Joseph Irwin France (11 October 1873-26 January 1939) was a US Senator from Maryland (R) from 4 March 1917 to 3 March 1923, succeeding Blair Lee I and preceding William Cabell Bruce.
Biography[]
Joseph Irwin France was born in Cameron, Missouri in 1873, and he became a teacher in Maryland in 1897. From 1907 to 1909, he served in the Maryland State Senate, and he had a career in medicine before serving as a US Senator from 1917 to 1923. He supported limited free speech protections under the Sedition Act during World War I, and his opposition to Prohibition and his support for the pardoning of dissenters from World War I led to his defeat in 1922. He died in 1939.