Walter Evans Edge

Infobox Governor
name= Walter Evans Edge


caption=
order= 36^th
office= Governor of New Jersey
term_start= January 15, 1917
term_end= May 16, 1919
predecessor= James Fairman Fielder
successor= Acting Governor William Nelson Runyon
term_start2= January 18, 1944
term_end2= January 21, 1947
predecessor2= Charles Edison
successor2= Alfred E. Driscoll
office3= United States Senator, New Jersey (Class 2)
term_start3= March 4, 1919
term_end3= November 21, 1929
predecessor3= David Baird
successor3= David Baird, Jr.
office4= United States Ambassador to France
term_start4= 1929
term_end4= 1933
predecessor4= Myron T. Herrick
successor4= Jesse I. Strauss
spouse= Lady Lee Phillips Camilla Loyal Ashe Sewall
birth_date= November 20, 1873
birth_place= Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
death_date= October 29, 1956
death_place= New York City
party= Republican
religion= Presbyterian Episcopalian

Walter Evans Edge (November 20, 1873–October 29, 1956) was an American politician. A Republican, he served as a United States Senator representing New Jersey from 1919 to 1929. Edge was twice the Governor of New Jersey, from 1917 to 1919 and again from 1944 to 1947, serving as governor during both World War I and World War II.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Edge moved with his parents to Pleasantville, New Jersey in 1877. After attending public schools, Edge was employed in a printing office in Atlantic City, New Jersey from 1890 to 1894. From 1897 until 1899 he served as journal clerk of the New Jersey Senate, and resigned from that position to be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. Upon returning from war service, Edge was appointed secretary of the state senate (1901 to 1904).

Edge was elected to the New Jersey General Assembly in 1910, serving only one year before being elected to the New Jersey Senate (1911 to 1916), becoming the senate president in 1915. Edge served as Governor of New Jersey from 1917 to 1919, resigning his position to represent New Jersey in the United States Senate from March 4, 1919, until his resignation on November 21, 1929.

Edge sponsored the Edge Act, a 1919 Amendment to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which allowed National Banks (a banking institution chartered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to engage in international banking through federally chartered subsidiaries.

Herbert Hoover appointed Edge as United States Ambassador to France in 1929, serving in that position until 1933. He was elected for a second three-year term as Governor of New Jersey in 1944, serving in office from January 18, 1944 to January 21, 1947. He died in 1956 in New York City and is buried at the Northwood Cemetery in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

Edge was an avid sportsman, who enjoyed hunting quail. After World War I, Edge purchased land in northern Leon County, Florida with his longtime friend, Walter C. Teagle, Chairman of the Board of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. They named the property Norias Plantation. In 1937 Edge left his interests in Norias and purchased Sunny Hill Plantation. [Paisley, Clifton, "From Cotton To Quail: An Agricultural Chronicle of Leon County, Florida, 1860-1967", University of Florida Press, 1968. ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-0718-2 pp. 91-92]

Edge's name (as Wally Edge) and likeness have renewed currency as the pseudonym of a prominent anonymous New Jersey political columnist.

References

ee also

*List of Governors of New Jersey
*Edge Act

External links

*CongBio|E000044 Retrieved on 2008-02-11
* [http://www.njstatelib.org/NJ_Information/Digital_Collections/Governors_of_New_Jersey/GEDGE.pdf Biography of Walter E. Edge (PDF)] , New Jersey State Library
* [http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.29fab9fb4add37305ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=afa13058be3f9010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD&vgnextchannel=e449a0ca9e3f1010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD New Jersey Governor Walter Evans Edge] , National Governors Association