BEVERIDGE, ALBERT JEREMIAH: 1862-1927.
" Albert Jeremiah Beveridge , senator, historian, was born on a small farm in Highland County, O., the son of Thomas H. and Frances Parkinson Beveridge. In 1865 the father, after the loss of his property, moved the family to a farm in Illinois. Young Beveridge's early life was one of privation and hardship. He was a plowboy at twelve, a railroad hand with a section gang at fourteen, a logger and teamster at fifteen. Before he was sixteen, however, he managed to enter a high school … With a loan of $50 from a friend, in the fall of 1881 he entered Asbury College, now De Pauw University, at Greencastle, Ind. During his college course he won inter-state oratorical honors and prizes sufficient to provide for two of his college years. He graduated in 1885. He was twice married: in 1887 to Katherine Langsdale of Greencastle, Ind., who died June 18, 1900; in 1907 to Catherine Eddy of Chicago . Admitted to the bar in 1887, for twelve years Beveridge practiced law in Indianapolis. Meanwhile he had become well known in his state as a political orator. In every campaign for fifteen years … he had stumped the state from end to end. In a deadlock among the leading senatorial candidates in 1899 the Republican legislative caucus turned to him as a compromise candidate, and he was elected to the United States Senate at the age of thirty-six, being among the youngest members ever to sit in that body. In 1905 he was reelected without opposition within his party, but in 1911, chiefly because of party schism, he was defeated for a third term, after which he never again held public office …
"With this senatorial experience and his democratic disposition it was easy and natural for him to go with Roosevelt into the Progressive party in 1912. In the Progressive National Convention in Chicago in that year it was Beveridge, as temporary chairman, who sounded the 'keynote' in a campaign address, entitled 'Pass Prosperity Around.' During the same year he was nominated by the Progressive party of Indiana as its candidate for governor. He received 10,000 more votes than the Republican candidate, but was defeated by the Democratic candidate, Samuel M. Ralston. In 1914, after the adoption of the Seventeenth Amendment, the Indiana Progressives nominated Beveridge as their candidate for the United States Senate, but page: 27[View Page 27] Progressive support had fallen away, and he came in third in the popular vote… In 1922 he was nominated for the United States Senate by the Republicans of Indiana in a state-wide popular primary, defeating Harry S. New, the sitting senator, but in the ensuing election he was again defeated by Samuel M. Ralston, the Democratic nominee. This closed his political career.
"He was a pronounced nationalist, suspicious of foreign countries, with some anti-British feeling, a stout opponent of America's having anything to do with the League of Nations; at times disposed toward jingoism in speech … He was somewhat temperamental, but his finer qualities greatly overtopped his minor defects …
"But he was even more distinguished as a historical writer than as a politician … Beveridge's greatest work … was his biography of Chief Justice John Marshall, designed as an historical and political interpretation of the Supreme Court and of Marshall's part in giving that court its place in American history. This task he accomplished in a way that gained the universal approval of scholars and critics. As a biographer Beveridge showed his characteristic industry in gathering his materials, a discriminating mind in sifting and evaluating, a painstaking care in revising and rewriting until the facts took on their right relations and proportionate importance … he produced an outstanding historical biography … Beveridge then turned his attention to what he considered a harder and more important task, a similar biography of Lincoln in four volumes. At the time of his death two of these volumes had been substantially completed … He had a horror of mistakes and his completed chapters had been read in manuscript by many historical scholars and were carefully revised and rewritten, some of them as many as fifteen times. His death was regretted on many accounts, but above all because of the loss to the world of his uncompleted Lincoln."
Senator Beveridge died on Apr. 27, 1927, in Indianapolis.
Condensed from J. A. W., Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. II.
- The "March of the Flag," Beginning of
Greater America. Endorsement of the War Administration Issue. American
Voters to Stand by Their Government–Effect of This Election on
Other Nations … Speech … Opening the Indiana
Republican Campaign, at Tomlinson Hall.
- For the Greater Republic, Not for Imperialism. An Address
… at the Union League of Philadelphia, February 15, 1899.
- Conservatism: The Essential in American Character and Policy;
Address … At Chicago … February 22d, 1902.
Chicago, 1902.
- The Philippine Situation …
Washington, D. C., 1902.
-
Republicanism: The Spirit of Conservative Progress. Issues of
the Campaign of 1902, Speech of Senator Beveridge, as Chairman of the
Indiana State Republican Convention, at Indianapolis, Ind., April 23d, 1902
…
- The Russian Advance. New York,
1903.
- Address of Albert J. Beveridge … At the Dedication
of Indiana's monuments on the Battlefield of Shiloh, Tennessee,
April 6, 1903. Indianapolis [1903].
- "All Is Well with the Republic."
n.p.
- The Young Man and the World. New
York, 1905.
- The Bible as Good Reading.
Philadelphia, 1907.
- Employment of Child Labor. Speech … in the Senate
of the United States, January 23, 28, and 29, 1907.
Washington, D. C., 1907.
- The Meaning of the Times, and Other Speeches.
Indianapolis, 1908.
- Americans of To-day and To-morrow.
Philadelphia, 1908.
- Work and Habits. Philadelphia,
1908.
- Tariff Commission. Washington,
D.C: 1908.
- The Invisible Government. 1912.
- "Pass Prosperity Around," Speech.
New York, 1912.
- Accepting the Nomination for Governor by the Progressive
Party at the Indiana State Convention August 1, 1912. n.p., 1912.
- What Is Back of the War.
Indianapolis, 1915.
- The Life of John Marshall.
Boston, 1916-19. 4 vols.
- Address at the Celebration of the 299th Anniversary of the
Landing of the Pilgrims, Delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December
22nd, 1919. Plymouth, Mass., 1919.
- Address of Hon. Albert J. Beveridge at the McKinley Day
Celebration of the Detroit Republican Club. Detroit, Michigan, January 29,
1920. n.p.
- The Assault Upon American Fundamentals … [Address
at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, St. Louis, August 26,
1920]. n.p. [1920].
- Address Delivered… on February 22, 1921, at the
Second Washington's Birthday Celebration of the Sons of the
Revolution and Other Patriotic Societies at Carnegie Hall, New York and at
the Thirty-Ninth Banquet of the Sons of the Revolution at the Hotel Plaza,
New York. New York [1921].
- Address… at Evansville, Indiana, September 26th,
1922. n.p. [1922].
- "An Appeal to Plain Americans"; Address
… at the Annual Banquet of the Indiana Society of Chicago,
December 9, 1922, and Introductory Remarks by Carroll Shaffer. n.p.,
1922.
- Courts and the People. New York,
1923.
- The State of the Nation.
Indianapolis, 1924.
- page: 28[View Page 28]
- The Art of Public Speaking.
Boston, 1924.
- Lincoln an Example to Young Men. Tarrytown,
N.Y., 1926.
- Sources of the Declaration of Independence; An Address
Delivered Before The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, June 2,
1926.
- Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858.
Boston, 1928. 2
vols.
- History of the World War.
- Tribute to the American Woman, Frances E. Willard. Personal
Recollections of Abraham Lincoln.
