SELDEN SPENCER - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 01/14/1922 - HFSID 86916

SELDEN SPENCER
He signs a typed 1922 letter as US Senator, refusing to support expulsion of another Senator.
Typed Letter signed: "Selden Spencer as US Senator", 1 page, 8x10½. Washington, D.C., 1922 January 14. On his official letterhead as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to C. C. Hathaway, Washington, D.C. In full: "I am just in receipt of your note of January 13 and I cannot help but believe that you opinion concerning the Newberry case arises from lack of information on the subject. I am, therefore, sending you with pleasure a copy of some remarks I made upon the matter which set out the main points of the testimony. To have unseated Senator Newberry would have been a brutal act of injustice. It was simply unthinkable. Believe me, with great respect". Selden Spencer (1862-1925) was a state legislator and US circuit court judge before winning election to the US Senate as a Republican in 1918, serving until his death. A moderate Republican, he voted in favor or US membership in the League of Nations. Truman Newberry, a successful businessman and former Secretary of the Navy (1908-1909), was the Republican candidate for US Senate in Michigan in 1918. He won a close race against Henry Ford, but Ford accused Newberry of corrupt campaign practices, principally having spent too much money (nearly $200,000). In 1922, Newberry was sentenced to two years in prison for violating the Corrupt Practices Act, but his conviction was overturned by the US Supreme Court, which declared the Act unconstitutional. The Senate passed a resolution criticizing Newberry's campaign but deeming him entitled to his seat. Newberry resigned anyway at the end of 1922. Normal mailing folds. Creased and soiled. Pencil note (unknown hand) on verso.