Harry B. Hawes

Harry Bartow Hawes (November 15, 1869 – July 31, 1947) was an American lawyer, conservationist, and politician who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House and Senate from Missouri. Hawes is best known for the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act, the first U.S. law granting independence to the Philippines, and for earlier work assisting the Republic of Hawaii become a U.S. territory.

Early life Harry B. Hawes was born in Covington, Kentucky, to Smith Nicholas and Susan Elizabeth (Simrall) Hawes. His grandfather was Richard Hawes, U.S. Congressman and second Confederate Governor of Kentucky. After receiving his basic education in Kentucky, Hawes moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1887. An old friend and Army comrade of his fathers soon found Hawes a position with the Third National Bank of St. Louis, where he worked while also pursuing higher education in his free time. He graduated from Washington University School of Law in 1896 and began a law practice under former Missouri Lieutenant Governor Charles P. Johnson, focusing mostly on corporate and international law. This led Hawes to become involved in the issue of American annexation of the Hawaiian Islands. He served as a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Congress, a convention held in Salt Lake City, Utah, to discuss matters of statehood for existing U.S. territories and annexation of new lands.

His Hawaiian goals achieved, Hawes returned to St. Louis, where on November 13, 1899, he married Eppes Osborne Robinson, In the period between May and September 1900, fourteen people were killed and two hundred wounded before the strike ended. Reappointed to the board again in 1901 by Governor Alexander M. Dockery, Hawes continued to serve in that position until 1904.

Hawes' next foray into elective politics was more successful, as in 1916 was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. Alleged voting irregularities, including destroyed ballots, led Bogy to mount a legal challenge to the election outcome. Hawes counter claimed that Bogy was not a legal resident of the 11th Congressional district thus ineligible to serve. Several weeks of legal maneuvers followed before Hawes was again certified as the election victor. He would subsequently be reelected in 1922 and 1924, serving in the Sixty-seventh, Sixty-eighth, and Sixty-ninth Congresses. Like his older brother before, a position with Third National Bank of St. Louis was secured for Richard S. Hawes and he would later become a prominent Missouri financier. Elizabeth Hawes had studied art early in life, and exhibited with the Society of Washington Artists prior to their marriage.