{{short description|American politician}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Charles Lee Underhill | image = Charles Lee Underhill.png | state1 = [[Massachusetts]] | district1 = [[Massachusetts's 9th congressional district|9th]] | term_start1 = March 4, 1921 | term_end1 = March 3, 1933 | preceded1 = [[Alvan T. Fuller]] | succeeded1 = [[Robert Luce]] | office2 = Member of the [[Massachusetts House of Representatives]] | term2 = 1902–1903<br>1908–1913<br>1917–1918 | birth_date = July 20, 1867 | birth_place = [[Richmond, Virginia]] | death_date = January 28, 1946 (aged 78) | death_place = [[New York City|New York, New York]] | party = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] | spouse = | relations = | children = | alma_mater = | occupation = | profession = | signature = | website = | footnotes = }}

'''Charles Lee Underhill''' (July 20, 1867 – January 28, 1946) was a [[United States representative]] and [[Anti-suffragism|anti-suffrage]] activist from [[Massachusetts]]. He was born in [[Richmond, Virginia]] on July 20, 1867. He moved to Massachusetts in 1872 with his parents, who settled in [[Somerville, Massachusetts|Somerville]]. He attended the common schools, was office boy, coal teamster, and a blacksmith. He subsequently engaged in the manufacture and sale of hardware in that city.

Underhill served in the [[Massachusetts House of Representatives]] (1902-1903 and 1908-1913), and was a member of the State constitutional convention in 1917 and 1918. [[Image:Charles L. Underhill.png|thumb|left|Underhill as a young state Representative]]

Underhill was opposed to [[Women's suffrage|women voting]].<ref>{{cite book |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Committee on Woman Suffrage |url=https://archive.org/details/committeeonwoma00unkngoog |location=Washington DC |publisher=Government Printing Office |page=[https://archive.org/details/committeeonwoma00unkngoog/page/n65 59] |date=December 1913}} </ref> He was a state delegate of the [[Men's Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage]] to Washington DC in 1913.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Urge president suffrage cause |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/169041797/ |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |location=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |date=December 4, 1913 |access-date=March 22, 2020 }}</ref>

However, he held an opposite stance for the [[History of the Philippines (1898–1946)|Philippines]] which was then an American territory. He filed a bill in the Congress proposing that Filipina women be allowed to vote in the colony. Filipina suffragists were suspicious of the bill which they believe is a dangerous precedent of Americans interfering on Philippine affairs.<ref name=plaridel5>{{cite journal |last1=Alporha |first1=Veronica C. |title=Manuel L. Quezon and the Filipino women's suffrage movement of 1937 |journal= Plaridel|date=2021 |doi=10.52518/2021-08valpor |url=https://www.plarideljournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Early-View_2021-Alporha_2.pdf |access-date=2 January 2024 |publisher=UP College of Mass Communication|page=7}}</ref>

He was elected as a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] to the Sixty-seventh and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1921 – March 3, 1933). He was chairman of the Committee on Claims (Sixty-ninth and Seventieth Congresses) and the Committee on Accounts (Seventy-first Congress). He was not a candidate for renomination to the Seventy-third Congress. He then engaged in real estate development in [[Washington, D.C.]] from 1933 until he retired in 1941. Underhill died in [[New York City]] on January 28, 1946. His interment was in [[Mount Auburn Cemetery]] in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]].

==See also== * [[1918 Massachusetts legislature]] * [[1919 Massachusetts legislature]]

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links==

{{CongBio|U000006}}

{{S-start}} {{s-par|us-hs}} {{US House succession box | state=Massachusetts | district=9 | before=[[Alvan T. Fuller]] | after= [[Robert Luce]] | years=March 4, 1921 – March 3, 1933 }} {{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}

{{USRepMA}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Underhill, Charles Lee}} [[Category:1867 births]] [[Category:1946 deaths]] [[Category:Republican Party members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives]] [[Category:Members of the 1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention]] [[Category:Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery]] [[Category:Republican Party United States representatives from Massachusetts]] [[Category:American anti-suffragists]] [[Category:20th-century members of the Massachusetts General Court]] [[Category:20th-century United States representatives]]