Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 22, 2019

Joseph B. Foraker, c. 1902

Joseph B. Foraker (1846–1917) was an American politician. A Republican, he served as the 37th governor of Ohio (1886–1890) and a U.S. senator (1897–1909). Born in rural Ohio, Foraker enlisted in the Union Army at age 16 and fought in the Civil War. After the war, he was a member of Cornell's first graduating class, and became a lawyer; he was elected a judge in 1879. Although defeated in his first run for governor in 1883, he was elected in 1885. Foraker lost re-election in 1889, but was elected senator by the legislature in 1896. In the Senate, he supported the Spanish–American War and the annexation of the Philippines and Puerto Rico. He differed with President Theodore Roosevelt over the Brownsville affair, in which black soldiers had been accused of terrorizing a Texas town; Roosevelt had dismissed the entire battalion. Foraker fought unsuccessfully for their reinstatement, and Roosevelt helped defeat Foraker's re-election bid. In 1972, the Army reversed the dismissals and cleared the soldiers. (Full article...)

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