Background
William Ernest Mason was the son of Lewis J. and Nancy (Winslow) Mason. He was born on July 7, 1850 at Franklinville, New York.
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William Ernest Mason was the son of Lewis J. and Nancy (Winslow) Mason. He was born on July 7, 1850 at Franklinville, New York.
When he was eight years old his family took him to Benton sport, Iowa, where he attended school. Four years of teaching led him to the study of the law, and in 1872 he was admitted to the Illinois bar from Chicago.
A relatively short residence in his adopted state gave him some local prominence, and he obtained a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1879 and in the Senate from 1881 to 1885. He served in the Fiftieth and Fifty-first federal congresses from 1887 to 1891. His reputation as a stump speaker was enhanced by a stirring campaign against Bryan in 1896, which resulted in his election to the Senate, where he served from 1897 to 1903, as an avowed opponent of the Lorimer machine that had been dominant in Chicago politics for some time. Sympathy with the downtrodden, possibly inherited from a father who was an ardent abolitionist, led him to champion the Cuban revolt against Spain. It also led him into conflict with the administration, at the moment in a temporizing mood. His resolution of February 9, 1898, requested the president to declare and maintain peace in Cuba and was designed to force McKinley into action. His supporting speech came on the same day that de Lome, the Spanish minister, admitted writing derogatory statements about the president and caused a sensation that placed Mason among the insurgents who flayed executive inaction. With these he demanded intervention coupled with recognition of Cuban independence. Early in 1899 he proposed a resolution "that the Government of the United States of America will not attempt to govern the people of any other country in the world without the consent of the people themselves, or subject them by force to our dominion against their will". This might be taken as the text of his many speeches and occasional filibusters against the increasingly evident imperialistic trend of the administration and of the country at large. His efforts to prevent the acquisition of the Philippines failed, and, after voting at his constituents' instance for the treaty provisions concerning the islands, he turned his efforts toward obtaining self-government there. This double defiance of the administration and of the party sent him into retirement. During those years he practised law in Chicago and in 1910 published a religious novel, John, the Unafraid, which was an expression of his own faith in the power of revealed religion. In 1917, although he lacked both an organization and money, he was returned to Washington as congressman-at-large. Here he rounded out his career, serving until his death. Again it was his convictions that forced him to oppose American entry into the World War and the selective draft. So bitter was his hostility that he was at one time made the object of a proposed investigation by Senator Heflin. Cessation of hostilities found him, for once, with his own party, in fighting the League of Nations, but he championed one more lost cause by pleading for the recognition of the Irish republic.
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Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Illinois's at-large district, Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 3rd district, Member of the Illinois Senate
Member of the Illinois House of Representatives
At Mason's death one of his daughters was chosen to serve the rest of his unexpired term in the House.
On June 11, 1873, Mason was married to Edith Julia White of Des Moines.