Charles L. Gifford

Charles Laceille Gifford (March 15, 1871 – August 23, 1947) was a United States representative from Massachusetts He was born in Cotuit on March 15, 1871. Through his father he was a descendant of Robert Pike, George Phillips, Richard Saltonstall and William Phelps, through his mother he was a descendant of John Humphrey, Thomas Hastings (colonist) and the Quaker Christopher Holder. Gifford attended the common schools and taught in Massachusetts and Connecticut from 1890 to 1900. He later engaged in the real estate business on Cape Cod as the owner of several summer cottages rented by vacationers and the operator of the Cotuit Inn. Gifford then became interested in oyster raising as president of the Cotuit Oyster Company and in cranberry farming.

He was elected a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1912–1913) and served in the Massachusetts State Senate (1914–1919).

He was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph Walsh and, the same day, was elected to the Sixty-eighth Congress. He was reelected to the Sixty-ninth and to the eleven succeeding Congresses and served from November 7, 1922, to his death. He was chairman of the Committee on Elections No. 3 (Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses) and the Committee on Election of President, Vice President, and Representatives (Seventy-first Congress). He was in favor of helping Great Britain during World War II before American entry into the war. This was the issue on which he ran in the 1940 House election, his opponent was isolationist Democrat George F. Backus who was outspokenly antisemitic and anti-British. Gifford countered by being outspokenly pro-British and denouncing antisemitism. Gifford voted in favor of the 1941 Lend Lease Act.

Gifford died in Cotuit on August 23, 1947, and was buried in Cotuit's Mosswood Cemetery.