Richard Henry Dana III
Richard Henry Dana III (January 3, 1851 – December 16, 1931) was an American lawyer and civil service reformer. Life. Dana was the son of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.; he married in 1878, Edith Longfellow (1853–1915), the daughter of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They had four sons, Richard Henry Dana IV and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, Edmund Trowbridge Dana III, and Allston Dana. In 1922 he remarried to Helen Ford Mumford (1865–1934). Dana graduated from Harvard University. In 1874, he looked back on those years: "Days in college were happy-go-lucky times, even for the most  studious and athletic." Career. Dana was the author of the Massachusetts Ballot Act of 1888, the first state Australian ballot (secret ballot) act passed in the US. Dana wrote a substantial biography of his father, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. He became a friend and financial adviser to Hosea Ballou Morse, whom he introduced to Theodore Roosevelt. He was a major leader of Mugwumps, especially through his editorship of the "Civil Service Record." " His people took credit for passing the state's 1884 civil service law, which was a stronger version of the federal Pendleton Act of 1883. Both laws were  enacted to limit the effect of political patronage, thus disrupting the spoils system. The goal were improved morality and increased efficiency. It was also designed to contain the rising political power of the Irish Catholics. Legacy. The papers and photographs of Dana, together with material relating to him collected by his son, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, and his sister, Elizabeth, are held at the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site.