Michael Reilly

Michael Kieran Reilly (July 15, 1869 – October 14, 1944) was an Irish American lawyer and Democratic politician from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He served six full terms and one partial term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin's 6th congressional district from 1913 to 1917, and from December 1930 to January 1939. Earlier in his career, he served as district attorney of Fond...

Michael Kieran Reilly (July 15, 1869 – October 14, 1944) was an Irish American lawyer and Democratic politician from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He served six full terms and one partial term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Wisconsin's 6th congressional district from 1913 to 1917, and from December 1930 to January 1939. Earlier in his career, he served as district attorney of Fond du Lac County and city attorney of Fond du Lac. Early life Michael K. Reilly was born in the town of Empire, Wisconsin, in Fond du Lac County, to Michael Reilly and Margaret Phelan, on July 15, 1869. After completing his primary education, he graduated from the Oshkosh Normal School (now University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh). He taught school for several seasons before continuing his University of Wisconsin–Madison. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science in 1894, and then graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1895. After graduating from law school, he worked for a year at the Milwaukee law office of former district attorney John M. Clarke. After a year, he returned to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and partnered with George E. Williams in a firm known as Williams & Reilly. Soon after, Reilly's younger brother, James P. Reilly, joined the firm as Reilly, Williams & Reilly, with offices in Fond du Lac. Early political career During his college years and early legal career, Reilly also became active in politics with the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and campaigned for Democratic candidates in the counties around Oshkosh and Fond du Lac. Reilly made his first run for public office in 1898, running for Fond du Lac County district attorney on the Democratic Party ticket. He won the general election and served as district attorney for a two-year term. Reilly was not a candidate for re-election in 1900. He focused on his legal practice for the next several years, but remained an active campaigner for Democratic Party candidates, and participated in several local and state Democratic Party conventions. In January 1905, he was appointed city attorney of Fond du Lac, and served five years in that office. During that time, he was elected a delegate to the 1908 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. First terms in Congress (1910–1917) Reilly made his first run for U.S. House of Representatives in 1910, running for the Democratic Party nomination in Wisconsin's 6th congressional district. At the time, the 6th congressional district comprised Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Ozaukee, Washington, and Dodge counties, in eastern Wisconsin. The district had been safely Democratic in each of the elections under this map configuration, but in 1910 the incumbent representative, Charles H. Weisse, announced he would run for U.S. Senate rather than seeking re-election to the House. Reilly faced a difficult primary against former state senator Michael E. Burke, who was then the incumbent mayor of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. Burke was well-liked among Democratic leaders in the district, and had been encouraged to run for the seat in previous elections. A third candidate, incumbent Fond du Lac mayor Everett W. Clark, also sought the nomination; as another prominent resident of Fond du Lac, he ended up splitting the vote from that county. Reilly ultimately fell 1,300 votes short of Burke, taking 35% of the vote. After the 1910 election, Wisconsin underwent a major redistricting, and the 6th district was radically transformed. Fond du Lac was the only county remaining of the old 6th district, with Manitowoc, Calumet, Winnebago, Green Lake, and Marquette counties added. The incumbent, Burke, was a resident of Dodge County, and was therefore drawn out of the district. By the end of 1911, Reilly and his allies were already making clear that he would run for Congress again in the new district. The new district was also more friendly to Reilly due to the inclusion of Oshkosh, where he had many friends and former clients and colleagues. He officially announced his candidacy in February 1912. Reilly faced another challenging primary, this time against state senator Samuel W. Randolph of Manitowoc. This time Reilly prevailed, receiving 56% of the vote. In the general election, Reilly faced Republican James H. Davidson, who had been the incumbent in the 8th congressional district but had been drawn into the new 6th district by the redistricting. Davidson had also faced a difficult primary in the new district, against a progressive opponent, and barely survived. The ideological rift exposed in the primary continued to haunt Davidson in the general election, as his longtime ally, the Oshkosh Northwestern abandoned him and endorsed Reilly as a more progressive choice. Reilly narrowly defeated Davidson in the general election, receiving 48% of the vote to Davidson's 45%. Reilly had an uneventful first term in the 63rd Congress among the large Democratic majority. He drew no opponent at the 1914 primary, but faced a rematch with former representative James H. Davidson at the general election. The general election margin in 1914 was nearly identical to the 1912 election, and Reilly won his second term. Reilly ran as a progressive in both elections. In 1914, he received the endorsement of Wisconsin progressive leader Robert M. La Follette; he was the only Democratic congressional candidate to receive La Follette's endorsement. During the 64th Congress, Reilly was appointed to a coveted seat on the House Agriculture Committee, his only committee assignment for that term. During that term, he took a controversial position about enlarging the National Guard and mandating