page_title: David John Lewis
section_title: Political Career
hierarchical_section_title: David John Lewis / Political Career
caption_attribution_description: Roosevelt Signs The Social Security Act: President Roosevelt signs Social Security Act, at approximately 3:30 pm EST on 14 August 1935. Standing with Roosevelt are Rep. Robert Doughton (D-NC); unknown person in shadow; Sen. Robert Wagner (D-NY); Rep. John Dingell (D-MI); Rep. Joshua Twing Brooks (D-PA); the Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins; Sen. Pat Harrison (D-MS); and Rep. David Lewis (D-MD).
context_page_description: David John Lewis was an American politician from Maryland, serving in the Maryland State Senate and the United States House of Representatives.
context_section_description: Lewis served as a member of the Maryland State Senate from 1902 to 1906, and was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for election to the Sixty-first Congress in 1908.  In 1910, he was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second, Sixty-third, and Sixty-fourth Congresses, serving the sixth district of Maryland from March 4, 1911 to March 3, 1917.  During the Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth Congresses, he served as chairman of the House Committee on Labor.  He was not a candidate for renomination in 1916, but was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for election to the United States Senate.
  From April 1917 to March 1925, Lewis was a member of the United States Tariff Commission.  He was again an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1922, and resumed the practice of law in Cumberland.  He was again elected to the Seventy-second and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving the sixth district of Maryland from March 4, 1931 to January 3, 1939, but was not a candidate for renomination in 1938, having run for senator, challenging incumbent Millard Tydings in the Democratic primary. Lewis was more sympathetic to the New Deal than Tydings and won the backing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Nevertheless, his third bid for the Senate was again unsuccessful, and instead he served as a member of the National Mediation Board from 1939 to 1943.  He died in Cumberland and is interred in Hillcrest Cemetery.
caption: President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, August 14, 1935. (Lewis at far right)
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