Fascinating Politics

Warren Magnuson: Washington’s Legislative Powerhouse

In 1936, liberal Marion Zioncheck of Seattle, perhaps having cracked under the strain of hard work in Congress, began displaying numerous symptoms of mental illness. However, he knew that the public would not be interested in him having another term, thus he chose not to run and endorsed his friend, Warren Grant Magnuson (1905-1989). Sadly, Zioncheck committed suicide before the end of his term. Magnuson picked up where his friend left off.

Interestingly, although Magnuson’s official birth date is April 12, 1905, he was born to parents that he never knew, and it is possible that this isn’t his real birth date. As an infant he was adopted by William and Emma Magnuson, who named him Warren. He would play football in high school and earned a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Washington School of Law. He was always a Democrat, campaigning for Al Smith in 1928 and backing A. Scott Bullitt’s run for governor, but the time for Democrats had not quite come yet. With the Great Depression, Magnuson and the Democrats soared, with him serving as as special prosecutor of King County, and from 1933 to 1935 he was in the Washington State House, and from 1934 to 1936 was elected prosecutor of King County.

As noted in previous posts, Washington was a state particularly associated with the political left in the 1930s, even radically so. After his election to Congress in 1936, Magnuson was almost entirely faithful to the New Deal and to FDR’s foreign policy with the sole exception of his vote against military conscription in 1940. He also voted against the Reciprocal Trade Act extension that year, and he was not alone among Washington Democrats in regarding trade policy as harming the state’s lumber industry. Magnuson was also quick to have an achievement while in office; in 1937, he was a one of the sponsors of the National Cancer Institute Act. Magnuson briefly served his country in the Navy during World War II, but chose to stay in office after President Roosevelt in 1942 ordered legislators to either choose to serve in Congress or the military. In 1943, Magnuson sponsored the law repealing the Chinese Exclusion Act after Madame Kai Shek delivered a speech before Congress in which she noted the contradiction of having China as an ally while refusing to admit its people. On November 13, 1944, Senator Homer T. Bone resigned as he had been confirmed for a federal judgeship and Magnuson was elected in a special election to finish his term on December 14, 1944. He had faced Tacoma Mayor Harry P. Cain, would join him in the Senate with his victory in the 1946 election. Magnuson proved a strong supporter of President Truman and the Fair Deal and was a firm friend of organized labor and a foe of Republican-backed tax reduction. However, he would differ in his support of a wool tariff in 1947.

In 1955, Magnuson became the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. In this post he weighed in heavily on regulating the market, pushing for consumer protection laws, auto safety laws, and other measures. He was critical in limiting oil tankers traveling through the Puget Sound. Even though President Eisenhower won Washington in his reelection bid, Magnuson was so popular at the time that he won all counties against former Republican Governor Arthur B. Langlie. He was not only popular with the voters, but also his colleagues given his amiable and agreeable nature. Magnuson also was a bit of a party guy, having being a hard drinker and having numerous girlfriends since his divorce from his first wife in 1935 until settling in 1964. His colleague, Scoop Jackson, would from time to time lecture him, “Maggie, you gotta live a better life!” (Scott) From 1955 to 1959, the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action gave him a 15% for how often he sided with their positions. His strongest area of conservatism was his support for some foreign aid cuts and an occasional anti-communist amendment in foreign policy.

Magnuson was a strong supporter of the New Frontier, and although he was no less or more liberal by 1962, he attracted a strong challenge in Republican Richard G. Christensen, a Lutheran minister, who held him to less than a five point margin. He also proved a strong supporter of the Great Society, and played a significant role in the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Magnuson was, unsurprisingly, a strong supporter of civil rights and helped get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to passage. In 1968, Magnuson faced Republican State Senator and future Congressman Jack Metcalf for reelection, but he won by nearly 30 points. The following ad certainly helped:

A Power Team: Maggie and Scoop

Magnuson was commonly nicknamed “Maggie”, which dated to his high school football football, but he was not fond of the nickname and friends would not refer to him by that name. He and Henry “Scoop” Jackson represented Washington together for 28 years, and although the two men roughly shared the same ideological space, they could have some differences. For instance, on the Vietnam War, Magnuson differed from Jackson as he was a dove, voting for the Cooper-Church Amendment and the McGovern-Hatfield “End the War” Amendment in 1970. During the Eisenhower Administration, Magnuson had been more likely to favor foreign aid cuts than Jackson, but largely agreed with him on getting tough on crime, voting with him on “no knock” warrants in 1970 as well as reinstatement of the death penalty in 1974. Both of them also strongly aligned on keeping federal funding for the Supersonic Transport, a Boeing project.

