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George B. Cortelyou | |
|---|---|
 Cortelyou (c. 1905–1907) | |
| 44thUnited States Secretary of the Treasury | |
| In office March 4, 1907 – March 7, 1909 | |
| President | Theodore Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Leslie Shaw |
| Succeeded by | Franklin MacVeagh |
| 42ndUnited States Postmaster General | |
| In office March 6, 1905 – January 14, 1907 | |
| President | Theodore Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Robert Wynne |
| Succeeded by | George Meyer |
| Chair of theRepublican National Committee | |
| In office June 23, 1904 – January 7, 1907 | |
| Preceded by | Henry Payne (Acting) |
| Succeeded by | Harry New |
| 1stUnited States Secretary of Commerce and Labor | |
| In office February 18, 1903 – June 30, 1904 | |
| President | Theodore Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Victor H. Metcalf |
| Secretary to the President | |
| In office May 1, 1900 – February 18, 1903 | |
| President | William McKinley Theodore Roosevelt |
| Preceded by | John Addison Porter |
| Succeeded by | William Loeb Jr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | George Bruce Cortelyou (1862-07-26)July 26, 1862 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | October 23, 1940(1940-10-23) (aged 78) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Lilly Morris Hinds |
| Education | Westfield State University (BA) Georgetown University (LLB) George Washington University (LLM) |
George Bruce Cortelyou (July 26, 1862 – October 23, 1940) was an Americancabinet secretary of the early twentieth century. He served in various capacities in the presidential administrations ofGrover Cleveland,William McKinley, andTheodore Roosevelt.
Born inNew York City, Cortelyou worked for theUnited States Post Office Department and came to the attention ofPostmaster GeneralWilson S. Bissell. On Bissell's recommendation, President Cleveland hired Cortelyou as his chief clerk. On Cleveland's recommendation, McKinley hired Cortelyou as his personal secretary. After theassassination of William McKinley, Roosevelt asked Cortelyou to lead an effort to reorganize the White House.
Impressed with Cortelyou's performance, Roosevelt appointed himUnited States Secretary of Commerce and Labor in 1903. He left this position in 1904 to become chairman of theRepublican National Committee, and in 1905 he also served as Postmaster General. He left both positions to become theUnited States Secretary of the Treasury in 1907. In this position, he worked to keep the economy stable during thePanic of 1907. After Roosevelt left office in 1909, Cortelyou became president of theConsolidated Gas Company. He died in 1940.
Cortelyou was born inNew York City to Rose (née Seary) and Peter Crolius Cortelyou Jr. He was a member of an oldNew Netherlandish family whose immigrant ancestor,Jacques Cortelyou, arrived in 1652. He was educated in the public schools ofBrooklyn, atNazareth Hall Military Academy inPennsylvania, and at Hempstead Institute onLong Island.
At the age of 20, Cortelyou received aBA degree fromWestfield Normal School, now Westfield State University, a teachers' college inWestfield, Massachusetts. He earned law degrees fromGeorge Washington University andGeorgetown University. He was a member of thePhi Sigma Kappa fraternity while atGeorge Washington University.[1] Cortelyou then began teaching, later taking astenography course and masteringshorthand. On September 15, 1888, Cortelyou married the former Lily Morris Hinds, with whom he had five children.
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In 1891 he obtained a position as secretary to the chiefpostal inspector of New York. The following year, a promotion led to a position as secretary to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster General inWashington, D.C. In 1895, PresidentGrover Cleveland hired Cortelyou as his chief clerk on the recommendation of Postmaster GeneralWilson S. Bissell. Cleveland recommended him aspersonal secretary to his successor,William McKinley. Cortelyou was working to improve the efficiency of the office when President McKinley was assassinated in 1901. He was the third president to be assassinated.
McKinley was greeting visitors at the Temple of Music at thePan-American Exposition inBuffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, when he was shot twice at close range by lone assassinLeon Czolgosz, a twenty-eight-year-old anarchist. As McKinley collapsed, he was caught and supported by his aides, including Cortelyou. As he was held in their arms, he whispered, "My wife... be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her. Oh, be careful." He died eight days later at the age of fifty-eight.
After succeeding McKinley as president,Theodore Roosevelt charged Cortelyou with transforming the White House into a more professional organization. Cortelyou developed procedures and rules that guided White Houseprotocol and established processes for which there had been only personal prerogative. Cortelyou is also credited with establishing an improved line of communication between the President's office and the press; he provided reporters with their own work space, briefed journalists on major news events, and distributed press releases. Cortelyou is credited with establishing the first systematic collection of press clippings for a sitting president to review. The "Current Clippings" were the first attempt by a president to gaugepublic opinion through the media. Cortelyou selected the articles objectively, a practice not consistently followed by his successors.
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Cortelyou served as the firstSecretary of Commerce and Labor from February 18, 1903, to June 30, 1904. He also served asPostmaster General from March 6, 1905, to January 14, 1907, and wasSecretary of the Treasury, all under Theodore Roosevelt. From 1904 to 1907, Cortelyou also served as chairman of theRepublican National Committee, working for the successful re-election of Theodore Roosevelt.
On April 9, 1903, he was made an honorary member of thePhi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity. He had attended theNew England Conservatory of Music, where the fraternity was founded.
Cortelyou served asSecretary of the Treasury from March 4, 1907, to March 7, 1909. This was during the devastatingPanic of 1907. Like his predecessor,Leslie M. Shaw, Cortelyou believed it was the duty of the Treasury to protect the banking system, but he realized that the Treasury was not equipped to maintaineconomic stability. He mitigated the crisis by depositing large amounts of government funds in national banks and buying government bonds. To prevent future crises, Cortelyou advocated a more flexible currency and recommended the creation of a central banking system.
In 1908, theAldrich–Vreeland Act was passed, providing for a special currency to be issued in times of panic and creating a commission that led to the creation of theFederal Reserve in 1913.
He returned to the private sector as president of the Consolidated Gas Company, later known asConsolidated Edison. He was also one of the chairmen of theCon Edison Energy Museum, which is now closed. He lived at his home "Harbor Lights" inHalesite, Long Island until his death in October 1940.Edith Roosevelt attended the wake at his home, as she was a close friend of his wife.[citation needed] He is buried in the Memorial Cemetery of St. John's Church inLaurel Hollow, New York.Cortelyou, an unincorporated community inWashington County, Alabama, changed its name from Richardson to Cortelyou while George Cortelyou was United States Postmaster General.[2] In 1942, aLiberty ship was to be named for him; this ship later became the cargo shipUSSCetus.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| New office | United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor 1903–1904 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Postmaster General 1905–1907 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of the Treasury 1907–1909 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Henry Payne Acting | Chair of theRepublican National Committee 1904–1907 | Succeeded by |
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