Addison Taylor Smith (September 5, 1862 – July 5, 1956) was a

congressman A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivale ...

from

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and W ...

. Smith served as a Republican in the

U.S. House The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...

for ten terms, from 1913 to 1933. Born in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, Smith began his political career in 1891 in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

as a secretary for Republican U.S. Senator

George L. Shoup George Laird Shoup (June 15, 1836December 21, 1904) was an American politician who served as the first governor of Idaho, in addition to its last territorial governor. He served several months after statehood in 1890 and then became one of the s ...

of Idaho. He graduated from

George Washington University Law School The George Washington University Law School (GW Law) is the law school of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. Established in 1865, GW Law is the oldest top law school in the national capital. GW Law offers the largest range of co ...

in 1895 and served on Shoup's staff until the senator's 1900 election defeat. In 1903 Smith joined the staff of U.S. Senator

Weldon B. Heyburn Weldon Brinton Heyburn (May 23, 1852October 17, 1912) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1903 to 1912. Early life Born in southeastern Pennsylvania near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, H ...

, another Idaho Republican. Smith also served as secretary of the

Idaho Republican Party The Idaho Republican Party (IDGOP) is the Idaho state affiliate of the United States Republican Party, headquartered in Boise. It is currently the dominant party in the state, controlling both of Idaho's U.S. House seats, both U.S. Senate seats ...

.Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
Accessed 29 June 2007 By 1905 Smith established a residence in Idaho at Twin Falls.Twin Falls Weekly News Reference Access Index
Accessed 29 June 2007 He was appointed as registrar of the United States Land Office in

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown ...

in 1907.

Congress

1912 Events January * January 1 – The Republic of China is established. * January 5 – The Prague Conference (6th All-Russian Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) opens. * January 6 ** German geophysicist Alfred ...

, Idaho added a second seat in the U.S. House, and Smith was elected as one of two

at-large At large (''before a noun'': at-large) is a description for members of a governing body who are elected or appointed to represent a whole membership or population (notably a city, county, state, province, nation, club or association), rather than ...

members from Idaho, representing the entire state. Beginning with the

1918 This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...

election, the state was separated into two districts and he represented the 2nd district. During his House tenure he chaired several committees, including the Committee on Alcohol Liquor Traffic, the Committee on Irrigation of Arid Lands and the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation.

Election results

Source: ^ Incumbent when he won seat with new designation in 1918.

After Congress

Smith, age 70, was defeated for re-election in 1932 by Democrat Thomas C. Coffin. In 1934, Smith was appointed to the Board of Veterans Appeals of the

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers a ...

, and served in that capacity until 1942. In 1937 he became director of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf (now

Gallaudet University Gallaudet University ( ) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. It was founded in 1864 as a grammar school for both deaf and blind children. It was the firs ...

) in Washington, D.C., a position he held until his death. Smith died at age 93 from

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from transformed, malign ...

in 1956 and is buried in

Rock Creek Cemetery Rock Creek Cemetery is an cemetery with a natural and rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, off Hawaii Avenue, NE, in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. It is across the stre ...

in Washington, D.C. Addison Avenue, a major east-west thoroughfare in Twin Falls, is named after him.Matthews, Mychel
"BLOG: Addison T. Smith and His Legacies in Twin Falls"
'' Times-News'', December 31, 2014. (accessed 21 June 2015)

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Addison T. Deaths from lung cancer George Washington University Law School alumni People from Cambridge, Ohio People from Twin Falls, Idaho 1862 births 1956 deaths Deaths from cancer in Washington, D.C. Burials at Rock Creek Cemetery Washington, D.C., Republicans Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Idaho