Richard Olney
Encyclopedia
Richard Olney was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 statesman. He served as both United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...

 and Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...

 under President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...

. As attorney general, Olney used injunctions against striking workers in the Pullman strike
Pullman Strike
The Pullman Strike was a nationwide conflict between labor unions and railroads that occurred in the United States in 1894. The conflict began in the town of Pullman, Illinois on May 11 when approximately 3,000 employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent...

, setting a precedent, and advised the use of federal troops, when legal means failed to control the strikers. As secretary of state, he raised the status of America in the world by elevating U.S. diplomatic posts to the status of embassy.

Early years

Olney was born into a family of means in Oxford, Massachusetts
Oxford, Massachusetts
Oxford is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,709 at the 2010 census.For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Oxford, please see the article Oxford , Massachusetts.-History:...

. His father was Wilson Olney, a textiles manufacturer and banker. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, until Olney was seven. The family then moved back to Oxford and Olney attended school at the Leicester Academy
Leicester Academy
Leicester Academy was founded on March 23, 1784, when the Act of Incorporation for Leicester Academy was passed by the Massachusetts General Court as a private, state chartered institution. The charter issued to the Academy bears the bold signature of John Hancock, Governor of Massachusetts; and...

 in Leicester
Leicester, Massachusetts
Leicester is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,970 at the 2010 census.-History:Leicester was first settled in 1713 and was officially incorporated in 1714....

.

After completing his education there, he went to Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

, where he graduated with high honors as class orator in 1856. He then attended Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, where he received a bachelor of laws
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...

 degree in 1858. In 1859, he passed the bar and began practicing law in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, attaining a reputation as an authority on probate, trust
Trust law
In common law legal systems, a trust is a relationship whereby property is held by one party for the benefit of another...

 and corporate law
Corporate law
Corporate law is the study of how shareholders, directors, employees, creditors, and other stakeholders such as consumers, the community and the environment interact with one another. Corporate law is a part of a broader companies law...

.

In 1861, Olney married Agnes Park Thomas of Boston, Massachusetts.

He served as a member of the Board of Selectmen of West Roxbury, Massachusetts
West Roxbury, Massachusetts
West Roxbury is a neighborhood in Boston bordered by Roslindale to the north, the Town of Dedham to the east and south, the Town of Brookline and the City of Newton to the west. Many people mistakenly confuse West Roxbury with Roxbury, but the two are not connected. West Roxbury is separated from...

 and in the Massachusetts House of Representatives
Massachusetts House of Representatives
The Massachusetts House of Representatives is the lower house of the Massachusetts General Court, the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is composed of 160 members elected from single-member electoral districts across the Commonwealth. Representatives serve two-year terms...

 in 1874, serving one term. He declined to run again, preferring to return to his law practice In 1876, Olney inherited his father-in-law's Boston law practice and became involved in the business affairs of Boston’s elite families. During the 1880s, Olney became one of the city’s leading railroad attorneys and the general counsel for Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
The Milwaukee Road, officially the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until its merger into the Soo Line Railroad on January 1, 1986. The company went through several official names...

.

Government office and later years

In March 1893, Olney became U.S. Attorney General and began to use the law to thwart working-class political movements. He was asked by a former railroad employer if he could do something to get rid of the newly formed Interstate Commerce Commission
Interstate Commerce Commission
The Interstate Commerce Commission was a regulatory body in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including...

. He replied, "The Commission… is, or can be made, of great use to the railroads. It satisfies the popular clamor for a government supervision of the railroads, at the same time that that supervision is almost entirely nominal. Further, the older such a commission gets to be, the more inclined it will be found to take the business and railroad view of things.… The part of wisdom is not to destroy the Commission, but to utilize it."

During the 1894 Pullman strike, Olney instructed the district attorneys to secure from the Federal Courts writs of injunction against striking railroad employees, setting a precedent for "government by injunction". He ordered the Chicago district attorney to convene a grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

 to find cause to indict Eugene Debs and other labor leaders and sent federal marshals to protect rail traffic, ordering 150 marshalls deputized in Helena, Montana
Helena, Montana
Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County. The 2010 census put the population at 28,180. The local daily newspaper is the Independent Record. The Helena Brewers minor league baseball and Helena Bighorns minor league hockey team call the...

 alone. When the legal measures failed, he advised President Cleveland to send Federal troops to Chicago to quell the strike, over the objections of the governor of Illinois. Olney argued that the government must prevent interference with its mails and with the general railway transportation between the states.

Upon the death of Secretary of State Walter Q. Gresham
Walter Q. Gresham
Walter Quintin Gresham was an American statesman and jurist. He served as United States Postmaster General, as a judge on the United States Courts of Appeals, was a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and was Secretary of State, and Secretary of the Treasury...

, Cleveland named Olney succeeded him on June 10, 1895. He quickly elevated U.S. foreign diplomatic posts to the title of embassy, thus making it official that the U.S. would be regarded as an equal of the world's greater nations. (Until that time, the United States had had only Legations, which diplomatic protocol dictated be treated as inferior to embassies.) He became specially prominent in the controversy with United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 concerning the boundary dispute between the British and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

n governments, and in his correspondence with Lord Salisbury
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury
Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC , styled Lord Robert Cecil before 1865 and Viscount Cranborne from June 1865 until April 1868, was a British Conservative statesman and thrice Prime Minister, serving for a total of over 13 years...

 gave the Olney interpretation
Olney interpretation
The Olney interpretation was United States Secretary of State Richard Olney's interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine when a border dispute occurred between British Guiana and Venezuela. Olney claimed that the Monroe Doctrine gave the United States authority to mediate border disputes in the Western...

, an extended interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention...

 which went considerably beyond previous statements on the subject.

Olney returned to the practice of the law in 1897, at the expiration of Cleveland's term.

In March 1913, Olney turned down President Wilson's offer to be the US Ambassador to Great Britain, and later when in May 1914, President Wilson offered Olney the Appointment as Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, he declined that appointment. Olney was unwilling to take on new responsibilities at his advanced age.

Olney received the honorary degree of LL.D from Harvard and Brown in 1893 and from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1901. Olney was the uncle of Massachusetts Congressman Richard Olney II
Richard Olney II
Richard Olney was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts.-Life:...

.
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