Episode 313
Thomas R. Marshall
Wed, 2018-Mar-14 00:05 UTC
Length - 3:51
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Wednesday, 14 March 2018 is Thomas R. Marshall.
Thomas Riley Marshall (March 14, 1854 – June 1, 1925) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 28th Vice President of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A prominent lawyer in Indiana, he became an active and well known member of the Indiana Democratic Party by stumping across the state for other candidates and organizing party rallies that later helped him win election as the 27th Governor of Indiana. In office, he proposed a controversial and progressive state constitution and pressed for other progressive era reforms. The Republican minority used the state courts to block the attempt to change the constitution.
His popularity as governor, and Indiana's status as a critical swing state, helped him secure the Democratic vice presidential nomination on a ticket with Wilson in 1912 and win the subsequent general election. An ideological rift developed between the two men during their first term, leading Wilson to limit Marshall's influence in the administration, and his brand of humor caused Wilson to move Marshall's office away from the White House. During Marshall's second term he delivered morale-boosting speeches across the nation during World War I and became the first vice president to hold cabinet meetings, which he did while Wilson was in Europe. As he was president of the United States Senate, a small number of anti-war senators kept it deadlocked by refusing to end debate. To enable critical wartime legislation to be passed, Marshall had the body adopt its first procedural rule allowing filibusters to be ended by a two-thirds majority vote—a variation of this rule remains in effect.
Marshall's vice presidency is most remembered for a leadership crisis following a stroke that incapacitated Wilson in October 1919. Because of their personal dislike for him, Wilson's advisers and wife Edith sought to keep Marshall uninformed about the president's condition to prevent him from assuming presidential powers and duties. Many people, including cabinet officials and Congressional leaders, urged Marshall to become acting president, but he refused to forcibly assume the presidency for fear of setting a precedent. Without strong leadership in the executive branch, the administration's opponents defeated the ratification of the League of Nations treaty and effectively returned the United States to an isolationist foreign policy. Marshall is also the only known Vice President of the United States to have been exclusively targeted in an assassination attempt while in office. Marshall died while on a trip after suffering a heart attack in 1925. Marshall was the first Vice President since Daniel D. Tompkins, nearly a century earlier, to serve two full terms.
Well known for his wit and sense of humor, one of Marshall's most enduring jokes, which provoked widespread laughter from his colleagues, came during a Senate debate in which, in response to Senator Joseph Bristow's catalog of the nation's needs, Marshall quipped the often-repeated phrase, "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar". After his terms as vice president, he opened an Indianapolis law practice, where he authored several legal books and his memoir, Recollections. He continued to travel and speak publicly.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:05 UTC on Wednesday, 14 March 2018.
For the full current version of the article, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_R._Marshall.
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This has been Russell. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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