Thomas Riley Marshall

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Thomas Riley Marshall 1854–1925, U.S. Vice President (1913–21), b. North Manchester, Ind. A lawyer in Columbia City, Ind., he was Democratic governor of the state (1909–13) and sponsored much labor and social legislation before being elected Vice President on the ticket with Woodrow Wilson. His was the expression "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar."

Bibliography: See his recollections (1925).

Marshall, Thomas Vice President • Born: Mar. 14, 1854, North Manchester, Ind.• Political party: Democrat• Education: Wabash College, 1873; read law, 1874–75• Previous government service: governor of Indiana, 1909–10• Vice President under Woodrow Wilson, 1913–21• Subsequent government service: U.S. Coal Commission, 1922–23• Died: June 1, 1925, Washington, D.C.

Thomas Marshall was a lawyer active in Democratic party campaigns, and he served one term as governor of Indiana. He was a favorite-son candidate for President in 1912, and after switching his delegation to Woodrow Wilson he was rewarded with the Vice Presidential nomination. He served for two terms, the first Vice President to do so in nearly a century. He presided over the Senate with fairness and over the cabinet when Wilson was in Paris negotiating the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Marshall told the secretaries that he was presiding “informally and personally” and not seeking “to exercise any official duty or function.” At first opposed to U.S. entry into World War I, Marshall loyally supported Wilson's decision to intervene as well as the Treaty of Versailles. He opposed the woman suffrage amendment in the postwar period. He offered a definitive word on the Vice Presidency when he quipped: “There were two brothers. One ran away to sea, the other was elected Vice President, and nothing was ever heard from either of them again.”

Marshall is also remembered as the man who said, “What this country needs is a good five cent cigar.” Marshall had Presidential ambitions of his own, but Wilson successfully blocked him. After his Vice Presidency, Marshall served on the U.S. Coal Commission. See also Wilson, Woodrow

Bibliography

Sources Thomas Marshall , Recollections of Thomas R. Marshall, Vice President and Hoosier Philosopher (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1925).
Charles M. Thomas , Thomas Riley Marshall: Hoosier Statesman (Oxford University Press, Ohio: Mississippi Valley Press, 1939).