Arthur P. Gorman

Gorman was born in Woodstock, Maryland on March 11, 1839. His father was Peter Gorman, a construction contractor, and his mother was Elizabeth A. Gorman (née Brown). Arthur was named after the family physician, Dr. Arthur Pue. He was the first of five children, including William.[6]

Gorman's paternal grandfather, John, emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland circa 1794, first settling in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania before moving to the Baltimore area.[6]

The Gorman family moved to Howard County, Maryland around 1845,[7] where Peter Gorman bought a 150-acre (61 ha) farm several miles from Laurel.[6][8][9] Gorman attended Howard County public schools[10] and for at least one year his father hired a tutor to teach him and neighboring students.[11]^: 5

In 1850, Peter Gorman used his connections to Maryland Congressmen William T. Hamilton and Edward Hammond to arrange for 11-year old Arthur to serve as a U.S. Senate page.[6] Gorman became friends with prominent Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who made Gorman his private secretary.[6] Some sources state that Gorman accompanied Douglas during his debates with Abraham Lincoln in 1858,[7] although biographer John R. Lambert questions these accounts.[11]^: 7 Gorman continued to work for the senate throughout the 1850s and 1860s, including positions as messenger, assistant doorkeeper, and assistant postmaster.[12] In 1866, he was appointed Postmaster.[12] Gorman's experience in the Senate gave him extensive knowledge of parliamentary procedures that he would put to use during his political career.[13]

During the American Civil War, Gorman was a pro-Union Democrat. In September 1866, Republicans who held the senate majority removed him as postmaster because he supported President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Johnson immediately appointed Gorman as Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth Congressional District of Maryland.[6]

At the age of 20 in 1859, Gorman was one of the founding members of the Washington Nationals, the first official baseball team in America. He rose to become a star by the end of the Civil War era.[14]

In 1867, he led the Nationals in their first trip westward over the mountains, in which they beat every midwest team except Rockford, Illinois, which had Albert Spalding as its pitcher.[15] Also in 1867, Gorman was elected to a one-year term as president of the National Association of Base Ball Players.[6][15]

In 1891, as part of an expanded National League, a Washington franchise was added. Originally called the Washington Statesmen, the team was renamed "Senators" to honor Gorman. While this team folded in 1899, subsequent franchises would use the "Senators" name until 1971. In February 1903, Gorman and his son-in-law Wilton Lambert attempted but failed to buy the Washington Senators baseball team.[6]

Gorman was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1869, serving until 1875; he served as Speaker of the House for one session.

Gorman was closely aligned with Baltimore political leader Isaac Freeman Rasin and supported William Pinkney Whyte for Governor in 1871. Whyte, in turn, gave Gorman a position as director of the C&O Canal.[16]

In 1875, he was elected to the Maryland State Senate, serving until 1881.[12][17]

In 1880, the Maryland legislature elected Gorman to the United States Senate, where he soon became a leader of the Bourbon Democrats. The New York Times reported that the previous legislative election was influenced by large groups of "ward rounders" who shot and wounded black Republican voters at the Howard County polls.[18]

An 1888 tobacco company trading card speculates on Gorman's chances for the presidency.[19]

In 1884 Gorman became chairman of the National Democratic Committee and served as campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland.[11]^{: 102–103} Cleveland faced Republican candidate James Blaine in the election. Both men had character issues and the campaign was an extremely negative and close one. Blaine actively courted the Irish Catholic vote and he publicized that his mother was Catholic.[11]^: 107 On Wednesday October 29, Blaine attended a meeting with Protestant clergymen in New York City. At the meeting, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard made an introductory speech in which he denounced the Democratic Party as the party of "rum, Romanism and rebellion". The fatigued Blaine did not hear the comment and when he spoke, he failed to correct this attack on Catholicism.[11]^{: 107–108} Gorman, who was operating from Democratic headquarters in New York, had sent a stenographic reporter to cover the meeting.[11]^{: 106, 108} After learning what Burchard had said, Gorman immediately recognized the importance of the "rum, Romanism and rebellion" comment and went to work.[20]^: 39 Within hours cities with large Catholic populations were blanketed with posters and handbills with the letters "R.R.R." on them[11]^{: 108–109} and dispatches were sent to newspapers across the country.[21]^{: 209–210} Blaine tried to make a disclaimer, but the damage was done. The November 4 election was determined by New York, which Cleveland won by only 1,149 votes (0.1% of the total vote). Gorman's handling of the Cleveland campaign, including the "rum, Romanism and rebellion" comment, was widely recognized as the decisive factor in securing Cleveland's victory.[4][22]

He served as the Democratic caucus chairman from 1890 to 1898. He chaired the Committee on Printing (53rd Congress) and served on the Committee on Private Land Claims (55th Congress).[12]

He played a major role in financial and tariff legislation, especially the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894, which successfully lowered tariffs in response to the McKinley Act of 1890, but thwarted President Cleveland's effort at completely or nearly free trade.

