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Richard Olney

Also Known As Olney

Former United States Secretary of State

Education

  • Graduated with high honors as class orator - Brown University
  • Bachelor of Laws degree - Harvard Law School

Overview

Richard Olney was an American attorney, statesman, and Democratic Party politician who served as a member of the second cabinet of President Grover Cleveland as the 40th United States Attorney General from 1893 to 1895 and 34th Secretary of State from 1895 to 1897.

As attorney general, Olney used injunctions against striking workers in the Pullman strike, setting a precedent, and advised the use of federal troops, when legal means failed to control the strikers.

As Secretary of State, he raised the status of America in the world by elevating U.S. diplomatic posts to the status of embassy.

Secretary of State :

Upon the death of Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham, Cleveland named Olney to the position on June 10, 1895.

Olney quickly elevated US foreign diplomatic posts to the title of embassy, officially raising the status of the United States to one of the world's greater nations. (Until then, the United States had had only Legations, which diplomatic protocol dictated be treated as inferior to embassies.)

Olney took a prominent role in the boundary dispute between the British and Venezuelan governments. In his correspondence with Lord Salisbury, he gave an extended interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that went considerably beyond previous statements on the subject, now known as the Olney interpretation.

Early Life

Olney was born September 15, 1835 into a prosperous family in Oxford, Massachusetts. His father was Wilson Olney, a textiles manufacturer and banker. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and lived there until Olney was seven. The family then moved back to Oxford and Olney attended school at the Leicester Academy in Leicester, Massachusetts.

He graduated with high honors as class orator from Brown University in 1856. He received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in 1858.

In 1859, he passed the bar and began practicing law in Boston, attaining a reputation as an authority on probate, trust and corporate law.

Early career:

Olney was elected a selectman in West Roxbury, Massachusetts and served one term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1874, serving as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary. He declined to run again, preferring to return to his law practice.

In 1876, Olney inherited his father-in-law's Boston law practice and became involved in the business affairs of Boston's elite families.

During the 1880s, Olney became one of the Boston's leading railroad attorneys and the general counsel for Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway.

Olney was once asked by a former railroad employer if he could do something to get rid of the newly formed Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). He suggested that the ICC would become a captive regulator, replying in an 1892 letter, "The Commission... is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things... The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it."

Career

  • United States - Former Secretary of State

Recognition

 Olney received the honorary degree of LL.D from Harvard and Brown in 1893 and from Wikipedia Yale University in 1901.  

Reference

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