Later Life
In 1920, Goodrich was Indiana's favorite son candidate for the Republican nomination for president, losing to Senator Warren G. Harding. As president, Harding appointed Goodrich to the Russian Relief Commission. Goodrich made four trips to Russia, then governed by the Bolshevik regime of Vladimir Lenin, and gained a reputation as one of America's best-informed observers of conditions there. Goodrich also served in Herbert Hoover's American Relief Administration and on the St. Lawrence Waterway Commission. He remained active in Republican Party politics and made large donations from his personal fortune to Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he served on the board of trustees.
He became increasingly wealthy in his later life from his business investments. He successfully founded a business empire that lasted nearly a century. By the time of his death he owned a major stake in Central Newspapers, and held controlling interests in the Indiana Telephone Company, Goodrich Brothers' Company, City Securities and a host of smaller businesses. He died on August 15, 1940 at the Randolph County Hospital in Winchester, Indiana, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. He is buried in Fountain Park Cemetery in Winchester. Goodrich Hall at Wabash College was named in his honor.
Read more about this topic: James P. Goodrich
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Oh sure, everyone goes back to the earth at some point, but life itself is a thread that is never broken, never lost. Do you know why? Because each man makes a knot in the thread during his lifetime: it is the work he has done and that’s what gives life to life in the long stretch of time: the usefulness of man on this earth.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)