Theodore Arlington Bell
Theodore Arlington Bell was a Democratic politician from California.Biography
Born in Vallejo, California on July 25, 1872 to Charles E. Bell and Catherine J. Bell, he and his family moved to St. Helena, California in 1876 where he attended primary school at the Crystal Spring school.
At 18, he received a certificate to teach, doing so for a year and a half in northern Napa County, during which time he continued to study law. After his admission to the bar on July 25, 1893, he began his political career as District Attorney of Napa County, California from 1895 to 1903. During this time, he was married to his wife, Anna Marie Muller, with whom he had one daughter, Maurine.
With the backing of former San Francisco mayor and future U.S. Senator James D. Phelan, Bell was elected to the 58th Congress representing California's 2nd district. While serving, he was a member of the House Irrigation of Arid Lands Committee. In the 1904 election, he was defeated by Republican Duncan E. McKinlay. He went on to run for Governor of California in 1906, 1910 and 1918, losing twice as a Democrat and once as an Independent. He was a delegate to the 1908 Democratic National Convention, where he gave William Jennings Bryan's nomination speech, and 1912 Democratic National Convention before later switching parties to become a Republican in 1921.
Though Bell himself, representing California wine country, was not a prohibitionist, his mentor Phelan was a strong teetotaler. To accommodate both sides, he lobbied for a tax increase on wines with sugar, which came from out of state. In doing so, he made a move to regulate the consumption of alcohol, which would not hurting local vintners but would increase tax revenue and decrease the likelihood of prohibition.
On September 4, 1922, he was killed in a car crash in Marin County, California. He is interred at Odd Fellows Cemetery in St. Helena.
