1865 - 1951

Home    Search    Print    Login    Add Bookmark

• Suffix	Vice President of the United States
  Birth	27 Aug 1865	Marietta, Washington, Ohio
  Gender	Male
  Died	23 Apr 1951	Evanston, Cook Co, Il
  Person ID	I1186	Brainard (Brainerd) / Foster / Fish
  Last Modified	16 Jun 2004 00:00:00
  Father	Rufus R DAWES, b. 4 Jul 1838, Malta, , Ohio
  Mother	Mary Beman GATES, b. 27 Aug 1842, Marietta, Washington, Ohio
  Family ID	F564	Group Sheet
  Family	Caro Dana BLYMYER, b. 6 Jan 1866, Waterford, Washington, Ohio
  Married	24 Jan 1889	Waterford, Washington, Ohio
  Children	1. Rufus Fearing DAWES, b. Abt 1892, Waterford, Washington, Ohio   2. Caroline DAWES, b. Abt 1894, Waterford, Washington, Ohio
  Family ID	F407	Group Sheet

• Notes

  CHARLES G. DAWES Biography Charles ?ates Dawes, (1865-1951), doz, American financier and diplomat, who was VICE PRESIDENT of the United States in 1925-1929. He was born in Marietta, Ohio, on Aug. 27, 1865, the son of Gen. Rufus R. Dawes, a Civil War veteran, and Mary Beman (Gates) Dawes, both of New England ancestry. A graduate of Marietta College (1884) and the Cincinnati Law School (1886), Dawes practiced law in Lincoln, Nebr., from 1887 to 1894 and won acclaim for attacking unfair rate practices of the railroads. Dawes' strong business instincts soon overpowered his interest in the law. Before he left Lincoln he was a bank director and had written a book on banking. He had also acquired stock in gaslight and coke companies in La Crosse, Wis., and Evanston, Ill. He moved to Chicago in 1895. Politics and War Politics came as naturally to Dawes as business. He managed William MCKINLEY 's presidential campaign of 1896 in Illinois, and after the election he was appointed comptroller of the currency. He resigned to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. SENATE . In 1902 he organized the Central Trust Company of Illinois and became its president. After the panic of 1907 his advice was sought and freely given in the formulation of the Aldrich--Vreeland Currency Act. On U.S. entrance into World War I, Dawes obtained a commission as major of engineers, but in September 1917 Gen. John J. Pershing made him general purchasing agent of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. In this capacity he got the supplies the Army needed, eliminated waste, and held down prices. Later, as American member of the military board of Allied supply, he successfully coordinated purchases for all the Allied armies, a major contribution toward the winning of the war. When it ended, he was a brigadier general. Dawes returned to public life in 1921 when President HARDING made him the first director of the budget. In this office he set important precedents, and in his single year of service he spectacularly reduced government expenditures. Dawes Plan His next assignment was in Paris, where he joined with European representatives to work out the Dawes Plan (1924) for solving the problem of collecting German reparations and fixing the amount. The German currency was stabilized by a loan of 800 million gold marks from abroad, by raising 11 billion gold marks by mortgaging the German railways, and by realizing another 5 billion gold marks as a mortgage on German industries. For this plan Dawes was a co-winner of the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize. Vice President and Diplomat In 1924, Dawes was elected vice president on the Republican ticket with Calvin COOLIDGE . He tried vigorously but unsuccessfully to change the Senate rule permitting filibustering. He visited the Dominican Republic in 1929 to advise its president on financial affairs, after which President Hoover made him ambassador to Britain, where he helped draft the London Naval Treaty of 1930. As chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) in 1932 he sought to keep the nation's banks and railroads solvent, despite the depression. The RFC made loans of federal funds to banks and other key enterprises. Dawes permitted his own bank, now called the Central Republic, to receive an RFC loan only after he had left government service. Personal Interests Dawes loved music, taught himself to play the flute and the piano, composed a dozen pieces that were published, and gave generous support to the Chicago Grand Opera Company. He remained active in business until his death in Evanston, Ill., on April 23, 1951. A compulsive diarist, he published several volumes from his journals. John D. Hicks University of California