Robert Gordon COUSINS, Congress, IA (1859-1933)

1859-1933

COUSINS, Robert Gordon, a Representative from Iowa; born on a farm, “Indian Lodge,” near Tipton, Cedar County, Iowa, January 31, 1859; attended the common schools, and was graduated from Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1881; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1882 and engaged in practice in Tipton, Iowa; member of the State house of representatives in 1886; elected by the State house of representatives as one of the managers to conduct the impeachment proceedings of John L. Brown before the State senate in 1886; prosecuting attorney of Cedar County 1888-1890; elected as a Republican to the Fifty-third and to the seven succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1909); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Fifty-fifth through Fifty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Foreign Affairs (Sixtieth Congress); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1908; resumed the practice of law at Tipton, Iowa; also engaged as a writer and as a Chautauqua lecturer; died June 20, 1933, in Iowa City, Iowa; interment in Red Oak Cemetery, five miles northwest of Tipton, Iowa.

Bibliography

Cousins, Robert Gordon. Address of Robert G. Cousins at the Trans-Mississippi exposition at Omaha, Neb. Iowa day, September 21, 1898. [Omaha: N.p., 1898?]; Swisher, Jacob A. Robert Gordon Cousins. Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1938.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present