Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/109

 WILLIAM J. DEBOE

, of Marion, was born in Crittenden County, Ky., in 1849; his father was a Baptist minister and came to Kentucky from Virginia; his great-grandfather served seven years in the Revolutionary War; received his education in the public and academic schools of the State, and Ewing College, Illinois; studied law in early life, but afterwards studied medicine and graduated from the Medical University of Louisville, and practiced a few years until his health failed; he then renewed the study of the law and was admitted to the bar, and is a member of the law firm of Blue & Deboe; has always been a Republican, and was superintendent of schools of Crittenden County; in 1888 was a delegate to the Chicago convention which nominated General Harrison; has been a member of the Republican State central committee seven years; made the race for Congress in 1892, and in 1893 was elected to the State senate; in 1896 was a delegate from the State at large to the St. Louis convention, and chairman of the delegation; when the Republicans carried the legislature he entered the race for United States Senator, but withdrew in favor of W. G. Hunter, who failed to be elected at that session; in 1896 he again entered the race for Senator, and again withdrew in the interest of Hunter, who failed of an election, and who himself withdrew, when Deboe was nominated and elected after one of the most sensational and memorable sessions of the legislature of the State. His term of service will expire March 3, 1903.