Representative Albert Baird Cummins View All Years

ALBERT BAIRD CUMMINS was born near Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, February 15, 1850, and died in Des Moines, Iowa, July 30, 1926. His parents were Thomas Layton and Sarah Baird Cummins. He attended Greene Academy, and was three years at Waynesburg College, which institution conferred on him the degree of LL. D. in 1903, as did Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1904. In 1869 he removed to Elkader, Iowa, and took employment in the county recorder’s office. In 1870 he entered the United States Express Company office at McGregor and acted as clerk and as messenger. In 1871 he went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, as deputy surveyor of Allen County, and soon thereafter was employed as a civil engineer by the Cincinnati, Richmond & Fort Wayne Railroad Company, and later by the Northern Central Michigan Railroad Company in construction work. In 1872 he took employment in the law office of McClelland & Hodges, Chicago, studying law in the meantime, and was admitted to the bar January 1, 1875, at Springfield, Illinois. He practiced law in Chicago until January, 1878, when he removed to Des Moines and associated in the practice with his brother, J. C. Cummins. In 1881 he joined with George G., Thomas S, and Carroll Wright as Wright, Cummins & Wright. In 1883 Judge Wright withdrew and in 1886 Thomas S. removed to Chicago, and Mr. Cummins and Carroll Wright formed the firm of Cummins & Wright. A few years later Mr. Wright withdrew and Mr. Cummins became head of the firm of Cummins, Hewitt & Wright. Mr. Cummins attained high rank as a lawyer, especially in corporation and railway practice. His work in the eighties as attorney for the Farmers’ Protective Association when the trust of barbed wire manufacturers entered suit, charging the association with infring on their patents, was notable. In 1887 during his absence from the city he was nominated for representative by a county convention of independent Republicans who favored replacing the prohibitory liquor law with the local option law, was endorsed by the Democratic County Convention, and was elected and served in the Twenty-second General Assembly. In 1892 he was an elector at large on the Republican ticket. On the retirement of James F. Wilson from the United States Senate, Mr. Cummins, with five other able men, were candidates for the Republican nomination for the succession in 1894, in which campaign John H. Gear was successful. In 1896 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. He was that year made the Iowa member of the Republican National Committee. In 1900 he was again a candidate for United States senator, losing again, this time in a notable campaign, to John H. Gear. In 1901 at the end of a strenuous campaign he won from a field of candidates the Republican nomination for governor, and was elected. In 1903 he was unanimously renominated for governor, and was re-elected. In 1904 he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention. The adoption of the biennial elections amendment extended for one year his second term as governor, so in 1906 he was serving his fifth year, and he again became a candidate, defeating George D. Perkins for the nomination and Claude R. Porter at the polls. In 1908 he was a candidate against William B. Allison, who was running, this time in the first state primary in Iowa, June 2 of that year, for a renomination for his, Allison’s, seventh term as United States senator, but lost to Mr. Allison. Senator Allison’s death occurred August 4 of that year and on November 3 at a special primary election Mr. Cummins won the Republican nomination over John F. Lacey, and was elected over Claude R. Porter for the unexpired term of Senator Allison on November 24 at a special session of the Thirty-second General Assembly. On January 19, 1909, he was elected over Claude R. Porter by the Thirty-third General Assembly for the full six-year term. Although his name was not formally presented to the Republican National Convention in 1912 for the nomination for president, he received the votes of ten delegates from Iowa and of seven from Idaho. In the campaign that followed he supported Theodore Roosevelt, the candidate of the Progressive party, for president, but supported the balance of the Republican ticket. In 1914 he won a renomination for senator at the primary over Arthur Savage and a re-election at the polls over Maurice Connolly. In 1916 his name was formally presented to the Republican National Convention, in a speech by N. E. Kendall, by the solid Iowa delegation. He received eighty-four votes, being the votes of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska. In 1920 he defeated Smith W. Brookhart for senator in the primary, and Claude R. Porter at the polls. In 1924 he was a delegate at large to the Republican National Convention. In 1926 he was again a candidate for senator, but was defeated in the primary by Smith W. Brookhart. During his forty years of political life he was an active factor, and in many years a directing force, in Iowa affairs. Primary elections, the election of United States senators by the people, and the abolition of railway passes were among the changes wrought under his leadership. In the United States Senate he attained eminence, being a leader in railway legislation, and becoming Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. At the first session of the Sixty-sixth Congress, 1919, he was elected president pro tem of the Senate and continued to hold that office until the end of the Sixty-eighth Congress, 1925. From the time Vice President Coolidge assumed the duties of president, August 3, 1923, until a new vice president was inaugurated, March 4, 1925, Senator Cummins exercise the duties and enjoyed the prerogatives of the vice president.