The Apex of Power

In 1974, Magnuson won reelection by over 24 points, once again against Jack Metcalf. The following year, he would collaborate with Senator Frank Moss (D-Utah) to pass the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which sets certain standards for products that have warranties to prevent warranties that are misleading to consumers. In the next year, he collaborated with Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to pass the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation Management Act, With the election of President Jimmy Carter, Magnuson would reach the height of his power; after Senator John McClellan (D-Ark.) died in 1977, he moved from Commerce to Appropriations. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he steered a lot of federal money to Washington, as senators usually do for their home states. Vice President Walter Mondale joked, “He is scrupulously fair with federal funds; one half for Washington state, one half for the rest of the country” (Scott). He was also President Pro Tem after the retirement of James Eastland (D-Miss.). In 1980, Magnuson opposed the scope of trucking deregulation proposed by the Carter Administration, and wanted to maintain stronger standards for trucking certificates to be given out, but his effort to do so failed.

Although Magnuson had overwhelmingly won in 1974, six years and a Republican officeholder made a difference. By 1980, he was a 75-year-old diabetic and he looked it, but worse was this time it was the Democrats who were saddled with an unpopular president; Carter had not won Washington in 1976. Although he got advice to retire, he did not heed it (Saxon). The result was Republican Slade Gorton, who was quite a contrast to Magnuson, being thin and 23 years younger, defeating him by over seven points. From 1947 to 1980, Magnuson sided with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 78% of the time and the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 13% of the time from 1955 to 1980. His DW-Nominate score stands at -0.325, thus he overall stands as a little bit more liberal than his colleague, Scoop Jackson. Despite Magnuson’s apparently worse health than Scoop’s with his diabetes causing him increasing health problems in his last years, he’d outlive him by six years, succumbing to advanced diabetes and heart failure on May 20, 1989 at the age of 84. To this day, Magnuson is Washington’s longest serving senator and also the longest serving incumbent to be defeated for reelection.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Magnuson, Warren Grant. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5913/warren-grant-magnuson

Saxon, W. (1989, May 21). Warren G. Magnuson Dies at 84; Held Powerful Positions in Senate. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Scott, K. (2017, August 9). Opinion: Our Senior-Junior Senator. The Wenatchee World.

Retrieved from

https://www.cantwell.senate.gov/news/news-about-maria/opinion-our-senior-junior-senator

Van Dyk, T. (2005, April 13). Warren Magnuson was one of a kind. Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Retrieved from

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/warren-magnuson-was-one-of-a-kind-1170826.php
Fascinating Politics

American Radicals #3: Frederick Vanderbilt Field

Some dyed-in-the-wool left-wingers seem to be of the belief that if you are rich, you cannot be a leftist. One figure who proves them wrong is the late Frederick Vanderbilt Field (1905-2000).

A great great grandson of the famous railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, Frederick Vanderbilt Field was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but his worldview would fundamentally change when he went to college. His time studying at the London School of Economics convinced him that socialism was the way of the future and that the wealthy were completely out of touch with the plight of the less fortunate, but on his return to America he found that the 1920s Democratic Party lacked interest in socialism, thus he joined up with the Socialist Party and endorsed Norman Thomas’s 1928 run for president. This made him a disgrace to the family, and his great uncle and namesake, Frederick Vanderbilt, financially cut him off. The Great Depression convinced Field that the Socialist Party wasn’t enough, and moved to supporting the Communist Party.

This support was financial, with him becoming known as “the Reds’ pet blueblood” as well as him participating in communist organizations and pickets. During the Moscow Trials, Field (1983) recalled defending them by saying “because Comrade Stalin says so, we have to believe the trials are just” (22). In 1940, as executive secretary of the American Peace Mobilization (which would be identified as a communist front by Attorney General Tom C. Clark in 1947), he strongly opposed the U.S. getting involved in World War II but immediately switched to interventionism when Hitler betrayed Stalin with Operation Barbarossa, consistent with the communist line. In 1942, FDR’s administrative assistant Lauchlin Currie (now known to have been a Soviet agent) attempted to get Field a military intelligence post, this was denied as he was considered a security risk. It is not confirmed whether Field actually joined the Communist Party itself, but he in every way behaved as a member. Indeed, in 1949, he identified himself as an “American Communist”. Field also notably was a member of the Institute of Pacific Relations, which was used to advance the cause of Mao and his communists in China and with communist Philip Jaffe he founded the institute’s journal, Amerasia, which was pro-Mao.

