Louis F. Hart

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Louis Folwell Hart)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Script error: No such module "Unsubst". Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".

Louis Folwell Hart (4 January 1862Template:Spaced ndash4 December 1929) was an American politician who served as the seventh Lieutenant Governor of Washington from 1913 to 1919 and as the ninth governor of Washington from 1919 to 1925. He was a Republican. He reorganized the state's administrative structure by reducing the number of agencies and the consequent financial economies.[1]

Biography

Hart was born in High Point, Missouri and studied law in Missouri. He married Ella James on 9 February 1881 in Missouri[2] and over the course of years they had five children, three sons and two daughters,[1]

Career

Lured by the frontier, Hart and his wife moved to Snohomish, Washington in the late 1880s,[2] where he practiced law. In 1899 they moved to Tacoma[1][2] where he continued to practice law and was an insurance agent.[3]

Winning the Republican nomination in 1912, Hart was elected as Washington's seventh Lieutenant Governor and he was reelected in 1916.[4]

During World War I Hart served as chairman of the Selective Service Appeals Board for Southwest Washington.[1] Hart became governor when the then-governor Ernest Lister retired in 1919 due to failing health.[1][3]

Hart was elected governor in his own right in 1920.[5] Hart was instrumental in getting new road projects through the state legislature[1] and strongly supported the creation of a state highway patrol. He oversaw the construction of a new State Capitol complex. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was reorganizing the state's administrative structure, reducing the number of administrative agencies from 75 to 10.

In 1921, Hart signed the Alien Land Bill, which barred non-white immigrants from buying, owning, or leasing land in the state, and mandated confiscation without compensation of lands purchased before or after passage of the act. The law was targeted primarily against Asian Americans.[6]

He did not have a Lieutenant Governor from his election as governor until William J. Coyle was appointed to the office in 1921. He is the last governor of the state, to date, that did not have a Lieutenant Governor at any time during his governorship.

Hart did not run for reelection in 1924, but instead retired to Tacoma where he practiced law, and served as the president of the State Good Roads Association.[1]

Death

Hart died on 4 December 1929, in Tacoma, Washington. He is interred at Masonic Memorial Park, Tumwater, Washington.

References

<templatestyles src="Reflist/styles.css" />

  1. a b c d e f g Staff (5 December 1929) "Death Summons Louis F. Hart: Life was Eventful" Centralia Daily Chronicle 38(280): p. 1, 8
  2. a b c Staff (18 December 1930) "Wife of Former Governor Passes" Centralia Daily Chronicle 39(300): p. 1
  3. a b "Gubernatorial Spoon River" Time Magazine 13 October 1924
  4. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Further reading

  • Sobel, Robert, and Raimo, John (eds.) (1978) Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978 Vol. 4. Meckler Books, Westport, CT, Template:ISBN
  • White, J.T. (ed.) (1933) The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, being the history of the United States Vol. 23. James T. White & Company, New York, OCLC 64067983

External links

Party political offices
Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/check Republican nominee for Governor of Washington
1920 Template:S-ttl/check
Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/checkTemplate:Succession box/check Lieutenant Governor of Washington
1913–1919 Template:S-ttl/check
Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by
Preceded byTemplate:S-bef/checkTemplate:Succession box/check Governor of Washington
1919–1925 Template:S-ttl/check
Template:S-aft/check Succeeded by

Script error: No such module "Navbox". Template:Lieutenant Governors of Washington Script error: No such module "Authority control".