Guy Tresillian Helvering
Politician. Democrat. Born: January 10, 1878, Felicity, Ohio. Died: July 4, 1946, Washington, D.C. Served in U.S. House of Representatives, 5th District: March 4, 1913, to March 3, 1919.
Guy Helvering, who became a leading state and national Democrat during the first half of the twentieth century, was born at Felicity, Clermont County, Ohio, on January 10, 1878. He moved to Kansas in 1887 with his parents, who settled in Beattie, Marshall County where the young Helvering attended the public schools. During the Spanish-American War enlisted as a corporal in Company M, Twenty-second Kansas Infantry Regiment, and served from May 12 to November 3, 1898. Subsequently he attended the University of Kansas at Lawrence and was graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1906. That same year he was admitted to the bar, commenced practice in Marysville, Kansas, and was elected county attorney of Marshall County, serving from 1907-1911. In 1910 Helvering unsuccessfully sought a seat in Congress but was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third Congress (served, March 4, 1913-March 3, 1919) and was reelected twice. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1918, however, moved to Salina, Kansas, and took up banking. Helvering served as Democratic state chairman (1930-1934), mayor of Salina, from February 15, 1926, until his resignation on December 8, 1930, and state highway director during the Democratic administration of Harry Woodring, 1931-1933. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Helvering commissioner of Internal Revenue in 1933 and served until his appointment as a Federal district judge for Kansas in 1943, in which capacity he was serving at the time of his death in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 1946.
Entry: Helvering, Guy Tresillian
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: June 2011
Date Modified: May 2012
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