Francis B. Loomis

Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Francis Butler Loomis


order=25th
title=United States Assistant Secretary of State
term_start=January 7, 1903
term_end=October 10, 1905
predecessor=David Jayne Hill
successor=Robert Bacon
birth_date=1861
birth_place=
death_date=1948
death_place=San Francisco, California, U.S.
party=Republican
spouse=
profession=Journalist, Editor, Politician

Francis Butler Loomis (1861 – 1948) began his career as a newspaperman in his hometown of Marietta, Ohio, editing the Marietta Leader while a student at Marietta College. A year following his graduation in 1883, Loomis became a reporter for the New York Tribune and later assumed a campaign press relations position. He returned to Ohio to serve as state librarian for two years (from 1885 to 1887).

It was during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison that Loomis first entered government service as consul at Saint-Étienne, and at Grenoble, France, until 1893. For the next three years from 1893 to 1896, Loomis returned briefly to journalism as editor of the Cincinnati Daily Tribune. President William McKinley appointed him Ambassador to Venezuela in 1897 and to Portugal in 1901.

A year later, he was recalled to Washington DC and was appointed Assistant Secretary of State. He had once served as acting Secretary of State in 1905. It was during this tenure that he became associated with the reorganization of the American Red Cross, serving as a charter member. His commissions included final negotiations which resulted in the acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone, service as special ambassador to France to receive the body of John Paul Jones and Special Envoy Extraordinary to Japan, arranging the visit of the U.S. fleet to that country in 1908. Shortly before World War I Loomis returned to private business as foreign trade adviser to the Standard Oil Company serving until retirement.

He died in 1948 in the San Francisco Bay area in California.

External links

* [http://www.marietta.edu/alumni/honor/2001/loomisf.html Biography at Marietta College]
* [http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt609nc4zv/ Guide to the Francis Butler Loomis Papers: microfilm, 1897-1939]
* Mellander, Gustavo A.(1971)" The United States in Panamanian Politics: The Intriguing Formative Years". Daville,Ill.:Interstate Publishers. OCLC 138568.
* Mellander, Gustavo A.; Nelly Maldonado Mellander (1999). "Charles Edward Magoon: The Panama Years". Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Plaza Mayor. ISBN 1563281554. OCLC 42970390.