William Robert Smith

William Robert Smith ( * August 18, 1863 at Tyler, Texas; † August 16, 1924 in El Paso, Texas) was an American lawyer and politician. Between 1903 and 1917 he represented the state of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives; later he became a federal judge.

Career

William Smith attended the public schools of his home and the Sam Houston Normal Institute in Huntsville. After a subsequent law degree in 1885 and its recent approval as a lawyer, he started in Tyler to work in this profession. In 1888 he moved his residence and his law firm to Colorado in Bastrop County. Between 1897 and 1903, Smith served as a judge in the 32nd Judicial District of Texas. At the same time he proposed as a member of the Democratic Party launched a political career.

In the congressional elections of 1902, Smith was in the then newly established 16th electoral district of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1903. After six re- election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1917 seven legislative sessions. Since 1911 he was chairman of the committee that dealt with irrigation issues. In 1913 were the 16th and the 17th Amendment to the Constitution ratified.

In 1916 William Smith was not nominated by his party for re-election. After the end of his time in the U.S. House of Representatives, he moved to El Paso, where he practiced as a lawyer again. Since April 12, 1917, he was a judge at the Federal District Court for the Western part of the state of Texas. This office he held until his death on August 16, 1924 in El Paso.