William S. Holman

William Steele Holman
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district
In office March 4, 1859 – March 3, 1865
Preceded by	James B. Foley
Succeeded by	John H. Farquhar
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district
In office March 4, 1867 – March 3, 1869
Preceded by	John H. Farquhar
Succeeded by	George W. Julian
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 3rd district
In office March 4, 1869 – March 3, 1875
Preceded by	Morton C. Hunter
Succeeded by	Michael C. Kerr
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 5th district
In office March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1877
Preceded by	John Coburn
Succeeded by	Thomas M. Browne
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district
In office March 4, 1881 – March 3, 1895
Preceded by	Jeptha D. New
Succeeded by	James E. Watson
Member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Indiana's 4th district
In office March 4, 1897 – April 22, 1897
Preceded by	James E. Watson
Succeeded by	Francis M. Griffith
Member of the Indiana House of Representatives
In office 1851–1852
Personal details
Born	September 6, 1822 Dearborn County Indiana
Died	April 22, 1897 (aged 74) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Abigail Knapp
Residence	Indiana
Profession	lawyer, judge

William Steele Holman (September 6, 1822 – April 22, 1897) was a lawyer, judge and politician from Dearborn County, Indiana. He was a member of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. Representative from 1859 to 1865, 1867 to 1877, 1881 to 1895, and 1897, spanning sixteen Congresses. He is known for originating the Holman Rule, allowing amendments to appropriations bills cut a specific program or federal employee salary. He died in office in 1897, a month after his last election.

Holman was born at "Veraestau", a son of Jesse Lynch Holman (1784-1842). He attended Franklin College from 1840 to 1842. In 1843, he was admitted to the Dearborn County bar association and served as probate judge from 1843 to 1846, followed by a two-year term as a prosecuting attorney from 1847 to 1849. Holman was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1851 and 1852; from 1852 to 1856, he served as Judge for the Court of Common Pleas.

In 1842, Holman married Abigail Knapp. They had one son named William S. Holman, Jr.

As congressman, Holman was most known for his opposition to government spending, especially in subsidies and aid to private enterprises, notably the transcontinental railroad lines. Throughout the 1880s, he did what he could to have the federal government take back the public lands given to some of the largest companies, which had failed to fulfill the work promised on time. Nor did he have patience with the cattle-barons that had fenced off nationally-owned land as if it were their own domain. That made him the ideal choice to chair the Committee on Public Lands in the 1880s, and his work at forcing railroad companies to disgorge probably restored millions of acres for actual settlers to take up. He hated any kind of government spending, from river and harbor improvements to salary increases for officeholders. "When Mr. Holman takes his walks abroad and sees Government clerks promenading the avenue in coachmen's coats and toothpick canes he 'objects,'" a Republican newspaper jeered. When a Republican proposed an appropriation to take observations on the transit of Venus, Holman objected. It would do no practical good, he insisted. That kind of learning was all humbug, anyhow. But he also fought hard against congressmen raising their own pay, and in 1873 made himself one of the most active opponents of the so-called "back pay" grab, where lawmakers raised their salaries retrospectively. The following winter, he tried to bring the Democratic House caucus into line behind a resolution repudiating the grab, and was so abused that, according to general reports, he went off on a several-day binge. ("Holman does go off on sprees & may be off now," his friend and colleague, Congressman Samuel S. "Sunset" Cox wrote a friend; "but he is honest & just above all men I ever knew here. He will stay 6 months sober; & then break. Don't allow him to be abused or slandered.") The big-navy advocates knew in him an inveterate enemy, and when he found a place on the Select Committee on American Ship-Building, the Washington Post growled that Americans had "a great, unutterable yearning ... to behold a ship made on the Holman plan." No doubt many such could be made, it thought—just big enough to be hung on watch-chains "or otherwise employed as curios." Admirers called him "the watchdog of the Treasury" and the "Treasury Cerberus," though a few critics noticed that the watchdog sometimes seemed to be taking a well-deserved nap when a bill paying one of his constituents came up.

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