Attorney General: Alexander M. Palmer

Alexander Mitchell Palmer was born in Moosehead, Pennsylvania, on May 4, 1872. He received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College in 1891 and studied law at Lafayette College and George Washington University. He was admitted to the bar in 1893 and practiced with John Brutzman Storm until 1901 before venturing out on his own. Palmer was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1909 to 1915. He was appointed judge of the U.S. Court of Claims in April 1915 but resigned that post in September of the same year. From October 1917 to March 1919, he was Alien Property Custodian. Palmer was a delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Conventions in 1912 and 1916, and a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1912 to 1920. 

President Woodrow Wilson appointed Palmer as Attorney General of the United States on March 5, 1919, a role in which he served for exactly two years. At the Democratic National Convention at San Francisco in 1920, Palmer received 267 votes for presidential nominee. He died in Washington, D.C., on May 11, 1936.