William Collins Whitney was born on July 5, 1841 in Conway, Massachussets, of Puritan stock; and in spite of great wealth he remained a Democrat through life. He was the son of Brig. -Gen. James Scollay Whitney and Laurinda (Collins) and a descendant of John Whitney who came to Watertown, Massachussets, from London in 1635.
Graduating from Yale in 1863, he attended the Harvard Law School in 1863-64, studied law in the office of Abraham R. Lawrence.
He was admitted to the bar in 1865. He made an immediate success at law and politics in New York, gained the confidence of Samuel J. Tilden, took part in the action against the "Tweed ring, " and for six years (1875 - 82) gave effective reorganization to the office of corporation counsel in New York City. He worked through the County Democracy, opposed Irving Hall and Tammany, and became a natural supporter of Grover Cleveland. He went to Washington as Cleveland's secretary of the navy in March 1885. By his marriage to Flora Payne, Whitney acquired contacts with great wealth and corporate activity. Prior to his appointment to the cabinet he had become identified with the utilities of New York City. In 1883, through the Broadway Railroad Company, he participated in a triangular struggle with Thomas Fortune Ryan and Jacob Sharp for the Broadway street-railway franchise. The fight was won temporarily by Sharp by means of bribery, but in December 1884 Ryan allied Whitney and Peter A. B. Widener with himself. Together they fought Sharp by arousing public opinion, instituting court action, and stimulating legislative investigation. In this connection Whitney's political prominence was a distinct asset. The Ryan syndicate finally acquired the franchise. Whitney continued to be active in street-railway affairs until the reorganization of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company in 1902, when he retired from all personal identification with it. Whitney went to Washington accustomed to the habits of wealthy society; and he and his wife took a lead in the social affairs of the administration. Their remodeled home, with its great ballroom, offered entertainments beyond anything that Cleveland could manage while a bachelor, and the like of which Whitney's colleagues in the cabinet could not afford to undertake. Later, it was from Mrs. Whitney that there came indignant denial of Cleveland's maltreatment of his wife, when opposition canards became too virulent to be ignored. Whitney earned a place in the inner circle of Cleveland's advisers and had more than an ordinary hand in the management of the Navy Department at the moment when transition to a new establishment was under way. "In March, 1885, " he declared, "the United States had no vessel of war which could have kept the seas for one week as against any first-rate naval power". Congress had in the preceding administration taken the first steps for the creation of a new navy, built, protected, and armed in accordance with modern practice. The earliest of the new units, soon in service, were of greater interest as marking the first steps toward a new craftsmanship than as weapons of naval warfare. Whitney as secretary devoted himself to fighting contractors, particularly John Roach, who delivered vessels built according to obsolete specifications, drawn up during the administration of Secretary William E. Chandler; to striking from the navy list the superannuated ships that were not worth repairing; to planning constructive approaches towards an independent establishment; and to the inauguration of the Naval War College at Newport, R. I, where A. T. Mahan did his creative work in naval history and theory. Shipyards had to be taught to build vessels of size and soundness, gun foundries large enough to cast the ingots needed by modern guns had to be designed, plants were needed for turning and finishing the great guns and for rolling armor plate. In all of these tasks Whitney showed ingenuity and imagination. He left an effective establishment for his successor when, at the close of the first Cleveland administration, he returned to New York business, society, and sport.
Whitney played a significant part in connection with the nomination and election of Cleveland in 1892, and he fought Free Silver at the Democratic convention of 1896, but he declined to accept further public office. In 1902 he published The Whitney Stud. He left at least ten residences at his death.
He withdrew from business and society to devote himself to sport. A lover of horses, he built up a breeding farm near Lexington, Ky. , operated a racing stable, begun in 1898, and tried to revive the glories of the race track at Saratoga. On June 5, 1901, a horse, Volodyovski, run but not bred by him, won the English Derby (London Times, June 6, 1901).
On October 13, 1869 he married to Flora Payne, sister of a college classmate, Oliver H. Payne, and daughter of Henry B. Payne. After the death of Flora Payne Whitney (Feburary 5, 1893) he married Mrs. Edith Sibyl (May) Randolph, commissioning McKim, Mead, and White to build her a house in the style of the Italian Renaissance at Fifth Avenue and 68th Street.
