Charles Gates Dawes (August 27, 1865 – April 23, 1951) was an American diplomat and Republican politician who was the 30th vice president of the United States from 1925 to 1929 under Calvin Coolidge.

Born in Marietta, Ohio, Dawes attended Cincinnati Law School before beginning a legal career in Lincoln, Nebraska.

After former governor of Illinois Frank O. Lowden declined the vice-presidential nomination, the convention chose Dawes as Coolidge's running mate.

Dawes also briefly led the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which organized a government response to the Great Depression.

His uncle Ephraim C. Dawes was a major who served under Ulysses S. Grant at the Shiloh and Siege of Vicksburg, and was severely wounded at the Battle of Dallas, Georgia, in May 1864.

[6][9] When Lieutenant John Pershing, the future army general, was military instructor at the University of Nebraska he and Dawes met and formed a lifelong friendship.

Numerous artists have recorded versions, including Cliff Richard, the Four Tops, Isaac Hayes, Jackie DeShannon, Van Morrison, Nat "King" Cole, Brook Benton, Elton John, Mel Carter, Donny and Marie Osmond, Barry Manilow, Merle Haggard, and Keith Jarrett.

[16] Dawes and Bob Dylan (as a writer) are the only persons credited with a number-one pop hit to have also won a Nobel Prize.

They asked Dawes to manage the Illinois portion of William McKinley's bid for the Presidency of the United States in 1896.

[citation needed] In October 1901, Dawes left the Department of the Treasury to pursue a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.

[5] On September 5, 1912, Dawes's 21-year-old son Rufus drowned in Geneva Lake,[22] while on summer break from Princeton University.

His proposal to Gen. Pershing was adopted informed the Military Board of Allied Supply, on which he served as the American delegate in 1918.

During heated testimony, Dawes burst out, "Hell and Maria, we weren't trying to keep a set of books over there, we were trying to win a war!

The loans helped Germany's industrial production to recover and the government to make reparation payments to France and Belgium as required by the Versailles Treaty.

The Republican National Chairman, William Butler, wanted to nominate then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, but he was insufficiently popular.

Coolidge quickly accepted the delegates' choice and felt that Dawes would be loyal to him and make a strong addition to his campaign.

On August 22, Dawes would appear at a rally located in Augusta, Maine on the behalf of Republican candidate for Governor Ralph Owen Brewster, who was accused by his opponent William Robinson Pattangall of being backed by the Ku Klux Klan and having sympathies for them.

[36] He frequently attacked Progressive nominee Robert M. La Follette as a dangerous radical who sympathized with the Bolsheviks.

[12] The Coolidge-Dawes ticket was elected on November 4, 1924, with more popular votes than the candidates of the Democratic and Progressive parties combined.

In the speech, Dawes criticized rule XXII, calling it "undemocratic" and noted how it was easily taken advantage of due to its two-thirds voting procedure.

Chief Justice William Howard Taft wrote to his son that the vice president had "made a monkey out of himself."

[39] On March 10, the Senate debated the president's nomination of Charles B. Warren to be United States Attorney General.

Desiring to take a break for a nap, Dawes consulted the majority and minority leaders, who assured him that no vote would be taken that afternoon.

When it became apparent that the vote would be tied, Republican leaders hastily called Dawes at the Willard Hotel, and he immediately left for the Capitol.

As the Great Depression continued to ravage the US, Dawes accepted President Herbert Hoover's appeal to leave diplomatic office and head the newly created Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).

As chairman of the failing Central Republic Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, he felt obligated to work for its rescue.

[43] In 1936, Republican congressional leaders informally approached Dawes about the possibility of heading up their presidential ticket at that year's presidential election, hoping for a candidate associated with the prosperous Coolidge years, but Dawes had no interest in returning to front-line politics; the (ultimately unsuccessful) ticket would instead be headed by Alf Landon.

[47] Dawes was also a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts from 1925 until his death in 1951[48] A Chicago public school located at 3810 W 81st Place is named in his honor, as are an Evanston public school at 440 Dodge Avenue and Evanston's Dawes Park at 1700 Sheridan Road.

His rare abilities, sound business judgment, and aggressive energy were invaluable in securing needed supplies for the Allied armies in Europe.

12 (1919))According to Annette Dunlap, Dawes was: a self-made man who valued hard work and thriftiness tempered with Christian generosity.