Richard Olney (September 15, 1835 – April 8, 1917) was an American attorney, statesman, and Democratic Party politician who served as a member of the second cabinet of President Grover Cleveland as the 40th United States Attorney General from 1893 to 1895 and 34th Secretary of State from 1895 to 1897.
As attorney general, Olney used injunctions against striking workers in the Pullman strike, setting a precedent, and advised the use of federal troops, when legal means failed to control the strikers.
As Secretary of State, Olney mediated the Venezuelan crisis of 1895 and managed Cleveland's anti-expansionist policy in response to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Cuban War of Independence, though both Hawaii and Cuba were annexed during the subsequent William McKinley administration. He raised the status of America in the world by elevating U.S. diplomatic posts to the status of embassy.
Early life and education
Olney was born into a prosperous family in Oxford, Massachusetts. His father was Wilson Olney, a textiles manufacturer and banker. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and lived there until Olney was seven. The family then moved back to Oxford and Olney attended school at the Leicester Academy in Leicester, Massachusetts. He declined to run again, preferring to return to his law practice.
During the 1880s, Olney became one of the Boston's leading railroad attorneys and the general counsel for Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway.
Olney was once asked by a former railroad employer if he could do something to get rid of the newly formed Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). He suggested that the ICC would become a captive regulator, replying in an 1892 letter, "The Commission... is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things... The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it."
Attorney General
In March 1893, Olney became U.S. Attorney General and used the law to thwart strikes, which he considered an illegitimate tactic contrary to law. He ordered the Chicago district attorney to convene a grand jury to find cause to indict Eugene Debs and other labor leaders and sent federal marshals to protect rail traffic, ordering 150 marshals deputized in Helena, Montana alone.
Secretary of State
Upon the death of Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham, Cleveland named Olney to the position on June 10, 1895.
Later years and death
thumb|Portrait of Olney .
Olney returned to the practice of the law in 1897, and later, in May 1914, when President Wilson offered Olney the Appointment as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, he declined that appointment. Olney was unwilling to take on new responsibilities at his advanced age.
He died in 1917 at the age of 81.
Personal life
In 1861, Olney married Agnes Park Thomas of Boston, Massachusetts.
Honors
Olney received the honorary degree of LL.D from Harvard and Brown in 1893 and from Yale University in 1901.
References
Bibliography
- Grenville, John A. S. and George Berkeley Young. Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy: Studies in Foreign Policy, 1873-1917 (1966) pp 158–78 on "Grover Cleveland, Richard Olney, and the Venezuelan Crisis"
- Young, George B. "Intervention Under the Monroe Doctrine: The Olney Corollary," Political Science Quarterly, 57#2 (1942), pp. 247–280 in JSTOR