The Fifty-Second Wisconsin Legislature convened from January 13, 1915, to August 24, 1915, in regular session, and re-convened in a special session on October 10 and October 11, 1916.[1]
Senators representing odd-numbered districts were newly elected for this session and were serving the first two years of a four-year term. Assembly members were elected to a two-year term. Assembly members and odd-numbered senators were elected in the general election of November 3, 1914. Senators representing even-numbered districts were serving the third and fourth year of a four-year term, having been elected in the general election of November 5, 1912.[1]
Major events
May 7, 1915: The ocean liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk off the coast of Ireland.
January 24, 1916: The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., affirming the constitutionality of the federal income tax.
March 8, 1916: Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa led a force across the border into the U.S. state of New Mexico, killing twelve U.S. soldiers.
March 15, 1916: In response to the New Mexico raid, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson ordered 12,000 U.S. military personnel to cross into Mexico to hunt down Pancho Villa.
May 16, 1916: Following a coup in the Dominican Republic, United States marines landed in the country and began an eight-year occupation.
May 22, 1916: The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case Wisconsin v. Phila. & Reading Coal Co., finding that Wisconsin's corporate regulations placed an unconstitutional burden on corporations operating in Wisconsin but incorporated in other states.
June 13, 1916: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Defense Act of 1916, expanding the National Guard and creating an Officers Reserve Corps, Enlisted Reserve Corps, and the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and expanding the powers of the President to federalize the National Guard.
August 21, 1916: Wisconsin Supreme Court justice William H. Timlin died in office.
August 30, 1916: Governor Emanuel L. Philipp appointed Franz C. Eschweiler to begin his term early on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, following the death of justice William H. Timlin.
July 15, 1915: An Act ... abolishing the offices of state fish and game warden, state board of forestry, state conservation commission, commissioners of fisheries and the state park board, and providing for the appointment of a state conservation commission of Wisconsin, and making an appropriation, 1915 Act 406. Created the Wisconsin Conservation Commission.
July 19, 1915: An Act ... abolishing the state board of agriculture, the state board of immigration, the board of veterinary examiners, the state live stock sanitary board, the state inspector of apiaries, the state orchard and nursery inspector and the office of state veterinarian as now established ... creating a department of agriculture, a state live stock sanitary board, the office of state entomologist, a state fair advisory board, and prescribing their powers and duties, and making an appropriation, 1915 Act 413. Created the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and transformed several other farm examination entities.
^ ab"Biographical Sketches". The Wisconsin Blue Book 1915 (Report). Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. 1915. pp. 479–539. Retrieved February 7, 2023.
^ ab"Organization of Legislature of 1915". The Wisconsin Blue Book 1915 (Report). Industrial Commission of Wisconsin. 1915. pp. 475–477. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
