Gillett, Frederick Hunting (1851-1935)

US politician. He was an assistant state attorney general and state senator. As a Republican representative of Massachusetts, he went to the US House of Representatives (1893-1925) where he championed the freedman's civil rights and denounced Tammany Hall's election practices. Chairman of the committee on civil service (1900-11), he initiated merit-based reforms with Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. Appalled by slipshod economic planning while on the Appropriations Committee (1902-18), he lobbied for an independent bureau of the budget, succeeding with the Budget Act of 1921. Elected Speaker of the House (1919-25), he won praise for his impartiality from both Democrats and Republicans, and he reluctantly gave up the position to run for the Senate (1925-35), where he supported the World Court.

Gillett was born in Westfield, Massachusetts. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard University law school, he began practising law in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1877. In 1934 he published George Frisbie Hoar, a biography of the US senator. He died, however, before completing his own memoirs.