch, Kerr, Taylor, and Shipe until 1938.
Upon his retirement he returned to La Crosse.
He died there of heart disease at the age of eighty and was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, La Crosse.
Achievements
Religion
The family were staunch members of the First Congregational Church of La Crosse.
Politics
Esch soon became active in the Wisconsin State Guard and in Republican politics.
As the ranking Republican, Esch became chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee following his party's Congressional victory in 1918.
Membership
Esch served on the House Military Affairs and Public Lands committees, but made his major contributions as a member (from 1903) of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce.
He also served as president of the American Peace Society (1930 - 38).
He was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1921.
Connections
On December 24, 1889, he married Anna Herbst of Sparta, like himself of German parentage. The couple had nine children: Paul, Irene, Helen, Marie, Ruth, Anna, John, Mark, and Margaret.