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CONNOLLY, Maurice
CONNOLLY, Maurice. (Dubuque, IA, Mar. 3, 1877-Indianhead, MD, May 28, 1921). Iowa Representative. Connolly was the son of a successful carriage maker, Thomas CONNOLLY. He graduated from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York in 1897, the New York University School of Law, in New York City in 1898, and was admitted to the bar in 1899. He did postgraduate work in Oxford, England and the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Connolly returned to Dubuque when his father died and assumed his ownership and management of the CONNOLLY CARRIAGE MANUFACTORY. In 1910 he completed his term as president of the Carriage Builders National Association, the oldest and one of the largest of the national trade organizations, whose membership consisted of carriage and buggy builders and auto body manufacturers throughout the United States. He was then elected a member of the executive body of the association for a term of three years.
Connolly ran as a Democrat for Congress in 1912, against incumbent Republican Charles E. Pickett. Dubuque was a Democratic-leaning city at the edge of Iowa's strongly-Republican 3rd congressional district, which in Connolly's lifetime had elected only Republicans. In every election since 1890, Republicans captured either all or all but one of Iowa's eleven seats in the U.S. House, while holding each seat in the Senate. When Iowa Republicans were divided between Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party candidacy and Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft, Connolly tied himself closely to Democratic presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson. Along with incumbent Democrat Irvin S. Pepper in Iowa's 2nd congressional district and Democrat Sanford Kirkpatrick in Iowa's 6th congressional district, Connolly was elected in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress.
In 1914 Iowans had their first opportunity to directly elect a U.S. Senator. Until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, the United States Constitution had authorized only state legislatures to choose senators. In 1913, 37-year-old Congressman Pepper was the favorite to win the Democratic nomination for Senate to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Albert B. Cummins, but Pepper died unexpectedly in December 1913. Connolly ran in the Democratic primary for the nomination. He defeated Edward Meredith in the primary, but was defeated by Senator Cummins in the general election.
After leaving Congress, Connolly returned to Dubuque to run his family's carriage company. He also became an executive of DUBUQUE FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY. Connolly was an at-large delegate to the 1916 Democratic National Convention. President Wilson appointed him postmaster of Dubuque.
After the United States entered WORLD WAR I, Connolly enlisted. He earned his flight wings and serving as captain, then major, in the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps. He served as adjutant, executive officer and commanding officer at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, Wilbur Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, and Hazelhurst Field in Mineola, New York. When the armistice was declared, he was assigned to Washington, D.C. where he assisted Major General William L. Kenly, first head of the United States Army Air Service. Connolly also flew in one of the "flying circuses" of fliers performing to raise funds for the Liberty Loan program.
Connolly and future New York City Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia were the only former congressmen to earn their wings in World War I.
Following the war, Connolly became the Washington representative for the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. He was killed in an airplane accident near Indian Head, Maryland on May 28, 1921 with another civilian passenger and five air corps officers when their army Curtiss Eagle converted air ambulance crashed during a wind and electrical storm when returning to Washington D.C. At the time, it was considered the worst aviation accident in U.S. history.
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Source:
Telegraph Herald, January 24, 1910, p. 1