Background
He graduated from Harvard in 1900 and three years later received a law degree at Washington University, St. Louis. While a junior at Harvard, Davis won the national intercollegiate singles and doubles tennis championships. He donated the famed Davis Cup in 1900 and for the next two years was a member of the American teams that won it. With Holcombe Ward of New York, in 1899, 1900 and 1901, he won the national doubles championship. In 1922, he was elected president of the United States Lawn Tennis Association. Davis also gained national prominence in the public service. Shortly before the United States entered World War I, he toured England, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as a representative of the Rockefeller Relief Commission. Later he enlisted as a private and rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel in the infantry. In October 1925 he succeeded John Wingate Weeks as secretary of war, holding the post until March 1929. Two months later President Hoover appointed Davis governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Davis died in his Washington, D.C., home on Nov. 28, 1945.