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| Congressman Glenn. H. T. French photo. |
Despite his youth, Thomas clamored to fight in the Civil War and, like many Kentuckians, he supported the Confederacy. He finally joined the Second Kentucky Cavalry – famous as “Morgan’s Raiders.” Late in the war, he received a severe wound and was captured by Union forces.
After the war, Glenn studied at a couple of small local colleges and read law diligently. By around 1880, he had qualified for the Kentucky bar, and voters elected him to the state Senate in 1887.
In 1890, he moved his family to Montpelier, Idaho and opened a law practice. In August, 1897, he had a brief encounter with a bit of local notoriety. Bob Meeks, an accomplice with Butch Cassidy in the 1896 Montpelier bank robbery [blog, Aug 13], had been captured and brought to trial. After he had a falling out with his first attorney, the judge appointed Glenn and another man to represent Meeks. The judge, however, gave them no time to prepare and Meeks was convicted.
Glenn also participated in local and state politics, usually with the Democratic party. However, in 1898, Democrats formed a "fusion" slate with the Silver-Republicans. For whatever reason, Thomas ran instead as a Populist for the position of state Attorney General. He was defeated, as the Fusion ticket swept every state office.
Two years later, the Populist party selected Glenn as their nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives (Idaho Register, Idaho Falls, July 27, 1900). About a month later, Democrats and Silver Republicans settled their differences enough to re-form a Fusion alliance. They then also selected Glenn as their nominee for U. S. Representative.
This action pained some Populist Party members, so the election was very close: Glenn won by just over twelve hundred votes out of nearly 55 thousand cast. Records of the U. S. Congress do identify Glenn as a member of the Populist Party.
He is credited with helping Nevada Congressman Francis G. Newlands pass the Newlands Reclamation Act. Under authorization of the Act, the Secretary of the Interior organized the Reclamation Service, which became the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) in 1923. The USBR ultimately built a vast array of irrigation, flood control, and hydropower projects all across the West.
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| Panama Canal construction, 1907. Library of Congress. |
That session of Congress authorized the president – Teddy Roosevelt – to purchase land for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and to treat with the Panamanian government to obtain clear title to the property. Congress also passed a bill to tax colored oleomargarine, which might be mistaken for butter, at 10¢ a pound (equivalent to about $2.60 today). They taxed uncolored margarine at just 1/4¢ per pound.
Glenn did not run for re-election to Congress, but served a term as mayor of Montpelier in 1904. After a stint as a prosecuting attorney, he resumed his private practice before passing away in November 1918.
| Reference]: [French], [Hawley] |
| “Brief History of the Bureau of Reclamation,” History Program, Bureau of Reclamation, U. S. Department of the Interior (July 2000). |
| Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, online. |
| Arthur Hart, “Bob Meeks: The Rest of the Story,” The Idaho Statesman, Boise (February 21, 2006). |
| “Record of This Congress,” The New York Times (June 29, 1902). |