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HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 1017

in managing that office during the war with Spain caused Alger to resign on 18 July
1899. He represented Michigan in the U.S. Senate from 1902 until his death. ANB, 1:
288-89; BDUSC (online).

436.18 Allison of Iowa] William Boyd Allison (1829-1908) briefly attended
Western Reserve College before opening a law office in Ashland, Ohio, in 1852. He
was one of the founders of Ohio's Republican party in 1854. After losing a county
political race, Allison headed west in 1857, settling in Dubuque, Iowa, where he again
practiced law. Allison's political future was assured with the case of Gelpke v. the City
of Dubuque (1862). Herman Gelpke brought suit against Dubuque for its failure to
pay interest on the railroad bonds issued to promote the building of the Dubuque
Pacific Railroad. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city, but the U.S.
Supreme Court accepted Allison's arguments that a state supreme court's interpreta-
tion of its own constitution was subject to higher authority and ruled against the city.
In 1860 Allison was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican, where
he introduced a bill providing federal land grants for his old friends, the railroads. In
1870, with the support of railroad magnates, Allison was elected to the U.S. Senate,
where he served as Iowa's political boss for thirty-five years. A master of political
compromise, Allison served on the Senate's Committee on Appropriations and its
Committee on Finance. influencing the major domestic legislation of the day. Allison
made two bids for the Republican presidential nomination but lost to Benjamin
Harrison in 1888 and William McKinley in 1896. Leland L. Sage, William Boyd
Allison: A Study in Practical Politics (Iowa City, 1956); ANB, 1:365-67; BDUSC
(online).

436.19 Gresham of Indiana] After studying law with a prominent Indiana Whig,
Walter Quintin Gresham (1832-95) was admitted to the bar in April 1854. Following
the collapse of the Whigs, Gresham flirted with the Know-Nothings before settling on
the Republican party, where his prominence grew. Initially moderate on the slavery
issue, he pushed for sectional compromise as a member of the Indiana General
Assembly during debates held during the secession winter of 1861 . Following distin-guished Civil War service. Gresham received an appointment in 1869 as federal dis-
trict judge for Indiana by President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1880 President Chester A.
Arthur appointed Gresham postmaster general, charged with implementing the
Pendleton Civil Service Act. Gresham later served Arthur as secretary of the Treasury.
After becoming disenchanted with the Republican party's protectionist tariff stance.
Gresham threw his support to Democratic nominee Grover Cleveland in 1884, and
was rewarded with appointment as secretary of state in Cleveland's first administra-
tion. In that post, he was a strict opponent of reckless expansionism, a position epito-mized in his opposition to the annexation of Hawaii. Charles W. Calhoun, Gilded Age
Cato: The Life of Walter Q. Gresham (Lexington, Ky., 1988); ANB, 9:572-74.

436.19 Depew of New York] Chauncey Mitchell Depew (1834-1928), railroad
president and U.S. senator, was born in Peekskill, New York, and attended Yale
University. In 1858 Depew was admitted to the bar. In 1862 and 1863 he served in the