1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Long, John Davis

LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838–  ), American lawyer and political leader, was born in Buckfield, Oxford county, Maine, on the 27th of October 1838. He graduated at Harvard in 1857, studied law at the Harvard Law School and in 1861 was admitted to the bar. He practised in Boston, became active in politics as a Republican, was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1875–1878 and its speaker in 1876–1878, lieutenant-governor of the state in 1879, and governor in 1880–1882. In 1883–1889 he was a member of the National House of Representatives, and from March 1897 to May 1902 was secretary of the navy, in the cabinet, first of President McKinley and then of President Roosevelt. In 1902 he became president of the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. His publications include a version of the Aeneid (1879), After-Dinner and Other Speeches (1895) and The New American Navy (1903).