Arthur P. Gorman

|signature = Signature of Arthur Pue Gorman (1839–1906).png

Arthur Pue Gorman (March 11, 1839June 4, 1906) was an American politician. He was leader of the Gorman-Rasin organization with Isaac Freeman Rasin that controlled the Maryland Democratic Party from the late 1870s until his death in 1906. In 1952 Gorman was described in The Baltimore Sun as "easily the most powerful political figure [Maryland] has ever known."

As a young man, Gorman also played a prominent role in the early development of baseball in Washington, D.C. He was a founding member of the original Washington Nationals of the National Association, the first American baseball team, and became one of the nation's star players by 1864. Later in life, he served as a member of the Mills Commission which investigated the origins of the sport. where Peter Gorman bought a farm several miles from Laurel. Gorman attended Howard County public schools and for at least one year his father hired a tutor to teach him and neighboring students.

In 1850, Peter Gorman used his connections to Maryland Congressmen William T. Hamilton and Edward Hammond to arrange for 11-year old Arthur to serve as a U.S. Senate page. In 1866, he was appointed Postmaster.

During the American Civil War, Gorman was a pro-Union Democrat. In September 1866, Republicans who held the senate majority removed him as postmaster because he supported President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Johnson immediately appointed Gorman as Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth Congressional District of Maryland. According to contemporary accounts, Gorman was the team's standout left fielder, but often substituted or filled in at every other position, including pitcher and catcher.

In 1867, he led the Nationals in their first trip over the mountains, in which they beat every midwest team except Rockford, Illinois, which had Albert Spalding as its pitcher. Also in 1867, Gorman was elected to a one-year term as president of the National Association of Base Ball Players.

In 1875, he was elected to the Maryland State Senate, serving until 1881.

U.S. Senator

In 1880, the Maryland legislature elected Gorman to the United States Senate, where he soon became a leader of the Bourbon Democrats. The New York Times reported that the previous legislative election was influenced by large groups of "ward rounders" who shot and wounded black Republican voters at the Howard County polls.

thumb|An 1888 tobacco company trading card speculates on Gorman's chances for the presidency.

In 1884 Gorman became chairman of the National Democratic Committee and served as campaign manager for Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland. Within hours cities with large Catholic populations were blanketed with posters and handbills with the letters "R.R.R." on them Blaine tried to make a disclaimer, but the damage was done. The November 4 election was determined by New York, which Cleveland won by only 1,149 votes (0.1% of the total vote). Gorman's handling of the Cleveland campaign, including the "rum, Romanism and rebellion" comment, was widely recognized as the decisive factor in securing Cleveland's victory.

He served as the Democratic caucus chairman from 1890 to 1898. He chaired the Committee on Printing (53rd Congress) and served on the Committee on Private Land Claims (55th Congress). He was again appointed as the Democratic Caucus Chairman, which he held from 1903 to 1906.

In his final years, according to the Maryland State Archives' biography, Gorman "spearheaded an attempt by Democrats to disenfranchise black voters in Maryland, who tended to vote Republican." Related legislation passed easily in the Democratically controlled Senate of early 1904, though Governor Warfield did not sign the bill into law, and it was rejected by voters in late 1905.

Personal life and family

Gorman married a widow, Hannah T. "Hattie" Donagan, on March 28, 1867.

Gorman served as a director and eventually president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company;

Haddie Gorman Gambrill

thumb|Haddie Gorman in 1895Gorman's eldest daughter, Haddie, married Stephen Warfield Gambrill in 1900. Her husband later served as a Maryland state delegate, state senator, and U.S. representative.

Ada Gorman

thumb|left|Ada Gorman in 1895Gorman's daughter Ada married Charles Joseph Magness, a young man about half her age, against her family's wishes in 1908. Magness was soon thereafter imprisoned for desertion from the U.S. Navy. Upon his release a year later, the couple lived in Washington, D.C., and then the Baltimore suburb of Lutherville.

When her mother died in 1910, Ada was cut off from her share of the Gorman family estate. The marriage lasted a total of 14 years before Ada divorced in 1922 due to her husband's infidelity. She died childless and with few friends in the spring of 1950. They had two children, Richard Jr. and Grace. They lived at the historic Overlook farmhouse in North Laurel, which was built for Daisy on the family property in 1911. (This home was later owned from 1952 to 2018 by diplomat and businessman Kingdon Gould Jr., who raised his family and died there.)

Arthur Gorman Jr.

thumb|Arthur P. Gorman Jr. c. 1914|alt=Black-and-white posed photo of Gorman Jr wearing a dark suit coat, darker tie, and a white collared shirt

Gorman's only son, Arthur Jr., attended Lawrenceville Prep and played on the Maryland Agricultural College football team in 1892 and 1893 as a fullback. In 1898, Arthur Jr. founded the Piedmont Mining Company in Maryland and West Virginia with his uncle William and Thomas L. Marriott. He married Grace Norris on November 28, 1900. Arthur Jr. served as a Maryland state senator (1904–1910), the last year during which he was Senate President.

Arthur Jr. was nominated for Governor of Maryland in 1911, but narrowly lost to Republican Phillips Lee Goldsborough. He was later a state tax commissioner, until his death in 1919 due to complications from diabetes.

Bessie Gorman Lambert

Gorman's daughter Bessie married Princeton graduate and Democratic speechwriter Wilton J. Lambert on June 24, 1896, at the Gormans' Washington home on the corner of 15th and K Streets. They had two children, Elizabeth (b. 1897) and Arthur. An attorney, Lambert helped Bessie's father attempt to buy the Washington Senators baseball team in February 1903. he unveiled a donated portrait of his grandfather, Arthur Pue Gorman, at the Capitol in 1943.

thumb|alt=oil on canvas portrait of a silver and gray-haired Senator Gorman, wearing a dark suit and seated toward the left against a dark background, facing the viewer with a soft smile on his lips|Gorman's Senate portrait, by Louis P. Dieterich, 1911

Mary Gorman Hills

Gorman's youngest daughter, Mary, married Ralph Warren Hills on February 27, 1901. Their son, Ralph Gorman Hills, won a bronze medal for shot put at the 1924 Summer Olympics. He graduated from Princeton University, after which he earned an M.D. degree from Johns Hopkins University and became a doctor; his first son, J. Dixon Hills, also chose to become a physician.

Death and legacy

thumb|upright|left|Grave of Gorman at Oak Hill Cemetery

Gorman served as a U.S. senator until his death from a heart attack in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 1906. He was interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Gorman's wife became ill soon after his death, and died on June 21, 1910. as is Gorman Road in North Laurel. An elementary school near this road is named "Gorman Crossing".

In 2000, a proposed neighborhood within the Kings Contrivance section of Columbia, Maryland was to be named "Gorman's Promise," but the naming was canceled after consideration of Gorman's involvement in the disenfranchisement of black voters.

References

Bibliography

Lambert, John R. Arthur Pue Gorman (1953), the standard scholarly biography
Lambert, "Arthur Pue Gorman: Practical Politician" (PhD dissertation, Princeton University; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 1947. 0010944), online at academic libraries.

Arthur Pue Gorman, late a senator from Maryland, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1907