Rice W. Means (November 16, 1877 - January 30, 1949) was a United States Senator from Colorado. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, he moved with his parents to Yuma County, Colorado in 1887. He settled in Denver in 1889, and attended the public schools and Sacred Heart College. During the Spanish-American War, he commanded a company of scouts in the Philippine campaign of 1889. In 1901, he graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Denver. From 1902 to 1904, he was county judge of Adams County, and in 1908 was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Sixty-first United States Congress. Means served during the First World War as a lieutenant colonel and commandant of the Fortieth Division School of Arms, and was commander in chief of the Army of the Philippines in 1913 and of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1914. He was not a candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1920, and was attorney for the city and county of Denver in 1923 and 1924. Means was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on November 4, 1924, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Samuel D. Nicholson and served from December 1, 1924, to March 3, 1927. While in the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on Claims (Sixty-ninth Congress). In 1926 he was an unsuccessful candidate.
According to many he was also a member of the KKK.
In 1926 and 1927, Means was commander in chief of the United Spanish War Veterans, and president of the National Tribune Corporation and publisher of the National Tribune and Stars and Stripes at Washington, D.C. from 1927 to 1937, when he retired. Means died in Denver and was interred in Fairmount Cemetery.
This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
