United States Congressman and Senator. He gained a place in United States history when he was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Peter J. Otey, then reelected to the Fifty-eighth Congress and to the next eight succeeding Congresses, serving from 1902 to 1918. Since he had supported the Reserve Act after the banking panic of 1907 while he was in Congress, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Woodrow Wilson, serving from 1918 to 1920. In 1920, he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate, serving until his death at age 88. While in the Senate, he continued to support various bills to stabilize the Federal Reserve. He and Congressman Henry Steagall coauthored the Banking Act of 1933 or the Glass-Steagall Act. Steagall supported a Federal Deposit Insurance while Glass supported separating commercial from investment banking; each subject was addressed in the law. The 1999 law known as the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act” formally ended the separation of commercial and investment banking, yet the Steagall's Federal Deposit Insurance has survived and expanded from $2,500 per deposit in 1934 to $250,000 today. From 1941 to 1945, he was president pro tempore of the Senate. He declined a second appointment as Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The son of a newspaper man, he left school at an early age to learn the newspaper business. His family was left penniless after the Civil War, thus he needed to bring an income to his household. Although no formal college education, he was well-read and self-taught especially in history, arts, and of course, mathematics. After being a successful newspaper reporter, editor, and owner, he turned his career to politics becoming a member of the Virginia State Senate from 1899 to 1903 then on to the House of Representatives. He used his middle name of “Carter” instead of his first name of “George.” He married twice with him being an 82-years-old groom at the second marriage. His second wife became his private-duty nurse as he suffered with congested heart failure. Even though his health declined with aging, he refused to resign from the Senate, and toward the end of his life, missing 40% of his voting sessions. Three years before his death, another senator said in an attempt to justify Glass remaining in office while not able to serve, “He is very old and frail and something of a legend in the South.”