William S. Kenyon (Iowa Politician) - Federal Judge

Federal Judge

Kenyon served in the Senate until he resigned in February 1922, to accept appointment by President Warren G. Harding as circuit judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He served on the court from 1922 until his death in 1933.

In 1926, he wrote the Eighth Circuit's ruling in the principal civil suit arising from the Teapot Dome scandal. Reversing a federal district court in Wyoming, the appellate court panel ordered the lower court to cancel the Mammoth Oil Co.'s leases, demand an accounting of the oil which had been taken from Teapot Dome, and enjoin the company was enjoined from trespassing further on U.S. Government property.

While a sitting federal judge, Kenyon was the subject of numerous offers of appointive and elective office. In January 1923, before the death of President Harding, newspapers speculated that Judge Kenyon would be Harding's leading opponent in the 1924 presidential race. At the 1924 Republican National Convention, he was touted as a potential vice-presidential candidate with Calvin Coolidge, and he received 172 votes on the first ballot. Even though President Coolidge indicated that Kenyon would be acceptable to him, the Convention instead selected Charles Dawes, who did not get along with Coolidge and many others. Coolidge offered Kenyon the position of Secretary of the Navy, but Kenyon declined to accept it. While a judge, he also served as an active member of a blue-ribbon "National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement," better known as the "Wickersham Commission," appointed by President Herbert Hoover to assess the lessons learned from prohibition, among other things.

In 1930, following the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Edward Terry Sanford, Kenyon was considered by some as a favorite to succeed him, but President Hoover instead nominated John J. Parker (who failed to win Senate confirmation) and then Owen Roberts (who was confirmed). In January 1932, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes resigned, Kenyon's name was again included on short lists of potential successors, but this time Hoover selected legendary New York Court of Appeals Judge Benjamin Cardozo.