William Squire KENYON, Congress, IA (1869-1933)

KENYON, William Squire, a Senator from Iowa; born in Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio, June 10, 1869; moved to Iowa in 1870 and attended the public schools; attended Grinnell (Iowa) College and completed a course of law at Iowa State University Law School at Iowa City in 1890; admitted to the bar in 1891 and commenced practice in Fort Dodge, Iowa; prosecuting attorney for Webster County 1892-1896; district judge of the eleventh judicial district of Iowa 1900-1902; general counsel for the Illinois Central Railroad 1904-1907; assistant to the Attorney General of the United States 1910-1911, when he resigned, having been elected Senator; elected in 1911 as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jonathan P. Dolliver; reelected in 1912 and 1918 and served from April 12, 1911, to February 24, 1922, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Expenditures in the War Department (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Standards, Weights and Measures (Sixty-fifth Congress), Committee on Education and Labor (Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Congresses), Committee on the Philippines (Sixty-sixth Congress); judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, from 1922, until his death; twice declined Cabinet appointments offered by President Calvin Coolidge; appointed by President Herbert Hoover in 1929 as a member of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, better known as the Wickersham Commission; died at his summer home at Sebasco Estates, Maine, September 9, 1933; interment in Oakland Cemetery, Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Francis, Leslie E. “The Last Legislative Election of an Iowa United States Senator.” Annals of Iowa 31 (April 1952): 263-75; Potts, E. Daniel. “William Squire Kenyon and the Iowa Senatorial Election of 1911.” Annals of Iowa 38 (Fall 1966): 206-22.

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