Smith Wildman BROOKHART, Congress, IA (1869-1944)

BROOKHART Smith Wildman , a Senator from Iowa; born near Arbela, Scotland County, Mo., February 2, 1869; attended the country schools in Missouri and Bloomfield, Iowa: graduated from the Southern Iowa Normal and Scientific Institute at Bloomfield in 1889; taught school for five years at Keosauqua; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1892 and commenced practice in Washington, Iowa; attorney of Washington County 1895-1901; during the Spanish-American War served as second lieutenant; resumed the practice of law and also engaged in agricultural pursuits; chairman of the Republican State Convention in 1912; major and lieutenant colonel during the First World War; president of the National Rifle Association 1921-1925; elected as a Progressive Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of William S. Kenyon and served from November 8, 1922, to March 3, 1925; presented credentials as a Republican Senator-elect for the term commencing March 4, 1925, and served until April 12, 1926, when he was succeeded by Daniel F. Steck, who successfully contested Brookhart's election; again elected as a Republican in 1926 and served from March 4, 1927, to March 3, 1933; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1932 and for election as an independent candidate; foreign-trade advisor in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration 1933-1935; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican senatorial nomination in 1936; practiced law in Washington, D.C., until 1943;, died in a veterans' hospital in Whipple, Ariz., November 15, 1944; interment in Elm Grove Cemetery, Washington, Iowa.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; McDaniel, George William. Smith Wildman Brookhart: Iowa's Renegade Republican. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1995; Neprash, Jerry. The Brookhart Campaigns in Iowa 1920-1926: A Study in the Motivation of Political Attitudes. 1932. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1968.

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