Americas position in two world wars. An address delivered at the celebration of the one hundred and eighty-fifth anniversary of the birth of George Washington
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Our National and International Responsibilities. an Address Delivered Before the Michigan State Bar Association at Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 29, 1917
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Atlee Pomerene was a lawyer and United States Senator.
Background
He was born on December 6, 1863 on a farm at Berlin, Holmes County, Ohio, United States, the first of nine children of Peter Piersol and Elizabeth (Wise) Pomerene and a great-grandson of Julius Pomerene, who came from France in 1777 as a member of Lafayette's staff.
His father, who also had three children by an earlier marriage, was a physician and later a member of the faculty of the Ohio Medical University at Columbus. His mother, of German descent, was the daughter of a farmer and woolen mill operator.
Education
Young Pomerene was educated in the public schools of Berlin, the Vermillion Institute (Hayesville, Ohio), the College of New Jersey (Princeton), from which he was graduated (A. B. ) with honors in 1884, and the Cincinnati Law School (LL. B. , 1886). 91 and served on the city board of education, 1893-94.
Career
Admitted to the bar in 1886, he went to Canton, Ohio, to practise law in partnership with Charles Russel Miller, a nephew of Congressman (later President) William McKinley.
Within eight months he had joined the local Young Men's Democratic Club and had won his first public office, that of city solicitor. He held this office until 1891 and served on the city board of education, 1893-94. In 1896 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County, the only Democrat to win office in McKinley's home county that year. In this position Pomerene won his first prominence, as prosecutor of Mrs. Anna George, accused of the murder of George D. Saxton, brother of Mrs. McKinley.
A turning point in Pomerene's career came in October 1903 when he presided over a rally in Canton on behalf of Tom L. Johnson for governor. The noted Cleveland progressive was impressed by Pomerene's fiery oratory and liberal views, and after Pomerene had served on the Ohio Tax Commission from 1906 to 1908, Johnson induced him to seek the gubernatorial nomination in the latter year against Judson Harmon. Though defeated, Pomerene came back in 1910 to preside over the state Democratic convention, which nominated him to run for lieutenant-governor on a ticket headed by Harmon.
Pomerene had scarcely assumed office when the state legislature chose him as United States Senator. In 1916 he was reelected, by popular vote, over Myron T. Herrick.
In the debates over the League of Nations, Pomerene emerged as one of the small band of Democrats willing to accept the Lodge reservations. He left his own mark on legislation chiefly as co-sponsor of two acts: the Bills-of-Lading Act (1916), a commercial measure establishing the liability of carriers for bills of lading issued by authorized agents and making such bills fully negotiable, and the Webb-Pomerene Act (1918), permitting American exporters to consolidate their operations with immunity from the antitrust laws. Pomerene was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1922, in part, at least, because of his opposition to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth amendments and because of his fight against the Plumb plan for government ownership of the nation's railroads, a measure strongly backed by the railroad brotherhoods and much of organized labor generally.
Following service as a delegate to the Fifth Pan American Congress at Santiago, Chile (1923), he resumed the practice of law in Cleveland as a member of the firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. In February 1924 President Coolidge, by authority of a joint congressional resolution, named Pomerene and Owen J. Roberts as special counsel to prosecute those involved in the naval oil reserve frauds of the Harding administration. He and Roberts secured the cancellation of the leases made by Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall to Edward L. Doheny and Harry F. Sinclair, recovered for the government both the Elk Hills Reserve in California and the Teapot Dome Reserve in Wyoming, and secured the conviction of Secretary Fall on a bribery charge.
Later, in April 1927, Pomerene was appointed special assistant to Attorney-General John G. Sargent to prosecute a further case which, after eight years of litigation, resulted in the cancellation of additional leases in the Elk Hills section and a cash settlement of $5, 500, 000 from Doheny's Pan-American Petroleum Company.
Meanwhile, in 1926, Pomerene had again run for the Senate, but without success. In 1928 his name was placed in nomination for the presidency at the Democratic National Convention. In July 1932 President Hoover named Pomerene as chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. His appointment, never confirmed by the Senate, lapsed on March 4, 1933.
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Religion
He was a devout Presbyterian.
Politics
Pomerene followed the Democratic sympathies traditional in his family. With the advent of the New Deal, Pomerene became one of Franklin Roosevelt's severest critics, particularly with regard to his farm and banking policies. In later years, reacting strongly against reform and against reformers, he referred to himself as a "Grover Cleveland Democrat. "
Personality
Pomerene was of medium height and weight, erect carriage, and serious, even glum, demeanor. He usually dressed in black and looked every inch a Senator of the vintage of Webster and Calhoun.
Connections
On June 29, 1892 he married Mary Helen Bockius, the daughter of a Canton manufacturer. There were no children.