| Richard Achilles Ballinger |
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| CATEGORIES ABOUT RICHARD ACHILLES BALLINGER | |
| 1858 births | |
| 1922 deaths | |
| united states secretaries of the interior | |
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Richard Achilles Ballinger, mayor of Seattle, Washington , from 1904 – 1906 and U.S. Secretary of the Interior from 1909 – 1911 , was born on July 9 , 1858 in Boonesboro, Iowa . He graduated from Williams College in 1884 and passed the Bar Exam in 1886 . After serving as mayor of Seattle, Ballinger was commissioner of the General Land Office from 1907 – 1909 . In 1909, President William Howard Taft appointed him Secretary Of The Interior . While Secretary, he was accused of having interfered with investigation into the legality of certain private Coal -land claims in Alaska . After a series of articles in '' Collier's Weekly '' that roused the Conservationists an investigation was demanded. A congressional committee exonerated Ballinger, but the questioning of committee counsel Louis D. Brandeis made Ballinger's anti-conservationism clear. He resigned in March, 1911 . The incident split the Republican Party and helped turn the election of 1912 against Taft. Ballinger died on June 6 , 1922 , in Seattle, Washington .
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