Senator Claude R. Porter View All Years

CLAUDE R. PORTER

MR. PRESIDENT: Your committee, appointed to prepare a memorial resolution commemorating the life and public service of the late Claude R. Porter, begs leave to submit the following:

Claude R. Porter, legislator, soldier and public official, died at Washington, D. C., August 17, 1946; born at Moulton, Iowa, July 8, 1872, a son of Lawyer George Porter and Hannah Porter, and a grandson of a Presbyterian minister; graduated from Centerville, Iowa, high school and attended Parsons College at Fairfield, Iowa, one year, and St. Louis law school one year; began practice of law at Centerville in 1893; served as sergeant-major of the 50th Iowa Infantry in the Spanish-American War; a member of the Iowa House of Representatives from 1896 to 1900, and of the Iowa Senate from 1900 tor 1904, being the youngest member of each house at the time of his service, only 23 when he was named to the House; a member of the investigating committee that recommended the board of control system for management of state institutions; from 1914 to 1918 served as United States Attorney for southern district of Iowa; became special Assistant U. S. Attorney General and later Assistant Attorney General in charge of criminal prosecutions; next was chief counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, and later special counsel of that commission; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Secretary of State of Iowa in 1898, three times a Democratic candidate for governor and five times for United States Senator, in none of which was he successful; first appointed member of the interstate commerce commission by President Coolidge in 1928, to fill a vacancy, and reappointed by President Coolidge in December following for term expiring in 1935; served as chairman of the commission and reappointed by President Roosevelt for term expiring in 1949.

Senator Porter’s death was occasioned by a cerebral hemorrhage two days previous, and subsequent to receiving word of the death of his 45-year-old son, George B. Porter, a Washington, D. C., attorney, the Sunday night previous at a hotel in San Francisco, who choked on a piece of food found lodged in his windpipe. He is survived by his wife, the former Maude Boutin of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, whom he married in 1899; by four married daughters and ten grandchildren. He was active in the Centerville and Des Moines Presbyterian Churches. Thirty-two years ago he organized at Centerville the Porter Bible Class, which is still active. An aggressive foe of the liquor industry in Iowa; always a man of great zeal in the causes he advocated and held the confidence of those who knew him through a long and creditable public service.

J. R. BARKLEY,

R. B. HAWKINS,

LEROY S. MERCER,

Committee.

The resolution was unanimously adopted.