William Bourke Cockran (February 28, 1854March 1, 1923), commonly known as Bourke Cockran or Burke Cochran in contemporary reports, was an Irish-American politician and orator. He served as a

United States representative 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 the ...

from the

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for seven terms. He was a leading orator of the late 19th and early 20th century. Through his personal relationship with the Churchill family, he was an important, early influence on British statesman Winston Churchill.Andrew Roberts, ''Churchill: Walking with Destiny'' (2018) p 35.

Early life and education

William Bourke Cockran was born in Carrowkeel in

County Sligo County Sligo ( , gle, Contae Shligigh) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the Border Region and is part of the province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in the county. Sligo County Council is the loc ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

on February 28, 1854. He was educated in France and in his native Ireland. He emigrated to

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at seventeen years of age. There, he taught in a private academy and became principal of a public school. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1876. He first practiced in

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, but moved to

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in 1878 and continued practice there.

Political career

Beginning in 1886, Cockran, a Democrat, was a frequent candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives and won several non-consecutive terms. Cockran was a member of the commission to revise the judiciary article of the

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in 1890. In 1896, Cockran publicly broke with the Democratic Party, opposing the

Free Silver Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th-century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on-demand, as opposed to strict adhe ...

platform of presidential candidate

William Jennings Bryan William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator and politician. Beginning in 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President ...

. Cockran campaigned instead for Republican

William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in t ...

, helping to bring Gold Democrats over to McKinley's winning coalition. In 1900, Cockran returned to the Democratic Party, supporting Bryan's second presidential campaign. In 1904, Cockran won a special election return to the House in the empty seat of George B. McClellan Jr., who had resigned to become

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. He was elected to three more full terms. In 1920, Cockran delivered the nominating speech for

Al Smith Alfred Emanuel Smith (December 30, 1873 – October 4, 1944) was an American politician who served four terms as Governor of New York and was the Democratic Party's candidate for president in 1928. The son of an Irish-American mother and a ...

at the

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...

. Later that year, he was elected to his final term in the House of Representatives.

Personal life

Cockran was a devout

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and became deeply involved in support of Irish nationalism.Eoin Butler, "The Irish orator who taught Winston Churchill how to win a crowd."
Irish Times
', February 17, 2017.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his only child with his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. L ...

recalled Cockran as "an Anglophobe in public and an Anglomaniac in private." In 1901, he was awarded the

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by the

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, the oldest and most prestigious award for

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The Churchills

Cockran was a friend of Britain's Churchill family and reputed one-time lover of Jennie Churchill. In 1895, he introduced Jennie's 20-year-old son, Winston Churchill, to American high society during Churchill's first trip to New York. Years later, Churchill credited Cockran as his first political mentor and the chief role model for his own success as an orator. Churchill wrote in the 1930s that Cockran was, "A pacifist, individualist, democrat, capitalist, and a 'Gold-bug'....He was equally opposed to socialists, inflationist, and Protectionists, and he resisted them on all occasions." Churchill never became a pacifist but he did adopt all the rest of Cockran's stances during his own political career, and carefully read and reread his speeches for oratorical advice. Churchill quoted Cockran in his 1946 "Iron Curtain speech" recalling: “words which I learned 50 years ago from a great Irish-American orator, a friend of mine, Mr Bourke Cockran: ‘There is enough for all. The earth is a generous mother. She will provide, in plentiful abundance, food for all her children, if they will but cultivate her soil in justice and in peace.’”

Death

He served his final years, 1921–1923, as a congressman, dying in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery,

Hawthorne, New York Hawthorne is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) located in the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 4,586 at the 2010 census. History The village was originally known as Hammond's Mill ...

References

External links

*
Mrs. Bourke Cockran on woman suffrage
From a scrapbook in the Carrie Chapman Catt Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockran, William Bourke 1854 births 1923 deaths American Roman Catholics Burials at Gate of Heaven Cemetery (Hawthorne, New York) Cockran, W. Bourke Cockran, W. Bourke People from County Sligo Politicians from County Sligo Laetare Medal recipients Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)