He was appointed by President
William McKinley as the United States Collector of Customs (then called surveyor of customs) at Pittsburgh in 1898. He was reappointed by President
Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 and 1906 and by President
William Taft in 1910, serving until March 3, 1915. He served as vice president of the
American Federation of Labor, as member of the Pittsburgh School Board, and as a member of the borough council of
Edgewood, Pennsylvania.
Congress Garland was elected as a Republican to the
Sixty-fourth,
Sixty-fifth, and
Sixty-sixth Congresses and served until his death. He served as Chairman of the
United States House Committee on Mines and Mining during the Sixty-sixth Congress. He had been reelected to the
Sixty-seventh Congress, but died in
Washington, D.C. on November 19, 1920, before the new session began. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Pittsburgh. ==See also==