Field was undoubtedly an agent of influence for the USSR in the United States, and may have even been an intelligence agent for them. Indeed, Whittaker Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, and Louis F. Budenz attested to his activities in the Communist underground, with Bentley testifying that meetings of Soviet agents were hosted by Field. He served as secretary to the Civil Rights Congress, which was identified as a communist front by Attorney General Tom C. Clark, and in this position he coordinated the collection of the bail money for eight communists who jumped bail and disappeared after their convictions for violation of the Smith Act. In 1951, Field was sentenced to 90 days in prison for failure to disclose the providers of the bail money, and served two months in federal prison at Ashland, Kentucky. That year, Life Magazine (1951) quoted him as saying, ”You can get stinking drunk at the Stork Club every night and still be held in the highest esteem, but if you write or even believe anything different, then you’re a traitor to your class” (Nemy). In December 1953, finding the political climate of the US untenable, he moved to Mexico, where he was an unsuccessful businessman and an amateur archaeologist until his return to the United States in 1982. In his autobiography, Field (1983) denied having been a member of the party, but conceded that “I suppose I was what the Party called a ‘member at large” (22). He lived in Minneapolis until his death on February 1, 2000 at the age of 94. Even if Field was not a member of the Communist Party, he was in thought and deed a communist at least up into the 1950s.

References

Communists: Life of an Angel. (1950, January 8). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6613971/communists-life-of-an-angel

Field, F.V. (1983). From Right to Left: An Autobiography. Brooklyn, NY: Lawrence Hill.

Nemy, E. (2000, February 7). Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Wealthy Leftist, Dies at 94. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

White, W.S. (1951, July 27). Field Says He Was Invited to Seek Air Intelligence Post. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Fascinating Politics

Other Bachelors (or Bachelorettes) in American Political History

On July 11th, Senator Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly of an aortic dissection, and he was, among other things, known for being a lifelong bachelor. This has long led to rumors and a few men claiming to have had sexual encounters with him. He denied it, and confirmation of these claims has yet to arise. Graham is not alone in American history among those who have been unmarried for either all or most of their lives. Ten prominent bachelors or bachelorettes included:

James Buchanan – The most famous of all of them, Buchanan is the only president to never have married. Although he was at one time engaged to Anne C. Coleman, but they broke up and she not too long after committed suicide. He was known for his close friendship with Senator William Rufus King of Alabama (and shortly VP), a friendship that has been the source of tremendous historical speculation. I personally don’t know why some gay people have clamored for Buchanan to have been one of them, as he was one of the worst presidents. Is it better to have no or terrible representation?

William Rufus King – King was a longtime senator from Alabama and was vice president for 45 days, as he died from tuberculosis. He was known for his support of slavery and his opposition to secession but also known for his effeminate mannerisms and close friendship with fellow bachelor James Buchanan, which has contributed to historical speculations about his sexuality.

Samuel J. Tilden – Tilden, a reformer Democratic Governor of New York, he is the only person in history to win the majority (as opposed to plurality) of votes and still not be elected president, which happened in the earthquake that was the 1876 election. Had he been elected, he would have been the second president to never have been married.

Frank Brandegee – Brandegee was a conservative stalwart from Connecticut, who served in the House from 1901 to 1905, and then in the Senate from 1905 until his suicide in 1924. He was known for his skills in debate, irreconcilable opposition to the Versailles Treaty, and his staunch opposition to women’s suffrage and from what I’ve read of him I get the impression that he was afraid of women.

Sam Rayburn – Rayburn was the longest-serving House Speaker in American history, serving in Congress from Texas from 1913 to his death in 1961, he was only married for three months before separation, with divorce official a year after the marriage. His wife disagreed with his lifestyle of drinking whiskey and playing cards with friends. Rayburn never remarried and LBJ saw great advantage in acting as a son he never had, including having him over for dinner every Sunday.

David I. Walsh – Massachusetts senator from 1919 to 1925 and again from 1926 to 1947. Walsh was a pioneer for Irish Catholic Democrats in the state but his bachelor life led to many questions, and indeed of all the individuals on the list, the claim that he was actually gay has the strongest support and although he never admitted it publicly, it was considered an open secret in Washington.

Joe Martin – Martin was the leader of the House Republicans from 1939 to 1959 and served in Congress from 1925 to 1967. He never married and indeed had few focuses in his life other than caring for his mother, politics, and collecting elephant figurines. There hasn’t been any speculation about his sexuality, and from what I’ve read about him he was painfully shy around women.

