William Cabell BRUCE, Congress, MD (1860-1946)

BRUCE, William Cabell, a Senator from Maryland; born in Staunton Hill, Charlotte County, Va., March 12, 1860; received an academic education at Norwood High School and College, Nelson County, Va.; attended the University of Virginia at Charlottesville; graduated from the University of Maryland Law School at Baltimore in 1882; admitted to the Maryland bar the same year and commenced practice in Baltimore, Md.; lawyer and writer; received the Pulitzer Prize in 1917 for his biography of Benjamin Franklin; member, State senate 1894-1896, serving as president in 1896; head of the city law department of Baltimore 1903-1908; member, Baltimore Charter Commission 1910; general counsel to the Public Service Commission of Maryland 1910-1922, when he resigned; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator in 1916; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1923, to March 3, 1929; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1928; resumed the practice of law in Baltimore until 1937, when he retired; died in Ruxton, Baltimore County, Md., May 9, 1946; interment in St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church Cemetery, Garrison, Md.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Bruce, William C. Recollections. Baltimore: King Brothers, 1936; Moore, John Hammond. “William Cabell Bruce, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Distribution of Ability in the United States.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86 (July 1978): 355-61.

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