Francis G. Newlands | |
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| United States Senator fromNevada | |
| In office March 4, 1903 – December 24, 1917 | |
| Preceded by | John P. Jones |
| Succeeded by | Charles B. Henderson |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNevada'sAt-Large district | |
| In office March 4, 1893 – March 3, 1903 | |
| Preceded by | Horace F. Bartine |
| Succeeded by | Clarence D. Van Duzer |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Francis Griffith Newlands (1846-08-28)August 28, 1846 Natchez,Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | December 24, 1917(1917-12-24) (aged 71) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Oak Hill Cemetery Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Silver (1893–1903) Democratic (1903–1917) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
| Profession | Attorney, real estate developer,politician |
| Signature |  |
Francis Griffith Newlands (August 28, 1846 – December 24, 1917) was an American politician and land developer who served asUnited States representative andsenator fromNevada and a member of theDemocratic Party.[1]
A supporter of westward expansion, he helped pass theNewlands Reclamation Act of 1902, which created the Bureau of Reclamation and boosted the agricultural industry by building dams to support irrigation in the arid Western states.[2] An avowedwhite supremacist,[3][4][5] Newlands argued publicly for racial restrictions on immigration and repealing the15th Amendment.[2][6][7]
As land developer, Newlands founded the neighborhoods ofChevy Chase, Washington, D.C.; andChevy Chase, Maryland,[8] and took steps to prevent non-white people from moving there.[9] To enable the development of thesestreetcar suburbs, he founded theRock Creek Railway, which became one of the two majorstreetcar companies serving the Washington, D.C., area in the early decades of the 20th century.
Newlands was born inNatchez, Mississippi, on August 28, 1846 (or 1848; sources differ). He was the fourth of five children born to Jessie and James Newlands, immigrants fromScotland.[7][10][11] His father, trained as a physician inEdinburgh, died in 1851.[7] Newlands was raised inIllinois andWashington, D.C.[10]
In 1867, he went toYale University but left after his first year.[12] In 1869, he graduated from Columbian College, which is nowGeorge Washington University Law School,[13] and wasadmitted to the bar in 1869.[7][14] In 1901, he received an honorary M.A. degree.[13]
In 1870, Newlands moved toSan Francisco,California. He married Clara Adelaide Sharon, the daughter of futureNevada senatorWilliam Sharon, in 1874.[7][11] They had three daughters.[10] Newlands helped William Sharon to reopen theBank of California, and supervised the management of thePalace Hotel, San Francisco.[7] When Newlands' wife died, he inherited the Sharon estate.[10] Newlands married Edith McAllister and moved to Nevada in 1888.[15]
In the late 1880s, Newlands and his partners began to acquire farmland innorthwestern Washington, D.C., and southernMontgomery County, Maryland, in order to develop a residentialstreetcar suburb for the nation's capital. On June 23, 1888, Newlands chartered theRock Creek Railway for a single-track streetcar.[16] Two years later, Newlands and his partners formed theChevy Chase Land Company to develop their land, which by then totaled more than 1,700 acres.[17][18] Between 1890 and 1892, the Land Company built a five-mile extension ofConnecticut Avenue fromRock Creek past the District line and into Maryland. The new road included two new bridges and streetcar tracks laid down the center.[17] The Rock Creek Railway opened in 1892.[18] To supply the electricity to the streetcars, the company dammed Coquelin Run, a small tributary of Rock Creek, just east ofConnecticut Avenue; the resultingChevy Chase Lake supplied water for an electric generating plant.
