Charles Gates Dawes ~ A Biography

Charles Gates Dawes on Findagrave

Birth: Aug. 27, 1865
Marietta
Washington County
Ohio, USA

Death: Apr. 23, 1951
Evanston
Cook County
Illinois, USA

30th United States Vice President, Nobel Prize Recipient. He served as Vice President of the United States from 1925 to 1929 during the second administration of President Calvin Coolidge. The son of Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General Rufus R. Dawes, and great-great-grandson of Revolutionary War patriot William Dawes, he started out as a lawyer practicing in Nebraska. He rose in prominence in business, becoming president of utility firms and banking businesses. During World War I he served in the United States Army, rising from Major to Brigadier General. After the war he was appointed by President Warren G. Harding to be the first director of the Bureau of the Budget (now known as the Office of Management and Budget). While in that office he worked on what become known as the "The Dawes Plan", which dealt with the issue of German war reparations stemming from World War I. The plan would go on to stabilize the German economy for the short term, which was being crushed by enormous reparations imposed on it by Allied agreement after the war. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with British Statesman Sir Austen Chamberlain for his plan and his work. In 1924 he was tabbed by President Coolidge as his Vice Presidential candidate, being elected to the office over the Democratic ticket of John W. Davis and Charles W. Bryan. His time in the office was marked with a poor relationship with the President, and contention with the United States Senate. When his term came to an end, he was appointed as United States Ambassador to Great Britain, serving from 1920 to 1932, and was a Delegate to the 1930 London Naval Conference. In 1932 he accepted the Chairmanship of the American Delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, but resigned to accept the Chairmanship of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a governmental agency empowered to lend money to banks, railroads, and other businesses in an effort to prevent total economic collapse during the depression. In 1932 he returned to the banking business and served as Chairman of the Board of the City National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, Illinois, until his death. He published several books taken directly from his personal journals, taught himself to play the piano and the flute and he composed music. His younger brother, Beman Gates Dawes, served as US Congressman from Ohio. 

(bio by: Julie Karen Hancock (Cooper) Jackson)