David I. Walsh

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David Ignatius Walsh
David I. Walsh

In office
January 8, 1914 – January 6, 1916
Lieutenant(s) Edward P. Barry (1914-1915)
Grafton D. Cushing (1915-1916)
Preceded by Eugene F. Foss
Succeeded by Samuel W. McCall

In office
1919 – 1925 (Junior)
1926-1947 (Senior)
Preceded by John W. Weeks (1919)
William M. Butler (1926)
Succeeded by Frederick H. Gillett (1925)
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1947)

In office
1913 – 1914
Governor Eugene Foss
Preceded by Robert Luce
Succeeded by Edward P. Barry

Born November 11, 1872(1872-11-11)
Leominster, Massachusetts
Died June 11, 1947 (aged 74)
Boston, Massachusetts
Political party Democratic
Profession Lawyer
Religion Roman Catholic

David Ignatius Walsh (November 11, 1872 - June 11, 1947) was a United States politician from Massachusetts. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Walsh was born in Leominster, Worcester County, Massachusetts, attending the public schools there. His parents were poor Irish Catholic immigrants; his father, a comb maker, died when Walsh, the ninth of ten children, was twelve. As a boy he picked and sold blueberries to help the family. His mother kept a boardinghouse for twenty-five people and was able to send all ten children through high school and five of them through college.[1] David was one of them; he graduated from Holy Cross in 1893 and from Boston University Law School in 1897. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice at Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1897, later practicing in Boston. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1900 to 1901. He served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1913 and as Governor from 1914 to 1916, and was a delegate at large to the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1917 and 1918. He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1919, to March 3, 1925; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1924; resumed the practice of law in Boston; elected to the United States Senate on November 2, 1926, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry Cabot Lodge and took his seat December 6, 1926; reelected in 1928, 1934 and 1940 for the term ending January 3, 1947; he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1946. During his Senate service, he held the posts of chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor (Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Congresses), and the Committee on Naval Affairs (Seventy-fourth through Seventy-seventh and Seventy-ninth Congresses). He retired from political activities and resided in Clinton, Mass., until his death in Boston on June 11, 1947. There is controver as to his alleged homosexuality: Walsh, a life long bachelor, has been publicly linked to a homosexual brothel. He is buried in St. John’s Cemetery, Clinton, Mass.

Walsh was the first Irish-Catholic Governor of Massachusetts and also its first Irish-Catholic Senator. As Governor, he fought hard for a Women's suffrage Amendment to the Massachusetts constitution, but this effort failed. He also led the way toward establishing stricter film censorship in Massachusetts after large protests against D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation. In the Senate, he was an isolationist, opposing an American alliance with the United Kingdom up to the Attack on Pearl Harbor.


  1. ^ Mallan, John P. Review of Dorothy G. Wayman's David I. Walsh: Citizen-Patriot, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1. (March 1953), pp. 126-128.

Preceded by
Robert Luce
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
19131914
Succeeded by
Edward P. Barry
Preceded by
Eugene N. Foss
Governor of Massachusetts
19141916
Succeeded by
Samuel W. McCall
Preceded by
John W. Weeks
United States Senator (Class 2) from Massachusetts
19191925
Served alongside: Henry Cabot Lodge, William M. Butler
Succeeded by
Frederick H. Gillett
Preceded by
William M. Butler
United States Senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts
19261947
Served alongside: Frederick H. Gillett, Marcus A. Coolidge, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Sinclair Weeks, Leverett Saltonstall
Succeeded by
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
Preceded by
Jesse H. Metcalf
Rhode Island
Chairman of the Senate Education and Labor Committee
19331937
Succeeded by
Hugo L. Black
Alabama
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