CHARLES DICK
DICK, CHARLES, United States senator from Ohio and major-general of the Ohio national guard, was born in Akron, Ohio, November 3, 1858. After receiving a common school education, he began to earn his own livelihood as a clerk in a small store. Later he found employment in a bank as bookkeeper, and was promoted to be teller of the same institution. After leaving this bank he became a grain commission merchant, and while engaged in this business he was for several years interested in a newspaper and printing establishment at Akron and Cuyahoga Falls. While actively engaged in business, he found time to study law; and in 1894 he was admitted to the bar in Ohio.
For a long time Senator Dick has been associated with political affairs and with the national guard of his state. His first political office was that of auditor for Summit county, in which position he served for two terms. For several years he was a member of the Republican county committee of Summit county, and was three times its chairman. Although his immediate associates had long recognized him as a party organizer of real ability, it was not until 1892 that he came into political prominence, as an associate of William McKinley, at whose suggestion he was made chairman of the state executive committee, a position which he held from 1892 to 1894 and from 1899 to 1905. In every political campaign in Ohio since 1892, Senator Dick has been an active worker for the Republican party. In 1896 he was secretary at the Chicago headquarters of the Republican national committee, and from 1897 to 1900 he served as secretary of the national committee. He was appointed to this important position at the request of President McKinley, who recognized his abilities as a political manager. He was closely associated with Chairman Hanna in the preliminary canvass for McKinley's nomination and in the campaign which followed.
In 1898 he was elected in the nineteenth Ohio district as a member of the fifty-fifth Congress of the United States; and he was subsequently reelected to the fifty-sixth, fifty-seventh and fifty-eighth