service for all young men. This was a dangerous hot button in the midst of World War I, when Democratic president Woodrow Wilson was still pledging to keep the United States out of the war. The politics of the issue were also complicated by the use of National Guard personnel to put down recent labor unrest. But Reilly remained staunchly anti-war, even after the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, which he referred to as the greatest crisis for the country since the American Civil War. On a more local level, Reilly outraged some of his Democratic allies by recommending his wife's sister's husband for a postmaster position at Fond du Lac, rather than the local party's consensus pick, L. A. Lange, the owner and publisher of Fond du Lac's major newspaper, the Reporter. By the Spring of 1916, Reilly was facing a primary challenge from former Fond du Lac mayor Frank J. Wolff. Wolff was immediately endorsed by Reilly's 1910 primary opponent, former Fond du Lac mayor Everett W. Clark. Wolff, however, ultimately dropped out of the race and endorsed former Chilton mayor Frank J. Egerer. Reilly won the primary, but Egerer took 35% of the vote. In the general election, he faced another rematch with former U.S. representative James H. Davidson. This time, the Oshkosh Northwestern and other Republican organs consolidated behind Davidson, principally to support the election of the full Republican ticket. Oshkosh-based interests also accused Reilly of being too consumed with the interests of Fond du Lac, at the expense of other parts of the district. In their third matchup, Davidson finally prevailed, winning an outright majority of the vote. Out of office (1917–1930) Reilly resumed his legal practice after leaving office. His allies strongly encouraged him to run again in 1918; he declined to enter the race but remained active speaking and campaigning for the Democratic ticket. After the end of World War I, Reilly spoke around the state for several years in support of U.S. admission to the League of Nations; he also began courting women voters for the Democrats after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Reilly was named a member of the Democratic presidential elector slate for the 1920 United States presidential election; the Republican ticket carried the state of Wisconsin in the general election, however. Reilly was a frequent attendee at Democratic state functions throughout this era. At the 1922 Democratic state convention, he nominated Wisconsin League of Women Voters president Jessie Jack Hooper as candidate for U.S. Senate. She received the unanimous support of the convention and went on to be the first female candidate for federal office from Wisconsin. In 1923, Reilly became an early supporter of Oscar Underwood's campaign for the presidency in 1924. After Underwood declined to run, Reilly became a supporter of Al Smith, and was elected as a delegate for Smith to the 1924 Democratic National Convention. Reilly's prominent campaigning in 1924 led newspapers to speculate that he would seek election as state attorney general or governor, but Reilly stated in July 1924 that he was "out of politics". Despite that statement, later that month his name was announced as a candidate for Congress again in the 6th congressional district as part of a statewide slate endorsed by the Democratic state convention. Reilly later described his nomination as having been "drafted" by the party. After the state party endorsement, Reilly faced no opponent in the Democratic primary, and went on to face the Republican incumbent, Florian Lampert, in the 1924 general election. Reilly ran as a strong opponent to Republican tariff policies, suggesting that the tariff acted as a tax on individual consumers, and said that Republicans had piled up too many new taxes on Wisconsin residents. He also accused the progressive Republicans of pursuing a socialist policy regime, and accused progressive leader Robert La Follette of engaging in class warfare. Lampert was re-elected in a landslide, in a Republican wave election. Reilly remained active in politics and public speaking. A common theme of his speeches was the responsibility of citizenship. He often admonished citizens to remain informed on the issues of the day, vote in all elections, and volunteer for service in the armed forces. Reilly also often cast himself as a defender of the Constitution; he opposed the Child Labor Amendment, saying that constitutional amendments should not be used solely to bypass Supreme Court decisions. In the 1920s, he was regarded by the political press as one of the most effective Democratic speakers in the state. After the outbreak of the Cristero War in Mexico, Reilly gave a series of lectures on the issue, defending the Cristeros rebels and accusing the Mexican government of Communist infiltration. U.S. Senate campaign (1928) After giving a compelling speech at the 1928 Democratic state convention, the convention endorsed Reilly as their choice to run for United States Senate in the 1928 election. Reilly secured the nomination without opposition, but after the primary, state Democrats determined to consolidate their support behind progressive Republican Robert M. La Follette Jr., and asked Reilly to withdraw from the race. Reilly announced his withdrawal from the race on October 8, 1928. This was part of a broader attempt at a coalition between progressives and Democrats in Wisconsin to throw the state to Democrat Al Smith in the concurrent presidential election. Return to Congress (1930–1939) In July 1930, incumbent U.S. representative Florian Lampert died after a serious car accident. By the end of the month, Reilly announced he would run again in the 6th congressional district to succeed Lampert. A convention of Democrats in the 6th district blessed Reilly's candidacy, but also endorsed two other candidates, Dr. Clarendon J. Coombs and Morley G. Kelley. Due to Lampert's death, a special election to fill the office remaining months of the 71st Congress was held concurrent with the general election in 1930. Reilly won both primary elections with similar totals, receiving about 52% in both races. The Republican nominee was Philip Lehner, a progressive atto