The Cordova daily times., 1919-06-12
LATESENAT0R SP00NER DIES
 AT HIS HOME

NEW YORK, June 12 (by Associated Press).-Former United States Sena- tor John c. Spooner died at his home in Wisconsin yesterday.
 Sixteen years a United States sena- tor from Wisconsin, each one of which, in the words of President Roosevelt, was "a direct financial loss which he could ill afford" John Colt Spooner relinguished the position with which the legislators of his state had thrice honored him and retired in 1907, two years before his completed term, to reenter the private practice of law and acquire competence for his fam fly and himself in his declining years Regarded as one of the ablest con- stitutional lawyers, brilliant debater and one of the greatest authorities on international law in the upper house | of congress, Senator Spooner like a few of his famous colleagues-notably
 Roscoe Conkling, John G. Carlisle,
 Thomas Bracket Reed and George F.
 Hoar-left public office a poor man. During the twelve years of his final law practice in New York he was counsel in much important legislation, including the federal government suits against the Transatlantic shipping
 pool, the Naval Stores and Oregon California land grant cases.
 Born in Lawrenceburg, Ind, January 6, 1S43, the son of Judge Philip Spoon CT, who removed to Madison, Wis, when John was sixteen years old, the future senator received his A. B. de- gree from the University of Wisconsin in 1864 after having served with dis tinction in the Union army in the Civil War. Young Spooner enlisted as private in Company A., 40th Wis consin infantry and for gallantry in action was proomted to captain and brevet major in the 5Oth Wisconsin infantry shortly after reaching the age of 21.
 After the war he became private secretary to Governor Luicius Fair child of Wisconsin (1866-67) Upon admission to the bar he was appointed an assistant attorney general and en- gagged in the practice of law at the capital, Madison, where he remained until 1870 when he removed to Hud- son, Wis, with his family He was a member of the Wisconsin assembly in 1872 and later a regent of the Uni versity of Wisconsin.
 First elected United States sena- tor in 1885 he served with marked dis tinction in that body until 1891 when he was succeeded by William F. Villas, Democrat, receiving, however, the full vote of the Republican members of the legislature for reelection. The follow ing year he was unanimously nomin- ated as Republican candidate for gov ernor of Wisconsin but was defeated. In 1897 he was returned to the United States senate and before the completion of his term announced his purpose not to be candidate for re- election but, notwithstanding this, the republican legislators of Wisconsin in 1903 unanimously voted to send him back to Washington where for more than decade he had won renown as a debater and conciliator of party factions.
 During these years of service Sena- tor Spooner's name had become in separably attached to many measures of importance, such, for instance, as the amendment creating the civil gov ernment of the Philippines, an amend ment to the Sherman antitrust act which made possible the prosecution by the federal government of the Standard Oil Company, and the law under which the Panama canal was constructed. He was consistent op- ponent of the so-called Nicaragua route.
 As chairman of the senate commit tee on claims in his first term he saved the United States, it was said, hundreds of millions of dollars sought hv uniuat Iitipants against the gov ernment and later was largely respon- sible, as the moving spirit of the sem ate committee on foreign relations, for the ratification of the Cuban, the Dominican and the Algeciras and many other treaties. Of the Algeciras international settlement, it has been said, 1t averted more than ten years