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Joseph Benson Foraker

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JOSEPH BENSON FORAKER (1846-), American political leader, was born near Rainsboro, Highland county, Ohio, on the 5th of July 1846. He passed his early life on a farm, enlisted as a private in the 89th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in July 1862, served throughout the Civil War, for part of the time as an aide on the staff of General H. W. Slocum, and in 1865 received a captain's brevet for "efficient services during the campaigns in North Carolina and Georgia." After the war he spent two years at the Ohio Wesleyan University and two years at Cornell. In 1869 he was admitted to the Ohio bar and began practice in Cincinnati. He was a judge of the Cincinnati Superior Court from 1879 to 1882. In 1883 he was the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, but was defeated; in 1885 and 1887, however, he was elected, but was again defeated in 1889. He then for eight years practised law with great success in Cincinnati. In 1896 he was elected United States senator to succeed Calvin S. Brice (1845-1898); in 1902 was re-elected and served until 1909. In the Senate he was one of the aggressive Republican leaders, strongly supporting the administration of President M`Kinley (whose name he presented to the Republican National Conventions of 1896 and 1900) in the debatespreceding, during, and immediately following the Spanish-American War, and later, during the administration of President Roosevelt, was conspicuous among Republican leaders for his independence. He vigorously opposed various measures advocated by the president, and led the opposition to the president's summary discharge of certain negro troops after the Brownsville raid of the 13th of August 1906 (see Brownsville, Texas).