Thomas William HARDWICK, Congress, GA (1872-1944)

HARDWICK, Thomas William, a Representative and a Senator from Georgia; born in Thomasville, Thomas County, Ga., on December 9, 1872; attended the common schools and Mercer University, Macon, Ga.; graduated from the law department of the University of Georgia at Athens in 1893; admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Sandersville, Ga.; prosecuting attorney for Washington County 1895-1897; member, State house of representatives 1898-1902; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-eighth and to the five succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1903, to November 2, 1914, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures (Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses); elected on November 3, 1914, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Augustus O. Bacon and served from November 4, 1914, to March 3, 1919; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1918; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department (Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses), Committee on Immigration (Sixty-fifth Congress), Committee on Industrial Expositions (Sixty-fifth Congress); Governor of Georgia 1921-1923; unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the United States Senate in 1922 and 1924; resumed the practice of law, with offices in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Ga., and Sandersville, Ga.; died in Sandersville, Ga., January 31, 1944; interment in the Old City Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Grantham, Dewey W., Jr. ed. “Some Letters from Thomas W. Hardwick to Tom Watson Concerning the Georgia Gubernatorial Campaign of 1906.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 34 (December 1950): 328-40; Mellichamp, Josephine. “Thomas Hardwick.” In Senators From Georgia. pp. 212-14. Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1976.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present