Eugene Hale

Eugene Hale
Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference
In office December 1908 – March 4, 1911
Preceded by	William B. Allison
Succeeded by	Shelby Moore Cullom
United States Senator from Maine
In office March 4, 1881 – March 3, 1911
Preceded by	Hannibal Hamlin
Succeeded by	Charles F. Johnson
Chairman of the House Republican Conference
In office March 4, 1877 – March 3, 1879
Speaker	Samuel J. Randall
Preceded by	George W. McCrary
Succeeded by	William P. Frye
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 5th district
In office March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1879
Preceded by	Frederick A. Pike
Succeeded by	Thompson H. Murch
Member of the Maine House of Representatives
In office 1867-1868
Personal details
Born	(1836-06-09)June 9, 1836 Turner, Maine, U.S.
Died	October 27, 1918(1918-10-27) (aged 82) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Profession	Politician, Lawyer

Eugene Hale (June 9, 1836 – October 27, 1918) was a Republican United States Senator from Maine.

Biography[]

Born in Turner, Maine, he was educated in local schools and at Maine's Hebron Academy. He was admitted to the bar in 1857 and served for nine years as prosecuting attorney for Hancock County, Maine. He was elected to the Maine Legislature 1867–68, to the U.S. House of Representatives 1869–79, serving in the 41st and four succeeding Congresses. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1878 to the 46th Congress.

He was elected to succeed Hannibal Hamlin in the U.S. Senate in 1881; reelected in 1887, 1893, 1899 and 1905 and served from March 4, 1881, to March 3, 1911. During his time in the Senate, he served several committees, chairing, during various Congresses, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Census, the U.S. Senate Committee on Private Land Claims, the U.S. Senate Committee on Printing, the U.S. Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and the . He was Republican Conference Chairman from 1908 to 1911.

Eugene Hale

Although he declined the post of United States Secretary of the Navy in the Rutherford B. Hayes administration (and had previously declined a Cabinet appointment under Ulysses S. Grant), Senator Hale performed constructive work of the greatest importance in the area of naval appropriations, especially during the early fights for the "new Navy." "I hope", he said in 1884, "that I shall not live many years before I shall see the American Navy what it ought to be, the pet of the American people." Much later in his career, he opposed the building of large numbers of capital ships, which he regarded as less effective in proportion to cost and subject to rapid obsolescence.

He was served as a member of the National Monetary Commission.

Hale received an LL.D. from Bates College in 1882. In 1883, Hale joined Hannibal Hamlin, the son of the former Vice President of the same name, and started the small law firm Hale & Hamlin in Ellsworth, Maine, which is now recognized as Maine's oldest law firm.^[1]

During the late 1890s, Hale and Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts were the most vocal opponents of American intervention into the ongoing insurrection in Cuba. Hale disdained expansionism and jingoism and often challenged claims made by senators on Cuban military victories and Spanish atrocities. He so frequently engaged in verbal jousts with Cuban sympathizers in the Senate that they unfairly accused him of parroting Spanish propaganda and called him "The Senator from Spain."

Senator Hale retired from politics in 1911 and spent the remainder of his life in Ellsworth, Maine, and in Washington, D.C., where he died. He is buried in Woodbine Cemetery, Ellsworth, Maine.

Two ships were named USS Hale for him. He was the father of Frederick Hale, also a U.S. Senator from Maine, and of diplomat Chandler Hale.

Gertrude Atherton's novel Senator North (1900) was based on Eugene Hale.^[2]

References[]

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• United States Congress. "Eugene Hale (id: H000029)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Eugene Hale was also a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Theta chapter).

External links[]

• Media related to Eugene Hale at Wikimedia Commons

• United States Congress. "Eugene Hale (id: H000029)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• history.navy.mil: Biography of Eugene Hale