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Rh studied law at Cincinnati law school, 1874-75; removed to Pike county, Missouri, in 1875; practised law, and conducted a newspaper at Louisiana, Missouri, where he was elected city attorney, serving 1877-80, and then removed to Bowling Green, Missouri. Marrying in 1886, he established his home here and continued the practice of law. He was presidential elector on the Hancock and English ticket in 1880; assistant prosecuting attorney for Pike county, 1878-82; city attorney, 1881; prosecuting attorney, 1885-89; representative in the Missouri legislature 1889 and 1890; and representative from the ninth district of Missouri in the fifty-third Congress, 1893-95, serving on the committees on Claims and Pensions. He was defeated for the fifty-fourth Congress in the Republican "landslide" of 1894 by 132 plurality, the defeated Populist candidate polling 595 votes. In 1896 he was elected by 2495 plurality, and in 1898 by 3014 plurality; and he served in the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth Congresses, 1897-1901, on the committees on Foreign Affairs and Patents. In 1900 he was elected to the fifty-seventh Congress by a majority of 2743 votes and in 1902 to the fifty-eighth Congress by a majority of 3820 votes; and he served on the committees on Foreign Affairs, Patents, and Memorial Exercises of the late President McKinley, in the fifty-seventh and on the committee on Ways and Means in the fifty-eight Congress. In the Republican landslide of 1904, he was elected to the fifty-ninth Congress by 1567 majority. He was permanent chairman of the Democratic national convention at St. Louis, July 6-9, 1904, and was chairman of the committee which notified Judge Alton B. Parker of his nomination to the presidency. He was appointed by Governor Francis a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi congress at Denver, Colorado, in May, 1891; and he served in the convention as vice-president for Missouri. He held all the offices in his Masonic lodge except secretary and treasurer and was orator of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Missouri. He is also a thirty-second degree Mason, and is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. He inherited his democracy from his father, who, while not advising him to be a lawyer or a politician, was himself an intense Democrat and a very active one, although he never held office. He was a politician because he believed it to be every man's duty to be one, and his son fully agrees with him. His father fired his ambition by praising his favorite lawyers and public men, and was constantly relating