Cushman Kellogg Davis relocated with his family from New York state to Waukesha, Wisc., as a young boy. After graduation from the University of Michigan in 1857 he studied law and opened a practice in his home town. Commissioned first lieutenant in the 28th Wisconsin Infantry in 1862, Davis's Civil War career included service as judge-advocate and adjutant-general on the staff of Gen. Willis Gorman. In 1864 he returned to Wisconsin, married, and relocated to St. Paul, Minn., to join his former commanding officer in law practice.

Davis's political career began with 1867 election to the state legislature, and he subsequently served as United States district attorney from 1868 to 1873. Though a Republican, Davis supported the Granger movement, speaking out against business abuses by the railroads, and gaining a reputation that won him the governor's seat in 1873 due to his influence over the Granger vote. Losing a bid for U.S. Senator in 1875, he settled back into legal work until 1887, when a successful Senate race resurrected his political career. Davis served in the Senate, keeping a law practice on the side, for the rest of his life.

As a Senator he concentrated on committee work and focused primarily on pensions and foreign relations. He went to Paris as a peace commissioner following the Spanish American War, and used the position to advance American expansionism. Although his early political career had been characterized by anti-monopoly and pro-agriculture sentiments, Davis came to espouse the basic ideals of the Republican party, though moderated by a sympathy for farmers in his agricultural state. He was an ardent imperialist, an advocate of strict law and order in the face of labor unrest, and a tariff advocate. An early marriage, to Laura Bowman of Waukesha, ended in divorce, and in 1880 Davis married Anna Malcolm Agnew of St. Paul. They had no children.

Scope and contents:

The bulk of this collection consists of 132 letters in a bound volume written by Davis to his friend, Samuel R. Thayer, while Thayer was Minister to the Netherlands from 1889 to 1893. All the letters coincide with Davis' Senatorial terms, although most were written between 1892 and 1898. Davis kept Thayer, a lawyer from Minnesota, abreast of both state-level Minnesota politics and the national political scene. The two were close friends, and Davis's letters are highly opinionated and revealing (and frequently scathingly humorous) in their discussion of fellow-politicians. He is particularly critical of Minnesota Senator William Washburn, Minnesota Governor William Merriam, and Secretary of the Treasury William Windom.

Davis's letters are full of pre-election political intrigue and his views on Republican prospects. The relationship between James Blaine and Benjamin Harrison is a major focus; Davis clearly felt Blaine to be the more accomplished statesman and considered Harrison, although competent as President, so unpopular as to be a liability to his party. As an old-school Republican and a long-established politician, Davis became increasingly disenchanted by machine politics. He comments disapprovingly on the power of Mark Hanna over William McKinley. He also looked sadly upon social changes in his country, seeing labor unrest, the rise of the various farmers' political movements, and increased European immigration as contributing to a social fragmentation which government could not hope to successfully address.

The Davis Papers are also of value for their insider's view of Congress. Davis discusses various legislative bills -- especially those related to pensions, monetary matters, and the tariff --and their prospective chances of passage. He laments the constant solicitations of office-seekers, although he himself obviously used political patronage as a means of dispensing favor and building support. Davis's letters from Paris following the Spanish-American War, while secretive about the actual peace negotiations, offer his opinions of the Spanish delegation, Paris and Parisians, and the maddeningly slow pace of the proceedings. He reveals himself as a hard-liner who insisted on Spanish cession of the Philippines, and even objected to any payment for them.

The collection contains 17 unbound letters to Samuel R. Thayer, from 16 different writers. None of the letters are from Davis. This is mostly minor official correspondence concerning diplomatic chores in the Netherlands. One letter of December 1895, from Oregonian Solomon Hirsch, contains interesting information about Davis's possible prospects as a presidential candidate and opinions on Oregon politics and the Armenian-Turkish conflict.

Also included are 13 photographs (mostly unidentified) of various members of Samuel Thayer's family and The Thayer Memorial, a genealogical history of the Thayer family starting in 1767 and continuing until 1852. The Memorial has eleven appendices with information about Thayer family events.

Related collections:

The bulk of Cushman K. Davis's papers are located in the Minnesota State Historical Society.

M-2743
cat. 4/93 jk; recat. 10/95 sms

Subject index to the Cushman K. Davis Papers

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