Biography of
Hon. Willis Duff Piercy

p. 1284

     In the fall of 1901 he went to Greenville, Illinois, as superintendent of the city schools and served in  that capacity until the spring of 1903. In the ensuing fall he entered Harvard University, and in the spring of 1904 was granted the degree of Master of Arts from that institution in the department of English. Previously, while teaching school in Jefferson county, he had read law and had passed the bar examinations, being admitted to the bar in 1895. He served as private secretary to Congressman M. D. Foster of the Twenty-third district of Illinois, from March 4, 1907, to March 4, 1909, and resided in Washington, D. C., during the winter of 1907-08. His connection with the Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, of New York City, had dated from a time several years previous and he had represented this concern for some three years. In 1908, upon his return from the national capital, he again became associated with the Merrill Company and still retains his connection with it in the capacity of representative for Southern Illinois.  

     The fact that Mr. Piercy had gained the confidence and admiration of the community in which he is best known is by no means difficult of P. 1285 explanation, and nothing could have been more appropriate than his election, in the fall of 1910, as representative from the Forty-sixth district to the lower house of the state assembly. He is now serving his first term and has given “a taste of his quality,” which has abundantly proved the wisdom of his constituents and which makes subsequent political preferment a logical outcome. He was by no means a figurehead at Springfield in one of the most important sessions of the assembly, matching swords with Lee O‘Neil Browne in the arena of debate, to the discomfiture of that politician. He was instrumental in killing Browne‘s “Libel Bill,” working strenuously and speaking effectively against a measure which he believed pernicious in the extreme. In fact, he was credited by the St. Louis Republic and several other journals as having himself dealt the death blow to the bill. His address against the bill was published throughout the United States and made for him more than a state-wide reputation in a day. In April, 1912, the Democrats of the Forty-sixth senatorial district, comprising the counties of Jefferson, Wayne, Richland and Jasper, nominated Mr. Piercy as their candidate for state senator, without opposition.