LOWDEN, FRANK ORREN ), American lawyer, farmer and politician, was born at Sunrise City (Minn.), on Jan. 26, 1861, the son of Lorenzo Orren and Nancy Elizabeth (Breg) Lowden. He was educated at the public schools of Point Pleasant (Ia.), assisting his father with farm work during the summer. At 15 he began teaching in Hardin county (Ia.), while he prepared for college. He graduated from Iowa State university with scholastic honours in 1885 and taught for a year in the high schools of Burlington (Ia.). In July 1886 he began the study of law in Chicago, and at the Union College of Law, from which he graduated, again with honours, in 1887. In 1890 he formed a partnership with Emery S. Walker; in 1892 a second one with William B. Keep. He married Florence, daughter of George M. Pullman of Chicago, on April 29, 1896. In March 1898 he became a member of the firm of Lowden, Estabrook and Davis and con tinued the practice of law until 1906. Since that time he has been actively engaged in farming and cattle raising at his home, Sinnis sippi Farm, Oregon (Ill.).
He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, 1900-04; a member of the Republican National Committee, 1904-12, and a member of the executive committee for the cam paigns of 1904 and 1908. He was elected to the 59th Congress to fill the unexpired term of R. R. Hitt, on Nov. 6, 1906 and re-elected to the 6oth and 61st Congresses (1907-11) from the 13th Illinois district. From 1917 to 1921 he was governor of
Illinois. He received 3111 votes for the presidential nomination in the Republican National Convention in 1920.
He has been president of the Holstein-Friesian Association of America since 1921, and is a director of the International Live Stock Exposition, National Dairy Association, National Dairy Council and other farm organizations, and actively associated with various national welfare movements. He has devoted much time to the advocacy and advancement of co-operative marketing of farm products. He has spoken upon agricultural problems and administrative reforms in many parts of the country, and has been a contributor to newspapers and magazines upon these sub jects. He was unanimously nominated for vice president of the United States in the Republican National Convention of and declined the nomination.
He was the author of "Too Much Government," World's Work, (Dec. j9261) ; "Our Governing Machine Halts and Creaks," New York Times (Dec. 27, 1925) ; "The American Farmer's Problem," Review of Reviews (July 1927) ; and a series of articles con cerning farm life in Denmark and Sweden, appearing in The Farmer, St. Paul (Minn.), Nov.-Dec., 1926, and in numerous standard agricultural publications.