Gorman was reelected twice more in 1886 and 1892 but was defeated for re-election in 1898, losing to Louis E. McComas.[12] After his defeat, Gorman campaigned for Maryland's other U.S. Senate seat and was elected again by the Legislature in 1902.[12][23][24] He was again appointed as the Democratic Caucus Chairman, which he held from 1903 to 1906.[12]

Satirical cartoon depicting Gorman leading Democrats in the 1902 election

Gorman was briefly a candidate for U.S. president in 1892 and 1904.[25]

Gorman married a widow, Hannah "Hattie" Donagan, on March 28, 1867. They had five daughters and one son: Ada, Haddie, Grace, Anne Elizabeth, Mary and Arthur P. Jr.[6]

Gorman served as a director and eventually president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company;[3] the canal ran along the north shore of the Potomac River from Georgetown above Washington, D.C., to Cumberland, Maryland.

In 1890, Gorman's wife and daughter Grace escaped a fire at their Laurel house "Fairview"; a new Queen Anne style house was built in its place the following year.[27][28][29]

Haddie Gorman Gambrill

Haddie Gorman in 1895

Gorman's eldest daughter, Haddie, married Stephen Warfield Gambrill in 1900.[30] Her husband later served as a Maryland State Delegate, State Senator, and U.S. Representative.[31]

Ada Gorman

Ada Gorman in 1895

Gorman's daughter Ada married Charles Joseph Magness, a young man about half her age, against her family's wishes in 1908.[32][33][34] Magness was soon thereafter imprisoned for desertion from the U.S. Navy. Upon his release a year later, the couple lived in Washington, D.C., and then the Baltimore suburb of Lutherville.[35]

When her mother died in 1910, Ada was cut off from her share of the Gorman family estate.[36] The marriage lasted a total of 14 years before Ada divorced in 1922 due to her husband's infidelity.[35][37] She died childless and with few friends in the spring of 1950.[35]

Arthur Gorman Jr.

Arthur P. Gorman Jr. c. 1914

Main article: Arthur Pue Gorman Jr.

Gorman's only son, Arthur Jr., attended Lawrenceville Prep and played on the Maryland Agricultural College football team in 1892 and 1893 as a fullback.[43] In 1898, Arthur Jr. founded the Piedmont Mining Company in Maryland and West Virginia with his uncle William and Thomas L. Marriott.[44] He married Grace Norris on November 28, 1900.[45] Arthur Jr. served as a Maryland State Senator (1904–1910), the last year during which he was Senate President.[46]

Arthur Jr. was nominated for Governor of Maryland in 1911, but narrowly lost to Republican Phillips Lee Goldsborough.[47][48] He was later a State Tax Commissioner, until his death in 1919 due to complications from diabetes.[49][50]

Bessie Gorman Lambert

Gorman's daughter Bessie married Princeton graduate and Democratic speechwriter Wilton J. Lambert on June 24, 1896, at the Gormans' Washington home on the corner of 15th and K Streets.[51][52][53] They had two children, Elizabeth (b. 1897) and Arthur.[54] An attorney, Lambert helped Arthur Gorman attempt to buy the Washington Senators baseball team in February 1903.[6] His son, Arthur Gorman Lambert (1899–1991), was a member of Princeton's class of 1922, also practiced law, and founded Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland;[55] he unveiled a donated portrait of his grandfather, Arthur Pue Gorman, at the Capitol in 1943.[56]

Gorman's senate portrait, by Louis P. Dieterich, 1911

Grave of Gorman at Oak Hill Cemetery

Gorman served as a U.S. senator until his death from a heart attack in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 1906.[3] He had been ill with stomach trouble and hadn't left his Washington house since mid-January.[25][65] He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[66][67]

• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)

• Dodge, Andrew R. (2005). Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 1774–2005. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 9780160731761.
• Lambert, John R. Arthur Pue Gorman (1953), the standard scholarly biography
• United States Congress. "Arthur P. Gorman (id: G000326)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Arthur Pue Gorman, late a senator from Maryland, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1907