Richard Olney

A Register of His Papers in the Library of Congress

Prepared by Clifford L. Muse, Jr.
Revised by Lia Apodaca and Patrick Kerwin

Manuscript Division, Library of Congress

Washington, D.C.

2007

Contact information: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mss/address.html

Finding aid encoded by Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2008

Finding aid URL: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms008102

Table of Contents

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

Personal Names

Organizations

Subjects

Locations

Related Names

Occupations

Administrative Information

Provenance:

Processing History:

Copyright Status:

Microfilm:

Preferred Citation:

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

Organization of the Papers

Description of Series

Container List

Collection Summary

Selected Search Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein.

Administrative Information

The papers of Richard Olney, lawyer, attorney general, and secretary of state, were given to the Library of Congress in 1925 by his daughters, Agnes Minot and Mary O. Abbot, and their children and grandchildren, Francis Minot, Francis P. Abbot, Mary P. Abbot, Charles B. Abbot, and Agnes Abbot. The papers were received in the Library between 1924 and 1932.

The papers of Richard Olney were arranged and described in 1978. The finding aid was revised in 2007.

The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Richard Olney is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).

A microfilm edition of these papers is available on sixty-two reels. Consult a reference librarian in the Manuscript Division concerning availability for purchase or interlibrary loan.

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container or reel number, Richard Olney Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Biographical Note

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Richard Olney (1835-1917) span the years 1830-1928, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the period 1893-1917. The collection is composed of letters sent and received, telegrams, maps, drafts of speeches and articles, memoranda, newspaper items, legal records, official reports, pamphlets, and miscellaneous printed matter. Many of Olney's papers, including some of his significant correspondence, various state papers, and speeches and addresses, were transcribed by his longtime secretary, Antoinette M. Straw, prior to their being given to the Library, and both the originals and the typed transcriptions are in the collection. Straw also retraced fading portions of Olney's letterbooks, expurgated financial matter pertaining to the private business affairs of his law clients, and prepared various indexes to the papers.

The largest portion of the Olney Papers describes events and activities during his tenure as United States attorney general and secretary of state under President Grover Cleveland from 1893 to 1897. Before his appointment to the cabinet, Olney had been a corporation lawyer in Boston specializing in cases involving railroads. While reflecting selected aspects of both this period and a second phase of private law practice after 1897, the papers in this collection are mostly devoted to his work as a public servant. Among the topics covered are the farmers' protest and labor strife following the Depression of 1893, Democratic Party politics from the 1890s to World War I, and antitrust legislation stemming from the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Also prominent in the collection are public and private matters regarding the debt owed the federal government by the Northern Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads, and some additional material concerning the Boston and Maine Railroad.

Olney's actions in the administration of Grover Cleveland roused considerable opposition. Especially controversial was the decision to quell the Pullman Strike of 1894 with federal troops and Cleveland's strong effort to repeal the provision of the Silver Purchase Act of 1890 providing for the Treasury Department's mandatory purchase of 4.5 million ounces of silver monthly. Olney was directly involved in both actions, and his role in the successful effort for repeal is reflected in his draft of Cleveland's message. Also evident in the collection is his participation in some of the landmark court decisions of the 1890s. Among the pivotal cases in which Olney was directly involved were U.S. v. E. C. Knight, Pullock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co., and In re Debs.

Following the death of Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham in 1895, President Cleveland nominated Olney to fill the vacancy in that office. For two years, from June 1895 to March 1897, Olney guided the State Department through a series of events including boundary disputes between Britain and Venezuela and the resulting United States British General Arbitration Treaty of 1897. Other foreign policy questions treated in this collection are the revolution in Hawaii, the Bering Sea fisheries dispute with Britain, and the projected building of a canal through Panama or Nicaragua.

Olney's interest in legal, monetary, and foreign affairs continued throughout the two decades after his retirement from public office. He declined two federal posts, including an offer from President Woodrow Wilson to become a member of the newly created Federal Reserve Board, but did consent to serve as an American representative on an international commission resulting from a joint agreement between the United States and France. Although his time was mainly spent in private affairs, Olney kept abreast of diplomatic questions that had occupied him as secretary of state and persisted in importance after his departure. Foreign affairs topics that appear with some frequency in these papers include the Cuban Revolution of 1895 and its repercussions, and the various insurrections in the Philippines after 1898. Other items pertain to American policy toward China, Spain, Turkey, and Germany prior to the American entry into World War I.

Olney's political life spanned numerous presidencies, but the bulk of his presidential correspondence was with Cleveland. These letters, which appear chronologically in the general correspondence and letterbook volumes, were subsequently typed by Straw, and the copies appear as a group in the special correspondence series. Also in the collection are papers compiled for or by Henry James (1879-1947), a lawyer and biographer, as background for an authorized biography of Olney. The few items in the collection that predate Olney's public career have been organized in the bound volumes of the general correspondence and relate principally to background papers concerning Venezuela and British Guiana. An important item in the general correspondence series is an 1830 letter by William Wirt regarding two court cases held under advisement by Chief Justice John Marshall.

Prominent correspondents in addition to those cited above include Alvey A. Adee, Edwin Farnsworth Atkins, Clara Barton, Thomas F. Bayard, French Ensor Chadwick, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, Walter Quintin Gresham, Benjamin Harrison, Daniel Scott Lamont, Robert Lansing, Henry Cabot Lodge, William McKinley, Peter B. Olney, Baron Julian Pauncefote, Robert A. Pinkerton, James Roosevelt Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), James Brown Scott, George W. Smalley, Henry White, and Woodrow Wilson. Other important correspondents include Josephus Daniels, Charles William Eliot, Samuel Gompers, John Hay, George Frisbie Hoar, S. S. McClure, Walter Hines Page, James Ford Rhodes, Ida M. Tarbell, and Booker T. Washington.

Organization of the Papers

The collection is arranged in six series:

• General Correspondence and Related Material, 1830-1925
• Letterbooks, 1887-1917
• Special Correspondence and Indexes, 1892-1922
• Subject File, 1891-1928
• Speech and Article File, 1890-1917
• Miscellany, 1861 (Oversize)

Description of Series

Container List