Shelby Moore Cullom, Governor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Moore_Cullom

Shelby Moore Cullom (November 22, 1829 – January 28, 1914) was a U.S. political figure, serving in various offices, including the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate and the 17th Governor of Illinois.

Cullom was born in 1829 in Monticello, Kentucky, and moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1853. There he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1855. He practiced law in the city with Charles S. Zane, and was elected city attorney in 1855.

Cullom was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1856 and 1860 to 1861, serving as Speaker in 1861.

He was elected as a Republican in 1864 to the Thirty-ninth, and reelected to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses (March 4, 1865-March 3, 1871).

Cullom returned to the Illinois House of Representatives from 1873 to 1874, and served as Speaker in 1873.

In 1876, he was elected Governor and served from 1877 to 1883, when he resigned to take office as a US senator. Cullom was elected to the Senate in 1882, and reelected in 1888, 1894, 1900 and 1906, serving from March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1913.

As a Senator, Cullom oversaw the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. He believed that only the federal government had the power to force railroads to provide fair treatment to all of its customers, large and small. This was because corporations, such as Standard Oil, had corrupted many of the railroad's officials into providing them with rebates, and as a whole, the companies in question were more powerful than any state government. Cullom was appointed by President William McKinley in July 1898 to the commission created by the Newlands Resolution to establish government in the Territory of Hawaii.

He died in 1914 in Washington, D.C. and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. Cullom was a close personal friend and associate of Jacob Bunn and John Whitfield Bunn, the Illinois industrialist brothers who contributed to the building of hundreds of millions of dollars of business enterprises by 1900. The village of Cullom, Illinois is named in his honor.