Edward P. Costigan

Costigan of Colorado

Edward P. Costigan

By Ray Hill The most widely read news magazine in the world, TIME, aptly noted, “One way to spoil a party of which you disapprove is to leave it, making a disturbance as you go.” That was the description TIME used to report the resignation of Edward Prentiss Costigan from the Federal Tariff Commission. At the time of his resignation, Costigan was the longest-serving member of the Federal Tariff Commission after eleven years of service. Edward Costigan was also the last person serving on the FTC who had been appointed by President Woodrow Wilson. Costigan had been a progressive Republican who had supported Theodore Roosevelt’s third-party candidacy in 1912. After a failed gubernatorial campaign as a “Progressive” in 1914, Costigan became a Democrat.