Richard Russell – Russell was a powerful Georgia senator and unofficial leader of the Senate’s Southern Democrats, serving in the Senate from 1933 until his death in 1971. Although he dated, he never married and saw LBJ as the son he never had. However, the two ultimately parted ways over Russell’s refusal to support Abe Fortas for chief justice.

Barbara Jordan – The first black representative from Texas, Jordan represented Houston from 1973 to 1979 as a prominent member of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and although she never publicly acknowledged her sexuality, she had a live-in domestic partner, Nancy Earl, for 20 years until her death in 1996. As she was unmarried, Jordan was technically a

Condoleeza Rice – National security advisor and Secretary of State during the second Bush Administration. She has dated men and was once engaged to Denver Broncos wide receiver Rick Upchurch.

Fascinating Politics

Clarence C. Dill: Washington’s Builder Senator

As noted in my post on Wesley Jones, the Republicans used to be the dominant party in Washington. The first figure to really stand out as changing this status quo was Clarence Cleveland Dill (1884-1978). Like many early Washingtonians, Dill was not born in the state, having been born and raised in Ohio. After attending Ohio Wesleyan University and finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware in 1907. The following year, Dill moved to Spokane, Washington, where he taught English, was a journalist, and pursued a career in law. As a prominent citizen, he was sufficiently known to run for public office.

In 1914, Dill was elected to the newly created 5th district, which was based in Spokane and unlike today, was the most amenable district to electing Democrats at the time. In 1916, Dill won reelection while Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes won the state and the state’s other Republicans were returned to office. Dill supported both Prohibition and women’s suffrage, as did other Washingtonians in Congress. However, a critical decision in the next year would change this for Dill: World War I.

In 1917, he was one of 50 representatives to vote against American entrance into World War I, and defended the civil liberties of war dissenters. His vote against World War I was deeply controversial, including with the Spokane Democratic Party, which considered censuring him for the vote, but declined to do so (Kershner). Although the Democrats did not censure him, his vote cost him reelection to Republican J. Stanley Webster, justice of the Washington Supreme Court. Although down, Dill was not out of the game, not by a long shot.

By 1922, the issue of having voted against World War I was passe, which was most unfortunate for Senator Miles Poindexter, whose use of the vote against Dill proved insufficient to keep him in office. Clarence Dill, who campaigned to repeal the Esch-Cummins Act (a law returning the railroads to the private sector that included favorable terms for the railroads and an anti-strike clause) and for the Columbia Basin Project defeated Poindexter by less than two points, the margin of victory certainly being lessened by the presence of Farmer-Labor candidate James A. Duncan. This was the first time in Washington’s history that its voters had elected a Democrat.

Dill stood as a progressive in the Senate like he had in the House, and he joked that the North Pole should be renamed to “Coolidgeland” as “it is so cold and silent” (Hill). However, he was inclined to side with the GOP on the issue of tariffs, being especially supportive of lumber tariffs, and played a key role in enacting a significant law of the Coolidge era. In 1927, Senator Dill sponsored with Rep. Wallace White (R-Me.) the Radio Act of 1927. Since radio was a fairly young technology back then, few politicians knew the ins-and-outs, and thus it was up to Dill and White to craft a law to effectively regulate the at-the-time chaotic airwaves and end signal interference, a law that created the Federal Radio Commission and was satisfactory to the conservatism of President Coolidge, who signed the measure on February 23, 1927. The following year, he won reelection against Washington Chief Justice Kenneth Mackintosh by seven points in what was an excellent year for Republicans, including in Washington. What’s more, Dill prevailed despite being from a region not favored by the press establishment of Washington, which was concentrated in the Puget Sound, and from a party not favored by its establishment, the latter being quite the reversal from what it is today (Irish, 7).

In 1932, Dill extracted a promise from Democratic presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt to support the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. The Dam would be constructed between 1933 and 1942, with Dill becoming known as the “Father of the Grand Coulee Dam”. This dam would have great importance for war production during World War II, as the power generated from it resulted in the production of 60% of the aluminum for the nation’s planes (Irish, 6). Although Dlll proved a strong supporter of the New Deal and supported the First 100 Days legislation, he made a few exceptions in his support for Roosevelt. In 1934, he voted against the Reciprocal Trade Act as he believed it would harm the local fishing and lumber industries and that year he also voted against the confirmation of New Deal Brain Truster Rexford G. Tugwell as Secretary of Agriculture. The death of Dill’s colleague, Wesley Jones, had a strong impact on his interest in the Senate, with him choosing not to run for a third term in 1934. However, Dill did not leave before having one more accomplishment: the sponsoring of the Communications Act of 1934 with Rep. Sam Rayburn (D-Tex.), which replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and moved regulation of telephone companies from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the FCC (Hill). It is interesting to think that Dill, the pioneer of the Democratic rise in Washington, was leaving just as Washington Democrats had become the undisputed power in the state. Despite the perception of him as a progressive and his numerous votes for such positions, his DW-Nominate score is a surprisingly high -0.022, which may have been due to, among a few other things, his favorable stance on tariffs, which admittedly was quite a pillar of Republican politics of his day.