Newlands' development companies attachedcovenants to lots inChevy Chase, D.C.;Chevy Chase, Maryland; and later Burlingame, California. These covenants did not explicitly forbid their sale to people of specific races or religions. Instead, they forbade buyers to build homes that cost less than certain amounts — e.g., $3,000 and $5,000 — effectively preventing their sale to members of minority populations with less access to wealth.[19]
Newlands created the Chevy Chase Springs Hotel (later theChevy Chase School for Girls, now the4-H Youth Conference Center). Newlands ensured the community included schools, churches, country clubs, tree-lined streets, a water supply and a sewage system. Groceries and daily purchases were brought from Washington, D.C., on the railway at no charge to residents.[18] From 1894 to 1936, the Land Company operated an amusement park on the lake as a means to draw prospective buyers to the development and to keep the streetcars supplied with evening and weekend passengers.[20]
In 1893, Newlands began to subdivide some property he inherited inBurlingame, California. He started with the Burlingame Country Club and five cottages. The following year, he added the Burlingame train station.[21][22]
Newlands representedNevada in theUnited States House of Representatives from 1893 to 1903 as a member of theSilver Party. In 1898, he created theNewlands Resolution, whichannexed theRepublic of Hawaii, creating a new territory.[10] He supported a greater federal role in conservation and pushed for federal funding of western arid land irrigation projects.[10][23] He helped pass theReclamation Act of 1902, also called the Newlands Act, which created what would become theBureau of Reclamation.[10]
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Newlands entered theUnited States Senate in 1903 as aDemocrat. He supported the protection of theNational Forests under theUnited States Forest Service in 1905, and the creation of theNational Park Service in 1916.[10]
He was a member of the Senate subcommittee thatinvestigated the 1912 sinking ofRMS Titanic.[24] He took part in the first 10 of the inquest's 18 days, focusing particularly on the paucity of lifeboats aboard the ship. The proceedings are regarded as among the most important Senate investigations of the 20th century, and its findings led toreforms in safety practices and maritime policy.[25]
In 1916, Newlands was the only Democratic senator to vote against the nomination ofLouis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court.[26]
Newlands heldwhite supremacist beliefs and spoke publicly in favor of restricting the rights of African Americans.[6][27][28]
Newlands was an outspoken white supremacist who advocated for those beliefs as a senator, and awhite nationalist who sought to secure the United States as a homeland for whites. In 1905, he advocated for the paid resettlement of African Americans to the Caribbean.[29] In a 1909 journal article, "A Western View of the Race Question" published in theAnnals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Newlands wrote that Black people were "a race of children"[6][30] who threatened the United States. The country, he wrote, "should start immediately upon the serious consideration of a national policy regarding the people of the black race now within our boundaries, which, with a proper regard for humanity, will minimize the danger which they constitute to our institutions and our civilizations."[6] He also expressed fear that people from Asia would take over the West Coast: "Asia, with nearly a billion people of the yellow and brown races, who, if there were no restrictions, would quickly settle upon and take possession of our entire western coast and intermountain region."[6] He distinguished between Chinese and Japanese people using stereotypes: "the Chinese, who are patient and submissive, would not create as many complications as the presence of the Japanese, whose strong and virile qualities would constitute an additional element of difficulty."[6]
In a June 17, 1912, article in theNew York Times, Newlands wrote, "I believe this should be a white man's country and that we should frankly express our determination that it shall be."[31] At the1912 Democratic National Convention, he proposed that the party's platform include a "White Plank" calling for the repeal of theFifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the restriction of immigration to whites.[32]
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Newlands was stricken with heart failure at his Senate office on the afternoon of December 24, 1917, and died that night at his home at 2236 Massachusetts Avenue NW.[33] He was interred atOak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[34]
In 1943, aLiberty ship was commissionedFrancis G. Newlands; it was scrapped in 1965.
TheFrancis Griffith Newlands Memorial Fountain is in Chevy Chase Circle, a federal park that divides D.C. and Maryland. In 2014, a member of the Chevy Chase advisory neighborhood commission proposed a resolution calling for the removal of Newlands' name from the fountain because of his white supremacist views on race, including his desire to remove the vote for African Americans. Others argued that Chevy Chase should not alter the monument because the change would belittle Newlands' legislative accomplishments.[35][36]
On July 27, 2020, theAdvisory Neighborhood Commission of Chevy Chase, D.C., voted unanimously to ask theNational Park Service to remove the plaque bearing his name from the Francis Griffith Newlands Memorial Fountain and create an exhibit documenting Newlands's racism.[37]
A similar renaming effort has begun around Newlands Park inReno, Nevada.[38][39]
Newlands'former mansion inReno is one of six properties in Nevada designated as aNational Historic Landmark.[40] Many notable people, includingBarbara Hutton in 1935, stayed at the house while waiting for theirdivorce paperwork to be finalized by George Thatcher, a local divorcelawyer who purchased the home in 1920.
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New office | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromNevada (Class 3) 1914 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNevada's at-large congressional district 1893–1903 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 3) from Nevada 1903–1917 Served alongside:William M. Stewart,George S. Nixon,William A. Massey,Key Pittman | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Moses E. Clapp Minnesota | Chairman of theUnited States Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce 1913–1917 | Succeeded by Ellison D. Smith South Carolina |
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| Commerce (1825–1947) | ||
| Interstate Commerce (1887–1947) | ||
| Interstate and Foreign Commerce/Commerce (1947–1977) | ||
| Commerce, Science, and Transportation (1977–present) | ||
| Territorial (1861–1864) |
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| One at-large seat (1864–1983) |
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| Districts (1983–present) (3rd district established in 2003) (4th district established in 2013) |
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