History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Walter I. Smith
WALTER I. SMITH is a native of Council Bluffs, where he was born July 10, 1862. He received a public school education, taught school and studied law in the office of D. B. Dailey. In December, 1882, he was admitted to the bar. He was elected on the Republican ticket in 1890 judge of the Fifteenth Judicial District, which position he held by reëlections until September, 1900, when he resigned, having been nominated by the Republicans of the Ninth Congressional District for Representative in Congress to fill a vacancy. He was elected, serving in the Fifty-sixth Congress, was reëlected to the Fifty-seventh, where he was a member of the special committee to investigate “hazing” at the West Point Military Academy. Mr. Smith was a member of the committee on banking and currency, and also on elections. He was reëlected to the Fifty-eighth Congress; and in 1902 presided over the Republican State Convention at Des Moines where he made the opening address which sounded the keynote of the campaign.