In 1940, Dill wanted to get back into the game and ran for governor, campaigning as “The Builder” and with good reason with his successes as senator with the Radio Act and the Federal Communications Act and the Grand Coulee Dam, but despite many Democratic successes in Washington that year, he was narrowly defeated by Seattle Mayor Arthur B. Langlie (yes, Seattle once did elect Republican mayors) by less than a point. He tried again for public office in 1942, when he attempted to return to his old district, but Republican Walt Horan defeated him by 25 points; the Spokane-based district he had once represented had shifted decisively to the GOP, where it is today. Dill hadn’t known it when he left the Senate, but at 50 his time in elected office was over. He never again ran for public office, but he did serve on two posts during the Truman Administration: on the Columbia Basin Commission from 1945 to 1948, and as special assistant to the Attorney General from 1946 to 1953. Although Dill was blessed with long life, living for 43 years after his retirement from the Senate and 25 years after his retirement from politics, Professor Kerry Irish (2002) notes the downside of this, “Clarence Dill retired too early from the Senate and lived too long afterward for his death to receive a great amount of attention” (3). He died on January 14, 1978, at the age of 93. Much had changed in the world since Dill’s birth, and he had been part of it. He had been born during the era of the horse and buggy and died at the height of Disco.

References

Dill, Clarence Cleveland. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/2595/clarence-cleveland-dill

Hill, R. (2025). The Evergreen State’s Visionary: Clarence C. Dill. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

The Evergreen State’s Visionary: Clarence C. Dill

Irish, K.E. (2002). Clarence Dill’s West: Building Dams and Dreams. Columbia.

Retrieved from

https://npshistory.com/publications/laro/c-v16n3-2002-1.pdf

Kershner, J. (2018, March 17). 100 years ago in Spokane: County Democrats come to near blows. The Spokesman-Review.

Retrieved from

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/mar/17/100-years-ago-in-spokane-county-democrats-come-nea
Fascinating Politics

Wesley Jones: The Evergreen State Moralist

In 2022, Washington Republicans thought they just might have a shot in winning a Senate seat from Washington with Tiffany Smiley, but she was defeated by 15 points. Indeed, Republicans have not won a Senate seat from the state since 1994. However, at one time, Republicans were the status quo of Washington, and the foremost representative of this status quo was Wesley Livsey Jones (1863-1932).

An Illinoisan by birth, Jones found his way to the Republican Party before he found his way to Washington. He studied law and with this came an an enthusiasm for politics. In 1884, he energetically campaigned for James G. Blaine and did likewise for Benjamin Harrison in 1888 (Forth, 3). The following year, Washington was admitted, and he moved to North Yakima to establish his law practice. Jones continued to be active in the Republican Party, and although Republicans had a bit of a hiccup with Democrat William Jennings Bryan winning the state in 1896 over the currency issue, the 1898 midterms proved to be better for them, and Jones went head to head against Congressman J. Hamilton Lewis, who would do the opposite of Jones by moving to Illinois for his later political career. Dubbing him “Yakima Jones”, he was described in the press as “a plain solid looking sort of man…of medium height, broad shouldered and strong, he looks what he is, a man of intelligence” (Papavizas). Although a debate between him and Lewis was reported by some sources as a disaster for him, others thought that Jones had trounced Lewis, and Jones ultimately benefited from the US victory in the Spanish-American War and was elected. This was the start of a long, successful career in Washington. Lewis would serve as a senator from Illinois from 1913 to 1919 and again from 1931 to 1939.

