Harry Bartow Hawes (November 15, 1869 – July 31, 1947) was an American lawyer, conservationist, and politician who served as a Democratic member of the U.S. House and Senate from Missouri.

Hawes is best known for the Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act, the first U.S. law granting independence to the Philippines, and for earlier work assisting the Republic of Hawaii become a U.S. territory.

An old friend and Army comrade of his fathers soon found Hawes a position with the Third National Bank of St. Louis, where he worked while also pursuing higher education in his free time.

He served as a delegate to the Trans-Mississippi Congress, a convention held in Salt Lake City, Utah, to discuss matters of statehood for existing U.S. territories and annexation of new lands.

[3] A non-binding resolution in support of making Hawaii a U.S. territory was passed in no small part due to Hawes outspoken debate in favor.

[3][5] His Hawaiian goals achieved, Hawes returned to St. Louis, where on November 13, 1899, he married Eppes Osborne Robinson,[1] whose own family's political pedigree traced back in Virginia to pre-Revolutionary War days.

[3] Around the same time, in 1898, Harry Hawes was appointed to the St. Louis Board of Police by an old friend, Missouri Governor Lon Vest Stephens.

Thousands of labor supporters rallied on behalf of the workers and considerable damage to property ensued over the spring and summer months, prompting a Federal judge to order Hawes and the Police Board to swear in a 2,500 man posse comitatus to help stop the unrest.

He also served as chairman of the Good Roads committee and led the effort to pass a $60 million bond issue for creation of the states first highway system.

[8] Alleged voting irregularities, including destroyed ballots, led Bogy to mount a legal challenge to the election outcome.

This tied in with his earlier involvement with the Lakes to the Gulf Waterway Association when his "Missouri Plan" for levees along the Mississippi River was passed by Congress in 1929.

Created in conjunction with Representative Butler B. Hare of South Carolina and New Mexico Senator Bronson M. Cutting, the act aimed to grant the Philippine Islands full independence in graduated steps over a ten-year period.

His father was in failing health due to lingering wounds from his Civil War service, but worked for a time as manager of a wholesale lumber business before dying in 1889.

[10] Like his older brother before, a position with Third National Bank of St. Louis was secured for Richard S. Hawes and he would later become a prominent Missouri financier.