Library of Congress

THOMPSON, William Howard, a Senator from Kansas; born in Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Ind., October 14, 1871; moved with his parents to Nemaha County, Kans., in 1880; attended the public schools; graduated from the Seneca Normal School in 1886 and from the Lawrence Business College in 1891; official court reporter of the twenty-second judicial district of Kansas 1891-1894; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1894 and commenced practice in Seneca; clerk of the Kansas Court of Appeals in Topeka and practiced law 1897-1901; moved to Iola, Kans., in 1901 and continued the practice of law; county attorney of Allen County; moved to Garden City in 1905; judge of the thirty-second judicial district of Kansas 1906-1913, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1912 and served from March 4, 1913, to March 3, 1919; unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the United States Senate in 1918; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Departments of Commerce and Labor (Sixty-third Congress), Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Commerce (Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses), Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expenses (Sixty-fifth Congress); resumed the practice of law at Kansas City, Kans., in 1919; moved to Tulsa, Okla., in 1923 and practiced law in Kansas City and Tulsa; moved to Washington, D.C., in 1927, where he continued the practice of law, and died there on February 9, 1928; interred temporarily in Glenwood Cemetery in Washington, DC, but his remains were transferred to Mount Hope Cemetery in Topeka, Kans., in May 1928.