Congressman Jones

Jones regarded himself as a “conservative progressive”, meaning that he supported reform pushes he considered to be moderate while rejecting radicalism, thus he was seen as a moderate during the Progressive Era (Papavizas). This was pretty safe for Washington’s politics, which although they were inclined towards Republicans at the time, Washingtonians were strongly supportive of certain progressive era pushes, such as for Prohibition and women’s suffrage, as was Jones. In an age in which hypocrisy was rife on Prohibition, he was certainly the ideal figure to push for it. One historian described Jones as “…a tall, sincere, devout former lawyer from Yakima. He did not drink, gamble, smoke, or swear. He was dedicated to middle-class American values and to the Republican party, both of which he in many ways personified” (Papavizas). On women’s suffrage, he expressed his support for it early. In 1914, he asked his colleagues rhetorically, “What peculiar sexual difference is there that entitles man to vote and prevents woman? Can anyone point out any such peculiarity? No one has ever done so” (Papavizas). In 1909, the state legislature sent Jones to the Senate.

Senator Jones

Jones was supportive of the Taft Administration on a number of issues, but he did embrace some progressive Constitutional pushes, such as for direct election of senators and for abolishing the Electoral College. During the Wilson Administration, Jones flew the Lincoln flag in his opposition to the institution of segregation in numerous departments of the federal government. However, he in truth was sometimes in support and sometimes in opposition to Wilson’s agenda. Jones kept up protectionism with his vote against the Underwood Tariff and strongly supported expanded naval construction. However, he also supported the creation of the Federal Reserve and during World War I he was one of a minority of Republican senators to strongly support the Sedition Act, including opposing the France Amendment for free speech protections for telling the truth with good motives. As William Forth (1962) writes in his dissertation, “Until after the World War he supported liberal legislation as often as he opposed it although alarmed at the divisive nature of the emotions such actions had on his party” (v). Although Jones was supportive of the advancement of blacks, he was also strongly supportive of blocking Japanese immigration, consistent with the views of many laboring white men of Western states at the time. Neither he nor them wanted Asian labor competition and subscribed to the belief that they could not assimilate in society. Jones had initially opposed American involvement in World War I, stating in 1916 that an American who “persists in travelling for pleasure or profit in the danger zone and in a belligerent ship shows that he is utterly lacking in patriotism” (Papavizas). The following year, he attempted to find a middle ground on arming merchant vessels, but this met with great criticism. The Seattle Star went as far as to condemn him for having “failed pathetically on the one big thing in his generation” (Papavizas).

In 1920, Jones sponsored the Jones Act, which was designed to revitalize the shipbuilding industry in the US by requiring that all ships moving from US port to US port be built by Americans, owned by American citizens, and crewed by Americans. Jones was considered a diligent and hard worker, and he worked incredibly hard to win passage of this legislation, including holding 37 hearings in 51 days, hearing testimony from over 100 witnesses (Papavizas). This was in keeping with the protectionist stance of the GOP of his day.

From 1924 to 1929, Jones served as Majority Whip. He was a good figure for this role as he could appeal to both the conservative and progressive wings of the GOP. Jones supported basic conservative policies on taxes and tariffs in the 1920s while still sometimes siding with the progressive wing. His colleague, Democrat Clarence Dill, commented, “Senator Jones never knocks any flies. He bunts and always plays low ball. That is why he is always safe” (Papavizas). Although he played it safe, Jones did have a bit of a close race in 1926, winning reelection by 5 points.

In the later part of his career, became foremost known for what was called the “five and ten law” in 1929, which made certain Prohibition violations felonies to curb professional bootleggers and provided for five years’ imprisonment or a $10,000 fine (or both) for first-time violations. He did not author this law, rather introduced it on behalf of the Coolidge Administration. This was in keeping with his fundamental moral stances as well as state voter preferences, as Prohibition had come into effect in the state before the nation adopted it. However, this also hurt him as Prohibition’s popularity began to decline not long after this law’s adoption.

In 1932, the Great Depression was severely impacting the nation and killing the confidence of the nation in President Hoover and the Republican Party. Washington was no exception, and radicalism dramatically increased in the state and support for Prohibition had declined. The Democrats selected Homer T. Bone, a former member of the Socialist Party, to run against Jones. Not only did the national environment harm Jones, his poor health following abdominal operations in 1928 and 1929 precluded his campaigning effectively. While in the past he had consistently been able to win, this time around he lost reelection by a whopping 28 points and lost all counties. The ailing senator did not have much time to mourn his loss, as the day after he entered a sanitarium in grave condition and died a mere eleven days after the election of heart failure at 69. His time, and the time of his brand of Republicanism having appeal in the state, was over. Jones’ DW-Nominate score stands at 0.319, making him moderately conservative. No Republican would be elected to Congress from Washington until 1942, and the Commonwealth Federation of Washington, a communist-dominated faction of the Democratic Party, would have substantial sway for years on the state’s politics. In all, Jones was an honest figure in the GOP who struck a careful balance in his positions, and that worked for him up until his final days.

