Early Life
The son of Joseph Bender, an employee at General Electric, and Anna Sir, Bender attended West Commerce High School, graduating in 1914. With an early interest in politics, he at age fifteen collected 10,000 signatures on a petition encouraging former president Theodore Roosevelt to run for the presidency in 1912. Bender presented the petition to Roosevelt personally and was rewarded when Roosevelt wrote him with news of his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination shortly before it was publicly announced. In 1916 Bender served as a delegate to the abortive Progressive party convention, which voted to dissolve rather than nominate its own presidential candidate. During the November election, Bender campaigned for Republican party candidates. His shifting party orientation reflected the internal divisions between "progressive" and "Old Guard" Republicans of the period from 1912 to 1916.
Read more about this topic: George H. Bender
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