Stephen M. Sparkman

Stephen Milancthon Sparkman ( born July 29, 1849 Hernando County, Florida, † September 26, 1929 in Washington DC ) was an American politician. Between 1895 and 1917 he represented the state of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Stephen Sparkman attended the common schools and then worked 1867-1870 even as a teacher. After a subsequent study of law and its made ​​in 1872 admitted to the bar he began in Tampa to work in his new profession. Between 1878 and 1887 he was a prosecutor in the Sixth Judicial District of Florida. In 1888 he was leaning in this district an appointment as a judge as well as how in 1891 an appointment as judges of the Supreme Court of Florida. Politically, Sparkman member of the Democratic Party. From 1890 to 1894 he was a member of the district board, said he was from 1890 to 1891 and Regional Chairman. Between 1892-1896 Sparkman was chairman of the Democrats in Florida. In 1892 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in part in Chicago, where the former incumbent Grover Cleveland was again nominated as a presidential candidate.

In the congressional elections of 1894, he was elected in the first district of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, where he became the successor of Stephen Mallory on March 4, 1895. After ten re- election he was able to complete in Congress until March 3, 1917 eleven legislative periods. In this time were, among others, the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the adoption of the 16th and the 17th Amendment. Between 1911 and 1917 Sparkman was Chairman of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors.

1916 Sparkman renounced to another candidacy. In the following years he worked again as a lawyer in Tampa. Until 1920 he was also chairman of the Association of Port Officer ( Board of Port Commissioners ). He died on 26 September 1929 in the capital city Washington.