David W. Stewart

Who was David W. Stewart?

David Wallace Stewart served as a United States Senator from Iowa from August 7, 1926, until March 3, 1927, serving out the unexpired term of a senator who died soon after he was defeated for re-election in a Republican primary.

Born in New Concord, Ohio, Stewart attended public schools and graduated from Geneva College in 1911. He came to Iowa in 1911, to coach at Cherokee, Iowa, and then coached and taught high school classes in Sioux City, Iowa until 1914. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1917. Serving in the U.S. Marine Corps in the First World War under General Smedley D. Butler, he served overseas as a first sergeant in Company K of the 53rd Regiment. Returning to Sioux City after the war, he resumed the practice of law. He was president of that city's Chamber of Commerce in 1925.

In early 1926, Stewart became active in the campaign to re-elect longtime Iowa Republican Senator Albert B. Cummins. Starting in April 1926, Cummins received a challenge from an "insurgent" candidate, former U.S. Senator Smith W. Brookhart. That month, Brookhart's Senate colleagues had ousted him from Iowa's other U.S.