Frederick Landis

Early life

Born at Seven Mile, Ohio, Landis moved with his parents to Logansport, Indiana, in 1875. He attended the public schools. He was graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1895. He was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice at Logansport, Indiana.

Congress

Landis was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1907). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1906 to the Sixtieth Congress.

Later career as writer, newspaper editor, and death

He returned to Logansport and engaged in writing and lecturing. He was one of the organizers of the Progressive Party in 1912 and temporary chairman of its first State convention in Indiana.

He served as a delegate to the National Progressive Convention at Chicago in 1912. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor on the Progressive ticket in 1912. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the nomination for governor on the Republican ticket in 1928. He was an author and lecturer.

He wrote Glory of His Country about a man infiltrating the Copperheads* published in 1910. It was adapted by Augustus Thomas* into the play The Copperhead: A Story in Four Acts. In 1920 Lionel Barrymore starred in the successful film version The Copperhead.

He also wrote Angel of Lonesome Hill and edited the Logansport Pharos Tribune as well as The Hoosier Editor.

A print was made depicting his "farm residence".

Election return and death

Landis was elected to the Seventy-fourth Congress on November 6, 1934, but died in a hospital in Logansport, Indiana, November 15, 1934, before Congress had convened.

He was interred in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Writings

• The Glory of His Country
• The Angel of Lonesome Hill, A Story of a President (1910)
• Days Gone Dry (1919) with cartoons by Gaar Williams about prohibition

References

References

1. (9 November 1903). "S. Doc. 58-1 - Fifty-eighth Congress. (Extraordinary session -- beginning November 9, 1903.) Official Congressional Directory for the use of the United States Congress. Compiled under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing by A.J. Halford. Special edition. Corrections made to November 5, 1903". U.S. Government Printing Office.
2. https://www.in.gov/library/finding-aid/S0800%20Landis%20Frederick%20Papers.pdf{{Dead link. (September 2025)
3. Higgins, Belden & Co. (March 16, 1874). "(View) Farm Residences of Frederick Landis, Peter Fetters.".
4. "The Glory of His Country".
5. "The Angel of Lonesome Hill".
6. (March 16, 1919). "Days Gone Dry". Bobbs-Merrill Company.