He was born on September 19, 1872 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States, the first of four sons (there were no daughters) of William Buckner Pittman, a successful attorney, and Catherine (Key) Pittman, a descendant of Francis Scott Key.
Private tutors provided his early instruction. At fifteen he enrolled at Southwestern Presbyterian University (Clarksville), where he distinguished himself in mathematics, Bible study, history, and literature. He completed the "School of History, English Literature and Rhetoric" in June 1890, but since this was not equivalent to graduation he received no degree. Later honorary degrees came to him from his alma mater, from George Washington University, and from the University of Nevada. He studied law privately.
In 1892 he was admitted to the bar in Seattle, Washington, then went on to Dawson, Yukon Territory, at the time of the Klondike gold rush of 1897 and in 1899 to Nome, Alaska. These ventures proved financially meager, but he learned what it meant to work as a common miner and familiarized himself with mining litigation.
He served informally as counsel for Australians attacking corrupt Klondike officials, helped to fight Alaska claim-jumpers in the Nome area, and there became the first district attorney in the "consent" (vigilante) government, which he helped to organize. He acquired some interests in Mojave mines and extensive holdings in Nye County mining districts.
A decade of mining, legal, and political activities followed, during which Pittman won the Democratic nomination for United States Senator in 1910. Odds favored the reelection of George S. Nixon, Republican; both men agreed to abide by a popular preferential ballot, which Nixon won by 1, 105 votes, although the Democrats won a majority in the state legislature. True to the "gentlemen's agreement, " and at Pittman's request, the legislature made Nixon's election unanimous. The Republican minority gratefully notified Congress of this good Nevada sportsmanship, recording that Pittman had "earned the lasting regard of his political opponents. " Death removed Nixon, and in a 1912 preferential ballot Pittman nosed out his Republican opponent by 89 votes.
In January 1913 Pittman began a Washington service destined to last twenty-seven years - years marked by unwavering fealty to mining interests. Pittman came into his own as a delegate to the World Economic Conference (London, 1933), emerging with an eight-power silver agreement under which the other signatories contributed relatively little but the United States agreed to purchase, annually through four years, 24, 421, 410 ounces - approximately the country's total 1932 production. The following December, when silver stood at thirty-three cents, President Roosevelt obligingly proclaimed the mints open to any silver "newly-mined" in the United States within the next four years, under terms netting producers approximately sixty-four and one half cents an ounce. Meanwhile the depression had made the farm-state inflationists allies of the sixteen-to-one men in the silver camp, but Pittman remained a hard-headed realist.
Inflationary pressures weakened subsequently, but through the rest of Pittman's life the administration pursued tactics tending to prevent the domestic price from falling below sixty-four and one half cents. Although blunt in speech and cool toward some colleagues, Pittman had engaging personal qualities and won a following in both parties. The Democrats made him secretary of their caucus (1913 - 17), secretary of the platform committee at their 1924 convention, and chairman of it in 1928. They four times made him minority nominee for president pro tempore of the Senate and from 1933 kept him installed in that position.
Death came in Reno after triumphant reelection in 1940 and was not caused, as currently intimated, by chronic alcoholism but by coronary thrombosis.
Key Pittman was the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, served in United States Senate. Among his legislation is the Pittman–Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937 which set up a formula for federal sharing of ammunition tax revenue for establishing state wildlife areas. The program is still in effect. Several pieces of legislation bore his name, including the Pittman Act of 1918. The Key Pittman Wildlife Management Area near Hiko, Nevada, which encompasses the Frenchy and Nesbitt Lakes, is named in his honor.
In foreign affairs Pittman in his early Senate years supported Wilson and strove to reconcile League of Nations adversaries. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1933, he usually cooperated in Roosevelt's foreign policies, though his vigorous denunciation of dictators occasionally embarrassed the President.
He sometimes proclaimed that Congress should determine foreign policy, which the Executive should then carry out; and some New Deal principles, especially reciprocal trade, antagonized his basic conservatism. Still, he and Roosevelt usually reached understandings, and his campaign counsel was valued. He championed wildlife protection but warred bitterly with Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes over land conservation and patronage.
In appearance Pittman was tall, slender, lithe, somewhat distinguished. His innate force enabled him to avoid histrionics and ostentation.
Like other legislators of ability, vigor, and perspicacity, he won advantages for his constituency by clever use of difficult domestic and foreign situations facing Congress and the President. He was a master in manipulation of amendments, riders, and especially conference committee compromises.
He married Mimosa June Gates in Nome on July 7, 1900 (they had no children), and they moved down to the silver-boom town of Tonopah, Nevada, which remained their legal residence after 1901.
