George W. Pepper
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George Wharton Pepper (March 16, 1867 – May 24, 1961) was an American lawyer, law professor, and Republican politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate.
From 1892 to 1895, he edited and published the University of Pennsylvania Law Review (then called the American Law Register and Review) with his friend William Draper Lewis. In the early 1900s, a court appointed Pepper as receiver for the Bay State Gas Company, a bankrupt Massachusetts utility. Pepper led the company in suing a number of nationally-known businessmen, including William Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, and Thomas W. Lawson, whom he accused of unfairly enriching themselves at the expense of the company.
During 1920's controversy about the expansion of advertising, Senator Pepper argued for a "nationwide code of regulation," as pronounced in a 1929 speech to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. He pointed out that in preserving natural beauty, no national economic benefit was lost-- real estate values and related figures would increase without the addition of billboards. Pepper represented what was, at the time, the general popular will: that if billboards became mainstream, this would signal advertising becoming too obtrusive, too aggressive in its campaign to persuade the public.
Pepper was instrumental in President Coolidge’s naming of fellow Pennsylvanian Owen Josephus Roberts as Special Counsel to investigate the Teapot Dome scandal of the previous administration of Warren G. Harding. Herbert Hoover appointed Roberts in 1930 to the US Supreme Court. Roberts in 1936 wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Butler. As a swing vote in the Court, Roberts sided in this instance with the conservative Four Horsemen (Supreme Court), favouring the plaintiff William J. Butler who was incidentally represented by then ex-Senator George Pepper. Roberts’s opinion struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act, handing the second major defeat by the Court to the Administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which led to Roosevelt’s eventually doomed "Court-packing" plan.
[edit] References
- Bennett, Leslie E. One Lesson From History: Appointment of Special Counsel and the Investigation of the Teapot Dome Scandal, retrieved on April 18, 2008.
- Culver, John C. and Hyde, John. American Dreamer. The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace. New York, W.W. Norton, 2000
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Boies Penrose |
United States Senator (Class 3) from Pennsylvania January 9, 1922–March 3, 1927 Served alongside: David Reed |
Succeeded by William S. Vare |
| Preceded by Joseph Grundy |
Oldest living U.S. Senator March 3, 1961-May 24, 1961 |
Succeeded by Theodore Green |
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