References

Forth, W.S. (1962). Wesley L. Jones: A Political Biography [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Washington]. ProQuest.

Retrieved from

https://www.proquest.com/openview/de8a14de9f64d57649eeabce3b07780c/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y

Jones, Wesley. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5065/wesley-livsey-jones

Papavizas, C. (2024). The Man Behind the Jones Act. Marine News.

Retrieved from

https://www.maritimemagazines.com/marine-news/202401/the-man-behind-the-jones-act

Senator Jones Dies. (1932, November 20). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Fascinating Politics

Great Conservatives from American History #31: Roger Sherman – Connecticut’s Foremost Founding Father

Thirty years ago, I was nine years old and spent the Fourth of July in Connecticut, where I was visiting my great grandma. I remember there were no real fireworks to speak of but the beach was nice and warm to swim. I remember A&P market, being taught to shoot a BB gun, and riding a motorboat. Those are my memories of Connecticut, and on this, our 250 year anniversary as a nation, I think it best to honor the state’s foremost Founding Father, Roger Sherman (1721-1793).

Although Sherman largely lacked a formal education, he committed himself to the study of law and became highly involved in the colony’s politics, serving in Connecticut’s House of Representatives and serving as a justice of Connecticut’s Superior Court from 1766 to 1789. During this time, Sherman was involved in the crafting of four critical documents to America: the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He is the only person to have signed all four. Although Sherman was reluctant for the colonies to split from Britain, he believed that the British were not being true to the rights of the colonists and came to accept revolution as the answer.

Although Thomas Jefferson was the central author of the Declaration of Independence and often gets sole credit in the minds of the public, Sherman was among the five who drafted it (the others were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Livingston). He also supported the creation of the original government under the Articles of Confederation, but the Articles of Confederation proved too limited in governing a nation, and given Revolutionary War debts, there needed to be a more effective way of collecting taxes.

The Constitution

Roger Sherman agreed with other Founding Fathers on the need to expand the power of the national government, particularly to establish interstate commerce and to tax. However, he differed with others in his belief that this objective could be achieved without scrapping the Articles of Confederation. Of course, we all know Sherman did not prevail on this. His crowning achievement to the Constitution was his role in forming the legislative branch.

The Creation of the House and the Senate

In the debate on setting up a legislative branch, a major issue arose in what would constitute a fair balance between big and small states. Big states wanted a population basis while small states sought an equality basis for how the legislature was to be apportioned. James Madison proposed the “Virginia Plan”, which called for three branches of government with the legislative branch being bicameral and

based on population. This alarmed small states, which responded with the New Jersey Plan, proposed by William Paterson, which would have established a unicameral legislature with all states having equal representation. Sherman, representing a small state, initially backed the New Jersey Plan, but it was voted down. Thus, he proposed the Connecticut Compromise, which embraced the bicameral legislature but had the Senate be based on political equality while the House remained based on population size. Sherman also unsuccessfully pushed for each state to have only one senator. The finalized plan was sufficient to assuage fears of states of smaller states that they would be dominated by states with big populations…after all, the Founding Fathers feared the rise of two tyrannies: the tyranny of the majority and the tyranny of the minority. Indeed, this was one of numerous compromises that needed to be crafted to create an effective Constitution.

Dissenting on the Bill of Rights

Sherman’s belief was that the Bill of Rights was an unnecessary add-on to the Constitution, as he believed such rights were assumed to be protected by the states as such powers were not granted to the federal government. Indeed, he feared that the Bill of Rights could serve to limit rights. However, this dissent was initial, and he ended up raising no objection to the proposing of ten amendments. Madison’s original draft of the Bill of the Rights would have had these amendments throughout the Constitution, but Sherman argued against this, stating, “we cannot incorporate these amendments in the body of the Constitution. It would be mixing brass, iron, and clay” (Hall). This argument won the day, and a separate Bill of Rights section was created. He was also responsible for making the Vice President the president of the Senate with authority to vote in cases of a tie with Article 1, Section 3, Clause 4, stating that otherwise “he would be without employment” (Schmitt). This once again highlights the utter ridiculousness of the argument that a vice president can reject electors.

Although Sherman supported an expanded government from that of the Articles of Confederation, his views of government were nonetheless limited. Farrand’s Records summarizes one of Sherman’s speeches, “The objects of the Union, he thought were few. 1. defence agst. foreign danger. 2. agst. internal disputes & a resort to force. 3. Treaties with foreign nations 4. regulating foreign commerce, & drawing revenue from it … All other matters civil & criminal would be much better in the hands of the States” (Gutzman).

