Ellis H. Roberts
Ellis Henry Roberts (1827-1918) was born on September 30, 1827, in Utica, New York. His parents, Watkin and Gwen Roberts, were originally from Merionethshire in North Wales, but emigrated to the United States either in 1816 or 1817, and would eventually settle in Utica. Having lost his father whilst still a child, Roberts was reliant on his own efforts from a young age. At the tender age of nine, he gained employment at a local Utica printing house, and by the age of twelve he would be promoted to typesetter. Roberts had higher ambitions, however, and would eventually save enough from this job to pay his way through college. Roberts first attended the Whitestown Seminary and was then admitted into Yale in 1847. He would graduate in 1850 with second class honors.
Roberts would then commence his literary career in 1852, when he became partial owner and editor of the Utica Morning Herald, which was a leading Whig (and later Republican) journal. By 1854, he would become full owner of the journal, and he would continue there as chief editor until 1859.
This position as owner of a major Whig and Republican journal made him active in the political debates of the country and brought him into contact with leading members of the Republican Party. This elevated him onto the New York delegation for the 1864 and 1868 Republican National Convention, and in 1866, he was also elected to the New York State Legislature on the Republican ticket. Then, in 1871, Roberts would make the shift from state to federal politics, being elected to the United States Congress, where he would serve for two terms, during which time he would also serve on the House Ways and Means Committee. Having a strong reputation for sound judgement and knowledge on financial and economic matters, Roberts would later be appointed as the Assistant Treasurer of the United States in 1889 by then Republican President Benjamin Harrison. After the election of the Democratic President Grover Cleveland in 1893, Roberts would leave this position, and would be made President of the Franklin National Bank in New York. However, with the election of William McKinley in 1897, Roberts would be called back to public service and would assume the role of Treasurer of the United States.
​
During his time in Congress, Robert’s made several important speeches on protection and other economic questions, several of which would be published and circulated in pamphlet format. Two of the more notable of these speeches include The Revenue and American Labor: Necessity and Growth of Home Production (1872) and The Treasury and the Taxes (1874). His most important economic work would appear, however, in 1884. This was his 400 page treatise entitled Government Revenue: Especially the American System, An Argument for Industrial Freedom Against the Fallacies of Free Trade, which was based upon a series of lectures which he gave at Cornell and Hamilton College a year earlier. In this work, Roberts approaches the subject of protection mainly from the standpoint of revenue, and advances the view that if state interference, including taxation, is to be permitted anywhere than it should be in the service of promoting domestic industry. On January 8, 1919, Roberts would pass away in his home in Utica at the age of ninety-one.