John W. Davis

Common card · No. 235015

John William Davis (April 13, 1873 – March 24, 1955) was an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer. He served under President Woodrow Wilson as the Solicitor General of the United States and the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. He was the Democratic nominee for president in 1924, losing to Republican incumbent Calvin Coolidge. Davis was born and raised in West Virginia, where his father, John James Davis, had been a delegate to the Wheeling Convention and served in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1870s. Davis joined his father's legal practice and adopted many of his father's political views, including opposition to anti-lynching legislation and support for states' rights. Davis served in the U.S. House from 1911 to 1913, helping to write the Clayton Antitrust Act. He held the position of Solicitor General of the United States from 1913 to 1918, during which time he successfully argued for the unconstitutionality of the grandfather clause in Oklahoma's constitution...

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