Charles Gates Dawes (27 August 1865 – 23 April 1951) was Vice President of the United States from 4 March 1925 to 4 March 1929, succeeding Calvin Coolidge and preceding Charles Curtis.
Biography[]
Charles Gates Dawes was born in Marietta, Ohio in 1865, the son of Union Army General Rufus Dawes and the brother of businessmen and politicians Rufus C. Dawes, Beman Gates Dawes, and Henry May Dawes. He practiced law in Lincoln, Nebraska from 1887 to 1894 and befriended Lieutenant John J. Pershing; he also befriended Democratic congressman William Jennings Bryan despite their disagreements over free silver policies. Dawes relocated to Chicago following the Panic of 1893, and he became President of the La Crosse Gas Light Company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the Northwestern Gas Light and Coke Company in Evanston, Illinois. In 1896, he managed William McKinley's presidential campaign in Illinois, earning McKinley's admiration and the job of Comptroller of the Currency from 1898 to 1901. In 1902, he retired from politics after McKinley's assassination and a failed bid for the US House of Representatives, after which he served as President of the Central Trust Company of Illinois until 1921. During World War I, he joined the US Army and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General, serving as chairman of the general purchasing board for the American Expeditionary Forces in France. After the war, he worked for the War Department and joined the American Legion. He supported Illinois Governor Frank Lowden for President in 1920, but President Warren G. Harding appointed Dawes to serve as Director of the Bureau of the Budget from 1921 to 1922, working on the Dawes Plan for World War I reparations; for this, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. In 1924, after Lowden declined to serve as President Calvin Coolidge's running mate, Dawes was chosen by the convention, but he would go on to become alienated from Coolidge after Coolidge vetoed a farm bill which Dawes had passed through Congress to address the farm crisis of the 1920s. Herbert Hoover considered Dawes as a potential running mate in 1928, but Coolidge said that he would regard this as an insult, and Charles Curtis was chosen instead. Dawes went on to serve as Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1929 to 1931, and he briefly headed the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for a few months amid the Great Depression. He served as Chairman of the Board of City National Bank and Trust Co. from 1932 until his death in 1951 at the age of 85.