Charles Curtis

Charles Curtis
Curtis in 1931
31st Vice President of the United States
In office March 4, 1929 – March 4, 1933
President	Herbert Hoover
Preceded by	Charles G. Dawes
Succeeded by	John Nance Garner
Senate Majority Leader
In office November 28, 1924 – March 3, 1929
Preceded by	Henry Cabot Lodge
Succeeded by	James Eli Watson
Leader of the Senate Republican Conference
In office November 28, 1924 – March 3, 1929
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	James Eli Watson
Senate Majority Whip
In office March 4, 1919 – November 28, 1924
Leader	Henry Cabot Lodge
Preceded by	J. Hamilton Lewis
Succeeded by	Wesley Livsey Jones
Senate Minority Whip
In office December 13, 1915 – March 3, 1919
Leader	Jacob Harold Gallinger (1915–1918) Henry Cabot Lodge (1918–1919)
Preceded by	James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr.
Succeeded by	Peter G. Gerry
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
In office December 4, 1911 – December 12, 1911
Preceded by	Augustus Octavius Bacon
Succeeded by	Augustus Octavius Bacon
United States Senator from Kansas
In office March 4, 1915 – March 3, 1929
Preceded by	Joseph L. Bristow
Succeeded by	Henry Justin Allen
In office January 29, 1907 – March 3, 1913
Preceded by	Alfred W. Benson
Succeeded by	William Howard Thompson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas
In office March 4, 1893 – January 28, 1907
Preceded by	Case Broderick
Succeeded by	James Monroe Miller
Constituency	4th district (1893–1899) 1st district (1899–1907)
Personal details
Born	(1860-01-25)January 25, 1860 North Topeka, Kansas Territory, U.S.
Died	February 8, 1936(1936-02-08) (aged 76) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Resting place	Topeka Cemetery
Nationality	American Kaw Nation
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Annie Baird ​ ​ (m. 1884; died 1924)​
Children	3
Relatives	White Plume (great-great-grandfather)
Signature
Nickname	"Indian Charlie"[1]

Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was an American attorney and Republican politician from Kansas who served as the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under Herbert Hoover. He had served as the Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. A member of the Kaw Nation born in the Kansas Territory, Curtis was the first Native American and first person in a racial minority group to reach either of the highest offices in the federal executive branch.^[2]

Based on his personal experience, Curtis believed that Native Americans could benefit from mainstream education and assimilation. He entered political life when he was 32 years old and won several terms from his district in Topeka, Kansas, beginning in 1892 as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives.^[3] There, he sponsored and helped pass the Curtis Act of 1898, which extended the Dawes Act to the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory. Despite Curtis being unhappy with the final version of it, implementation of the Act completed the ending of tribal land titles in Indian Territory and prepared the larger territory to be admitted as the State of Oklahoma, which occurred in 1907. The government tried to encourage Indians to accept individual citizenship and lands and to take up European-American culture.

Curtis was elected to the U.S. Senate first by the Kansas Legislature in 1906 and then by popular vote in 1914, 1920, and 1926. Curtis served one six-year term from 1907 to 1913 and then most of three terms from 1915 to 1929, when he was elected as vice-president. His long popularity and connections in Kansas and federal politics helped make Curtis a strong leader in the Senate. He marshaled support to be elected as Republican Whip from 1915 to 1924 and then as Senate Majority Leader from 1924 to 1929. In those positions, he was instrumental in managing legislation and in accomplishing Republican national goals.

Curtis ran for vice president alongside Herbert Hoover for president in 1928—winning a landslide victory. In 1932, he became the first United States vice president to open the Olympic Games. However, when Curtis and Hoover ran together again in 1932 during the Great Depression, they lost as the public gave the Democrats Franklin D. Roosevelt and John Nance Garner a landslide victory that year. Curtis remains the highest-ranking enrolled Native American who ever served in the federal government. He is also the most recent officer of the executive branch to have been born in a territory, rather than a state or federal district. He remained the only mixed-race vice president in American history until the inauguration of Kamala Harris in 2021.