|
Senate Years of Service: 1885-1899 Party: Democrat
 |
GRAY, George, a Senator from Delaware; born in New Castle, New Castle County, Del., May 4,
1840; attended the common schools and graduated from Princeton University in 1859; studied law
with his father and attended Harvard Law School; admitted to the bar in 1863 and commenced
practice in New Castle; attorney general of Delaware 1879-1885, when he resigned, having been
elected Senator; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the
resignation of Thomas F. Bayard; reelected in 1887 and 1893 and served from March 18, 1885, to
March 3, 1899; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1899; chairman, Committee on Patents
(Fifty-third Congress), Committee on Privileges and Elections (Fifty-third Congress), Committee on
Revolutionary Claims (Fifty-fifth Congress); member of the Joint High Commission which met in
Quebec in August 1898 to settle differences between the United States and Canada; member of the
commission to arrange terms of peace between the United States and Spain 1898; appointed judge of
the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the third circuit by President William McKinley
1899-1914; chairman of the commission to investigate conditions of the coal strike in Pennsylvania
1902; appointed by President McKinley to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 1900;
reappointed in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, in 1912 by President William Taft, and in 1920
by President Woodrow Wilson; member of several commissions established to arbitrate various
international disputes; member, Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1925; vice
president and trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; died in Wilmington, Del.,
August 7, 1925; interment in Presbyterian Cemetery, New Castle, Del.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
Crosslin, Michael. The Diplomacy of George Gray. Ph.D. dissertation, Oklahoma State University,
1980.
|