Campaign button, 1894-1898, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

MAHANY, Rowland Blennerhassett, a Representative from New York; born in Buffalo, N.Y., September 28, 1864; attended the public schools, Hobart College, Geneva, N.Y., and Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.; was graduated from Harvard University in 1888; studied law in Buffalo, N.Y.; associate editor of the Buffalo Express in 1888; instructor in Buffalo High School in 1889 and 1890; declined the appointment as secretary of the legation to Chile in 1890; appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Ecuador on February 24, 1892, and served until his resignation on June 12, 1893; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1892 to the Fifty-third Congress; returned to Ecuador in 1893 and concluded the Santos Convention; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1895-March 3, 1899); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1898; was admitted to the bar in 1899 and engaged in the practice of law in Buffalo, N.Y.; harbor commissioner of Buffalo 1899-1906; editor of the Buffalo Enquirer in 1910 and 1911; commissioner of conciliation, Labor Department, in 1914 and 1915; assistant to the Secretary of Labor in 1918 and 1919; member of the Foreign Trades Relation Committee of the State Department in 1919; appointed by President Wilson as one of the ten Federal umpires for the War Labor Board in 1919; member of the United States Housing Corporation in 1919; appointed representative of the United States to the International Commission on Immigration and Emigration at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1920; solicitor and Acting Secretary of Labor in 1920 and 1921; resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C., retaining his residence in Buffalo, N.Y.; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1924 and 1928; died in Washington, D.C., May 2, 1937; interment in the Congressional Cemetery.