Shelby Moore Cullom

Shelby Moore Cullom
17th Governor of Illinois
In office 1877–1883
Preceded by	John L. Beveridge
Succeeded by	John M. Hamilton
Born	November 22, 1829 Monticello, Kentucky
Died	January 28, 1914 (aged 84) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Republican
Signature

Shelby Moore Cullom (November 22, 1829 – January 28, 1914) was a U.S. political figure, serving in various offices, including the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate and the 17th Governor of Illinois.

Cullom was born in 1829 in Monticello, Kentucky, and moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1853. There he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1855. He practiced law in the city with Charles S. Zane, and was elected city attorney in 1855.

Cullom was a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1856 and 1860–1861, serving as speaker of the house in 1861.

He was elected as a Republican in 1864 to the Thirty-ninth, and reelected to the Fortieth and Forty-first Congresses (March 4, 1865-March 3, 1871).

Cullom returned to the Illinois House of Representatives 1873-1874, and served as speaker in 1873.

In 1876, he was elected governor of Illinois and served in that office from 1877–1883, when he resigned to take office as a US senator. Cullom was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1882, and reelected in 1888, 1894, 1900 and 1906, serving from March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1913

As a U.S. senator, Cullom oversaw the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. He believed that only the federal government had the power to force railroads to provide fair treatment to all of its customers, large and small. This was because corporations, such as Standard Oil, had corrupted many of the railroad's officials into providing them with rebates, and as whole, the companies in question were more powerful than any state government. Cullom was appointed by President William McKinley in July 1898 to the commission created by the Newlands Resolution to establish government in the Territory of Hawaii.

He died in 1914 in Washington, D.C. and is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield.^[1] Cullom was a close personal friend and associate of Jacob Bunn and John Whitfield Bunn, the Illinois industrialist brothers who contributed to the building of hundreds of millions of dollars of business enterprises by 1900.

Notes

Further reading

• Cullom, Shelby Moore (1911), Fifty Years of Public Service: Personal Recollections of Shelby M. Cullom, Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, http://books.google.com/?id=YzQDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage, retrieved 2008-08-23

External links

• CULLOM, Shelby Moore at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Shelby Moore Cullom at Find a Grave
• 1905 photo in automobile

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by John T. Stuart	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois's 8th congressional district 1865–1871	Succeeded by James Robinson
Political offices
Preceded by John Lourie Beveridge	Governor of Illinois 1877–1883	Succeeded by John Marshall Hamilton
United States Senate
Preceded by David Davis	Class 2 U.S. Senator from Illinois 1883–1913	Succeeded by James H. Lewis
Honorary titles
Preceded by William P. Frye	Dean of the United States Senate August 8, 1911–March 3, 1913	Succeeded by Jacob Harold Gallinger