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| Watercolor after a photograph in the Des Moines Register. February 16, 1908. |
Robert Gordon Cousins grew up on a farm near Tipton where people
argued politics as seriously as they planted corn. By the time he left Cornell
College in 1881 he knew two things: how to work and how to talk.
He started in the Iowa House in 1886, cut his
teeth in an impeachment trial, and proved he could prosecute a case without
blinking. In 1892, he landed a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and
stayed there for eight straight terms.
Washington at the turn of the century was
loud, partisan, and spoiling for big arguments. Cousins thrived on it. He
memorized his speeches and delivered them like a man who trusted his own voice.
When he stood up, people listened.
After the Spanish-American War, the country
split over what to do with the Philippines. Cousins backed expansion and said
America couldn’t grab global power and then pretend it was shy. Strength meant
responsibility. Retreat meant weakness.
His showpiece was a speech called The
Glory of the Republic. It was red meat patriotism, wrapped in
constitutional language. He talked about sacrifice, duty, and the price of
liberty. Newspapers picked it up. Crowds asked to hear it again. He became one
of the Republican Party’s go-to voices when the subject was national pride.
He chaired the House Committee on Foreign
Affairs, stayed firm on America’s role in the world, and then stepped away in
1909. He went back to Iowa, took to the Chautauqua circuit, and kept preaching
citizenship under canvas tents.
Cousins died in 1933.
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