Herbert Lord

Herbert Mayhew Lord (December 6, 1859 – June 2, 1930) was a United States Army officer and public official. He was most notable for his service as the Army's Director of Finance during World War I and the Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) from 1922 to 1929. A native of Rockland, Maine, Lord received bachelor's and master's degrees from Colby College and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. As a staff member of the United States House of Representatives, Lord played an important role in the creation of the Dingley Act, which raised tariffs to counteract the lowering of rates that occurred under the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act. In 1898, Lord began a military career when he was appointed a major of United States Volunteers for the Spanish–American War and assigned to duty with the Paymaster Department. After the war, Lord continued to work in finance for the Army and was frequently called upon to provide expertise for special projects, including overseeing the disbursement of federal disaster relief funds following the Great Salem fire of 1914. During World War I, Lord was promoted to brigadier general as the Army's Director of Finance and led the effort to manage expenditure of $24 billion in War Department appropriations.…

Herbert Mayhew Lord (December 6, 1859 – June 2, 1930) was a United States Army officer and public official. He was most notable for his service as the Army's Director of Finance during World War I and the Director of the United States Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) from 1922 to 1929. A native of Rockland, Maine, Lord received bachelor's and master's degrees from Colby College and worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. As a staff member of the United States House of Representatives, Lord played an important role in the creation of the Dingley Act, which raised tariffs to counteract the lowering of rates that occurred under the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act. In 1898, Lord began a military career when he was appointed a major of United States Volunteers for the Spanish–American War and assigned to duty with the Paymaster Department. After the war, Lord continued to work in finance for the Army and was frequently called upon to provide expertise for special projects, including overseeing the disbursement of federal disaster relief funds following the Great Salem fire of 1914. During World War I, Lord was promoted to brigadier general as the Army's Director of Finance and led the effort to manage expenditure of $24 billion in War Department appropriations. His post-war activities included an effort to pay corporations for wartime goods and services when Congress was not in session; his initiative helped avert an economic crisis, and the U.S. Congress retroactively approved his actions. Lord also acted on his own initiative to provide disability payments to soldiers who were wounded, injured, or suffered severe illness during the war, another action Congress approved retroactively. In 1922, Lord was appointed as budget director, and he remained in the position until 1929. Lord prioritized the economy in government during the administrations of presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, which helped pay down the country's World War I debt and create a surplus in the federal budget. Lord became ill in 1929 and resigned as budget director. His health did not improve, and he died in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 1930. Lord was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Early career

After college, Lord began a career in journalism with a newspaper in Cardiff, Tennessee, for which he worked as a reporter, editor, and advertising manager. He was next employed by a paper in Denver, Colorado, where he remained until returning to Maine. Lord then became editor of The Courier-Gazette in Rockland, of which he later purchased an ownership stake. A Republican, while editing the Rockland paper, Lord also served terms on the city's common council and board of aldermen. Beginning in 1894, U.S. Representative Nelson Dingley Jr. of Maine employed Lord on the staff of the Ways and Means Committee. When Dingley became the committee's chair in 1897, he appointed Lord as the committee's chief clerk. Lord worked on the details of the Dingley Act, a law that raised tariffs to counteract the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act, which had lowered tariff rates.

Budget director

Lord took over as budget director on July 1, 1922. During his term, Lord prioritized economy in spending, a policy directed by President Calvin Coolidge and continued by his successor Herbert Hoover. Lord was considered by many observers to be obsessed with reducing spending, including such seemingly trivial measures as reducing the size of postal money order blanks by one inch to save $8,000 a year. Scoffers also mocked Lord when he advocated that government employees save money by extending the length of time they used their pencils. Despite the skeptics, when Lord resigned in 1929, the federal treasury's World War I debt had been eliminated. In addition, the federal surplus had reached $2.7 billion, of which $2.4 billion was attributed to Lord's economizing.

Death and burial

Lord suffered a prolonged illness in 1929, which caused him to resign as budget director. He spent part of the winter of 1929–1930 in St. Petersburg, Florida, in the hopes of regaining his health. His condition continued to worsen, and he died at his home in Washington, D.C.'s Woodley Apartments on June 2, 1930. Lord was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Family

In 1886¹, Lord married Annie Stuart Waldo. They were the parents of three children. Stuart Waldo Lord was born in 1886 and died in 1889. Kenneth Prince Lord (1888–1957) was a career Army officer and retired as a brigadier general. Ruth Mayhew Lord (1890–1974) was the wife of Franklin Robinson Van Rensselaer.

References

External links

Herbert M. Lord at Arlington National Cemetery

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1350885003 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.