Underwood, Oscar Wilder (1862-1929)

Image

Item Relations

Received by (1)
Mentioned in (2)
Comments (0)

Jane Addams and Grace Abbott to Oscar Wilder Underwood, January 23, 1911

At Last a Genuinely Independent Newspaper, ca. August 1912

James Alfred Moss to Jane Addams, April 8, 1924

Comments

Birth Date

1862-05-06

Death Date

1929-01-25

Birthplace

Louisville, KY

Biographical Text

Oscar Wilder Underwood attended the University of Virginia at Charlottesville, where he was president of the Jefferson Society, By 1920 he received a doctor of laws degree from Columbia College. From 1913 to 1914 he served as president of the University of Virginia Alumni Association. Underwood then began practicing law in Birmingham, Alabama. In 1892, Underwood became chairman of the 9th District's Democratic Committee, and two years later he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, though he was forced to resign in 1896 due to the election result being challenged by Truman H. Aldrich. Underwood continued to campaign and won the next election, serving for nine terms. He was the first Democratic House Minority Whip, and from 1911 to 1915 he was the House Majority Leader. In 1912 he was the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. When Woodrow Wilson won, Underwood served as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. In 1914 and 1920 he won a seat in the U.S. Senate, and from 1920 to 1923 he was Senate minority leader. Policy-wise, Underwood was against federal Prohibition, preferring it to be controlled by local authorities, and at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, he led the anti-Ku Klux Klan forces. In 1926, he declined to run for the Senate again, due to his anti-Klan beliefs upsetting members of his party. In 1927 he was appointed to an international peace commission. After retiring, Underwood wrote Drifting Sands of Party Politics.

Underwood married Eugenia Massie in 1885. They had two sons together. In 1900, Eugenia died, and Underwood remarried in 1904, to Bertha Woodward. In the winter of 1928 and 1929, he suffered two strokes, and he died in 1929.