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Murray C. Morgan
J. Ham Lewis, the Best Dressed
Politician of His Day
The Tacoma News Tribune
November 4, 1993
P. FP12
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Copyright, 1993, Murray Morgan
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J. Ham Lewis, the Best
Dressed Politician of His Day
 When
James Hamilton (J. Ham) Lewis came to Tacoma in 1885 he brought
with him certificates indicating he had been admitted to the
practice of law in Virginia, a reputation for sartorial elegance
and an urge to enter politics.
Finding no clients he wound up loading lumber on the Tacoma
waterfront. When at last he was asked to represent someone in
court, it was a fellow Steve Dore accused of stealing cigars. J.
Ham got the man off but his fee was just 90 cents. He relocated to
Seattle, where he entered into partnership with Luthene Claremont
Gilman, whose purchase of a Caligraph machine had introduced Puget
Sound to the wonders of typewriting.
After
only a few weeks' exposure to Lewis' courtly manners (he was so
chivalrous he stood up when speaking to a woman on the telephone),
his flow of words (which won him a job teaching rhetoric at the
UW) and his habit of strolling Seattle's board sidewalks at midday
in what he considered everyday garb (longtail coat, flowing
cravat, plaid waistcoat, striped pants and mauve spats), his new
constituents sent him to Olympia to represent them as senator in
the Territorial Legislature.
"The
Dude," as his fellow legislators called him, attracted
immediate attention by signing the register at the Carlton Hotel
in a flowing script that covered four lines.
On
the senate floor he reflected the popular mood when he defended
territorial womankind against the perils the fair sex would be
exposed to the right to vote, which had been taken from them by
the Territorial Supreme Court, should be restored. As voters and
full citizens, they might be called to jury duty and hear cases
that would expose them to the facts of life. No decent man would
wish that upon them. His position was the popular one for another
20 years.
As
an attorney, Lewis attracted further attention when he represented
James Wickersham, the Pierce County probate judge, against charges
that he had seduced and impregnated one Sadie Brantner when she
solicited him to buy a set of encyclopedias. Lewis' defense was
that it was Wickersham who had been seduced, that certain
circumstances indicated he could not be responsible for Sadie's
pregnancy and the whole sordid business had been concocted by
political rivals.
Wickersham
was convicted but, a few months later, Lewis returned to court
with Sadie's admission that she had misidentified herself as an
unsullied victim. The judge ordered a new trial, the prosecutor
asked for dismissal, and Wickersham moved on to fame as Alaska's
great pioneer jurist.
As
for The Dude, he presided over the first Democratic convention
after Washington became a state. He decided against running for
Congress in 1890, or governor in 1892. In 1894, Democrats in the
legislature favored him for U.S. senator but the Republican
majority prevailed. In 1896, he was put forward as a possible vice
presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket, which lost.
But
in November, Washington voters elected Lewis to Congress. He
lasted only one term.
In
1889 the Democrats in the Legislature favored him for Senator but
the Republicans again prevailed. That was his last hurrah in this
state.
In
1903 Lewis moved to Chicago to practice corporate law. But he was
far from through with politics. In 1905 he backed the winning
candidate for mayor of Chicago and was appointed corporation
counsel.
In
1912, the Illinois Legislature sent Lewis to Washington, D.C., as
a senator. He was chosen by his fellow senators to fill the newly
created post of majority whip. That put him in charge of keeping
the Democratic senators in line for Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom
program of breaking up trusts and combinations and restoring
competition. The Dude also found himself arguing in favor of woman
suffrage. But Lewis was again a one-term wonder, and lost his seat
in the Republican sweep of 1918.
In
1930, with the Republicans in trouble because of the depression,
he again ran again for the senate. His opponent was Congresswoman
Ruth Hanna McCormick, the widow of the man who had defeated him in
1918. He treated her with belittling gallantry and won, 2 to 1.
Back
in the senate Lewis was again chosen party whip, this time with
the job of keeping the Democrats in line behind FDR's New Deal
program, although he denied that he was a New Dealer.
The
Dude became ill while on a 1935 junket to Russia, died in
Washington, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
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