A congressman and United States senator, James E. Watson was born in Winchester, Indiana, the son of Enos L., a lawyer and newspaper publisher who served two terms as a representative in the Indiana legislature, and Margaret Watson. Reminiscing about his boyhood, James Watson noted in his memoir As I Knew Them (1936) that Winchester was a strong Quaker community that was antislavery and "bitterly Republican." Watson's first taste of Republican politics came in 1876 when his father, a delegate, took his then twelve-year-old son to the GOP National Convention in Cincinnati. James Watson went on to attend every Republican national convention until 1932, when pressing business in the Senate precluded him from attending.
Graduating from Winchester High School in 1881, Watson enrolled at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. While at the university, Watson played football and baseball and sparred politically with another future United States senator from Indiana, Albert J. Beveridge. At age nineteen, Watson gave his first campaign speech, touting the candidacy of General Thomas M. Browne, his mother's cousin, for Congress. Graduating from DePauw in 1886, he was admitted to the bar that same year and began practicing law with his father in Winchester. On 12 December 1892 he married Flora Miller and a year later, on the advice of Indiana Republican Chairman "Uncle Jack" Gowdy, moved to Rushville, Indiana, to establish his own law office.
In 1894 Watson defeated Democratic incumbent congressman Judge William S. Holman, who had earned the sobriquet "the Watchdog of the Treasury" during his years in office representing what was then known as the Fourth Congressional District. Taking up his duties in Washington, D.C., Watson became close friends with House Speaker Joseph C. "Uncle Joe" Cannon and eventually earned the job of Republican whip. Because he was unable to afford to bring his family with him to live in Washington, Watson roomed with Cannon, a widower, leading the speaker to joke that "Jim never missed a meal and never paid a cent," Watson recalled in his memoirs. A staunch conservative wary of American involvement in European affairs, the Hoosier legislator also believed throughout his career in a high protective tariff and a strong navy.
Although defeated in his attempt at reelection in 1896 due in part to redistricting, Watson reclaimed his seat in Congress in 1898 and served continuously until 1908. His theatrical speaking style--Watson tearing off his coat and necktie and thundering his trademark cry "but by the eternals"--proved to be highly effective with Hoosier voters. In 1908 Watson returned to Indiana as the Republican nominee in the gubernatorial race against Democrat Thomas R. Marshall, who later served two terms as Woodrow Wilson's vice president. Watson blamed his approximately fifteen-thousand vote defeat to Marshall on opposition from organized labor and incumbent GOP Governor J. Frank Hanly's handling of a county option law on the liquor question. After his electoral setback, Watson resumed his law practice in Rushville but continued to be active in GOP politics, serving as floor leader for President William Howard Taft at the 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago.
Watson returned to Washington in 1916 when he was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Benjamin F. Shively--a post Watson held until his defeat at the polls in the Democrat landslide in 1932. As he had in the House, Watson became a power in the Senate, selected by fellow Republican Henry Cabot Lodge in 1919 to organize opposition in that body to the League of Nations. A year later at the deadlocked Republican National Convention in Chicago Watson, chairman of the resolutions committee, received a telephone call from Senator Boise Penrose of Pennsylvania, who had been too ill to attend the convention, asking him to take the nomination for president. Watson's wife, however, adamantly opposed such a move and Watson refused the nomination, which went to Warren G. Harding of Ohio.
A favorite son candidate for the GOP presidential nomination in 1928, Watson lost the nomination to Herbert Hoover, but took over as Senate majority floor leader upon Hoover's election as president. Watson's tenure in the Senate ended in 1932 when he was defeated for reelection by Democrat Frederick Van Nuys. After his defeat, Watson remained in Washington where he continued to be involved in Republican party affairs. At the 1940 GOP National Convention in Philadelphia, Watson opposed fellow Rushville, Indiana-native Wendell Willkie, who had once been a Democrat. Although Willkie claimed to have repented and converted to the Republican ranks, Watson informed the eventual nominee that even though he might welcome a repentant sinner into his church, he would object to having such a person leading the church choir.
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