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Senate Years of Service: 1918-1925 Party: Republican
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SPENCER, Selden Palmer, a Senator from Missouri; born in Erie, Pa., September 16, 1862; attended the
public schools of Erie; graduated from Yale College in 1884 and from the Washington University Law
School, St. Louis, Mo., in 1886; admitted to the bar in 1886 and commenced practice in St. Louis;
professor of medical jurisprudence in the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis in 1886; member,
State house of representatives 1895-1896; judge of the circuit court of St. Louis 1897-1903;
captain in the Missouri Home Guard and chairman of the draft board 1917-1918; elected on
November 5, 1918, as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the
death of William J. Stone; reelected in 1920 and served from November 6, 1918, until his death;
chairman, Committee on Claims (Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Congresses), Committee on Indian
Affairs (Sixty-seventh Congress), Committee on Privileges and Elections (Sixty-seventh through
Sixty-ninth Congresses); died at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., on May 16, 1925;
interment in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Mo.
BibliographyMargulies, Herbert F. Selden P. Spencer, Senate
Moderates and the League of Nations. Missouri Historical Review 83 (July 1989):
373-94; Schlup, Leonard. The Unknown Senator: Selden Palmer Spencer of Missouri and The
League of Nations. Research Journal of Philosophy & Social Sciences (1991):
15-23.
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