Arthur Pue Gorman

Arthur Pue Gorman 1839-1906, American legislator, b. Woodstock, Md. After serving from 1869 to 1879 in the Maryland legislature, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1880. Gorman had by this time virtually become Democratic boss of Maryland. As chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1884, he directed Grover Cleveland's successful campaign for the presidency. His share in the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act of 1894 consisted in leading a group of Senators, who, by adding over 600 amendments, turned the low-tariff Wilson Bill into a high-tariff act, as high as the act passed by the Republicans in 1883. Cleveland declared the bill a betrayal of the Democratic stand and denounced it, allowing it to become law without his signature. Gorman, who had become one of his party's leaders in the Senate, was defeated in 1898, but he was reelected again in 1903 and served as minority leader until his death.