Cook County IL Archives News.....William E Mason, 1850-1921 1921
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Journal Of IL State Historical Society, Vol 14 1921
Representative William E. Mason, Congressman at large from Illinois and former 
United States Senator, died in his apartment at the Congress Hall Hotel, 
Washington, D. C., June 16, 1921. He was 71 years old. Heart failure caused 
his death. He became seriously ill, but rallied and was believed to be on the 
road to recovery when he suffered a relapse.

Joseph G. Cannon announced the death of Mr. Mason in the House of 
Representatives immediately after it convened, the House then adjourned 
without transacting any business. A resolution expressing sorrow and sympathy 
was offered in the Senate by Senator McCormick of Illinois, and adopted 
unanimously. Representative Richard Yates, the other Congressman at large from 
Illinois, issued a statement eulogizing his colleague; he said; "It was his 
disposition to not only be devoted to duty but also to be the friend of the 
downtrodden, the oppressed, the 'under dog'. The tortured Cuban in 1918 was 
the recipient of his strenuous efforts; his burning denunciations of Spanish 
brutality were not matched or equaled. The sufferer in the World War, and 
above all the Irishman, he championed and fought for until his latest breath. 
His place cannot be filled."

William E. Mason was esteemed to be one of the nation's wittiest citizens, one 
of its old time stump speaking, storytelling orators, and one of its fighters. 
A politician since he was six years old, he was born in the village of 
Pranklinville, Cattaraugus County, New York, on July 5, 1850. He was one of 
ten sons of Lewis J. and Nancy (Winslow) Mason and he had four sisters. The 
elder Mason was a wagon maker and a pioneer. He moved west to Bentonsport, 
Iowa, in 1856. Mason got but 75 cents a day for his labor, and yet he managed 
to feed those fourteen children and two others whom he and his wife adopted. 
During the evening he made furniture, and after a time he became proprietor of 
a hotel and stocked it with home made furniture.

William E. Mason was fifteen years old when his father died. He was thrown on 
his own resources. He got a job teaching school at Bear Creek and after he had 
thrashed the biggest boy had little difficulty. In 1868 he went to Des-Moines, 
Iowa, and began studying law in the office of Thomas Wethrow, who soon after 
was appointed general solicitor of a railroad, and moved to Chicago. Mason 
came with him, remained in his office a year, then studied in the office of 
John N. Jewett. He was admitted to the bar when he was 21 years old, was 
elected to the Illinois Legislature before he was 30, and was elected State 
Senator in 1882.

It was in these years that Mason became known around the stump circuit as an 
orator, a humorist, a story teller. When he would walk out upon the platform 
and shake his long black hair and lift his eyebrows, shrug his shoulders, 
start in telling yarns—he at once caught and held the attention of his 
audience.

He was elected to Congress in 18S9 and was re-elected for the second term. But 
on his third attempt he was buried in a Democratic landslide. Five years 
later, in 1S97, he was elected to the United States Senate by the Hlinois 
legislature by a strict party vote, receiving 125 votes against 78 for John P. 
Altgeld. He succeeded Gen. John M. Palmer in the Senate. He became a 
spectacular figure in the Senate, taking first rank as a ready debator. His 
reputation won in the house, helped to establish him at once.

Mr. Mason was a persistent advocate of the rural free delivery bill, and 
championed all bills favoring the rights of labor and attacking trusts and 
combinations of capital. He was one of the first to advocate the freeing of 
Cuba. After his defeat for re-election to the Senate in 1903 he was out of 
Congress for a number of years. He came back as Congressman-at-large for 
Illinois, put himself over without an organization, without money, without 
even a headquarters. And he was twice re-elected with the aid of the Thoinpson-
Lundin organization with which he was affiliated. Following the war 
Congressman Mason became one of the active champions of the Irish Republic, 
and was the author of resolutions directing American recognition of that 
republic, and the exchange of diplomatic and consular representatives. In 1873 
Mr. Mason married Miss Edith Julia White of DesMoines, Iowa, and they had 
seven children. The Mason home has their picture in a stained glass window.

There are some, perhaps, who will point to Mason's record during the late war, 
and call him anything but patriotic. He opposed the declarations of war, the 
draft, the taking of National Guard troops to France. However, he pointed to a 
son on the firing bne to show that he worked for the prosecution of the War, 
although he did not believe that America was right in entering it.


Additional Comments:
Source: Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Published Quarterly 
by the Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield, Illinois. Vol. 14 April-
July, 1921 No. 1-2.

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