Ambassador Miles Poindexter 1868-1946 Miles Poindexter from the state of Washington was one of the more outspoken and aggressive members of the progressive Republican Party. He was in Congress from the time of his first election to the House of Representatives in 1908 to the beginning of World War I in 1917. At the time, he received considerable attention in the press, and after his election to the Senate in 1910 he was probably as closely identified with the reform movement in Congress by the national press as any of the progressive Republicans except Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin. Miles Poindexter served only two terms in the Senate. At any rate, Poindexter did not serve long enough to accumulate seniority and to acquire the power and visibility which usually accompany seniority, and his role in the Congress during the Progressive era passed by, relatively unnoticed. Poindexter's reputation as a prominent Senate progressive also suffered because he abandoned a progressive stance after 1917 and shifted to the right during World War I and the Red Scare of 1919 and 1920. He became even more vitriolic and intolerant in his denunciation of labor unions, Socialists, pacifists, and "Bolsheviks" after 1917 than in his attacks upon the trusts, "special interests", and their alleged defenders in the Congress in the pre-war years. Poindexter's abandonment of reform and his turn against many of his former progressive colleagues after the war, combined with his retirement from the Senate in 1923, probably served to obscure his earlier reputation as a leading Senate progressive. Mile's Presidential Campaign Speech Given In 1920 Extended Bibliography Allen, Howard W. “Miles Poindexter and the Progressive Movement.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 53 (July 1962): 114-22. Poindexter of Washington: A Study in Progressive Politics. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981. Filson, Helen. “Miles Poindexter and the Progressive Movement in Eastern Washington, 1908-1913.” Master’s thesis, Washington State University, 1941. Poindexter, Miles. The Ayar-Incas. 2 vols. New York: H. Liveright, 1930. Peruvian Pharaohs. Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1938. At His Desk Birthday Wishes To Pres Cleveland 1922 Letter 1922 Letter 1922 Return To The Homepage Charlemagne Jean Poingdestre 1609-1691 George Poingdestre/Poindexter 1627-1690 Governor George Littleton Poindexter 1779-1853 Wars Against England Colonel John A. Poindexter 1825-1869 Captain James E. Poindexter 1839-1911 Congressman Meredith Poindexter Gentry 1809-1866 Governor Joseph Boyd Poindexter 1869-1951 Admiral John Marlan Poindexter, USN, Retired Astronaut Alan G. Poindexter, USN Other Notable Poindexters E-mail Stories Or Just To Say Hello!