In 1788, the voters of Connecticut sent Sherman to the House. He was not there long, since in 1790 he was elected to the Senate. While a member of Congress, he staunchly supported George Washington, backed the federal assumption of state debts, the creation of a national bank, tariffs, and internal improvements to expand commerce. Sherman was also an early foe of slavery, and had been the key figure in getting the state to adopt a law that gradually ended slavery. Again, he was not in the Senate long as in May 1793 he contracted typhoid fever. The 72-year-old Sherman lost his battle on July 23rd. Although his views were not always adopted, he was highly regarded, even by those who often disagreed with him. Thomas Jefferson praised him as “a man who never said a foolish thing in his life”. Recorded history has yet to contradict Jefferson on Sherman. Fisher Ames, a man far more in line with Sherman’s philosophy of governance and another “Great Conservative”, praised him thusly, “If I am absent during the discussion of a subject, and consequently know not on which side to vote, I always look at [him], for I am sure if I vote with him I shall vote right” (Werther). By the standards of DW-Nominate, Sherman ranks as strongly conservative, with his DW-Nominate score at 0.589.

Sherman also had numerous descendants, including Roger Sherman Baldwin (his grandson), a prominent Connecticut politician who successfully defended the slaves of the Amistad, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Senator John Sherman, Senator William M. Evarts, and Senator George Frisbie Hoar, the latter particularly concerned with preserving his constitutional legacy in his opposition to the direct election of senators and abolishing the Electoral College. Sherman stands as among the more conservative of the Founding Fathers, as he had a distrust in pure democracy and his views aligned with the Federalist Party. Interestingly, all of these descendants died as Republicans.

Sherman’s statue sits in the National Statuary Hall Collection, where all states contribute two statues to honor key figures in their histories.

References

Gutzman, K. (2013, August 1). Roger Sherman: Constitutional Calvinist. The Imaginative Conservative.

Retrieved from

Roger Sherman: Constitutional Calvinist

Roger Sherman. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Retrieved from

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Roger-Sherman

Roger Sherman. National Constitution Center.

Retrieved from

https://constitutioncenter.org/signers/roger-sherman

Hall, M.D. (2017, January 26). Roger Sherman: An Old Puritan in a New Republic. Law & Liberty.

Retrieved from

Roger Sherman: An Old Puritan in the New Republic

Roger Sherman was born 300 years ago. Find out why he still matters. (2021, April 6). New Haven Register.

Retrieved from

https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Free-virtual-lecture-to-mark-Roger-Sherman-s-16080647.php

Schmitt, G.J. (2022, November 18). Misunderstanding the Vice President’s Constitutional Role. American Enterprise Institute.

Retrieved from

https://www.aei.org/social-cultural-and-constitutional-studies/misunderstanding-the-vice-presidents-constitutional-role

Werther, R.J. (2017, September 28). Roger Sherman: The Only Man Who Signed All Four Founding Documents. Journal of the American Revolution.

Retrieved from

Roger Sherman: The Only Man Who Signed All Four Founding Documents
Fascinating Politics

Joseph F. Guffey: The Keystone State’s Chief New Dealer

Starting with the 1860 election, Pennsylvania had an exceptionally long record of loyalty to the GOP, with Simon Cameron, a former Democrat, running the first Republican machine. This started a string of Republican state bosses and indeed the Philadelphia machine had quite a reputation for corruption. Pennsylvania did not even vote Democratic in the three-way 1912 election, rather Bull Moose Progressive Theodore Roosevelt won the state. Republicans were typically able to keep numerous working-class voters happy through tariff policies that benefited the prominent industries of state and served to raise wages but at the same time these policies raised costs of goods. Joseph Finch Guffey (1870-1959) was for many years in the minority in Pennsylvania as a Democrat. He hailed from a strongly Democratic family and made a key connection when he attended Princeton University and befriended Woodrow Wilson, whose political career he strongly supported. Guffey was both active in business and politics, being, rather unconventionally at least in the eyes of modern liberals, an oil executive, heading up the Guffey-Gillespie Oil Company beginning in 1918. He was instrumental in swaying the Pennsylvania Democratic delegation to supporting Wilson at the 1912 Democratic National Convention, much to the consternation of his party boss uncle, who was backing House Speaker Champ Clark (D-Mo.) (Hill).

Guffey in the Wilson Administration and Controversy

During World War I, President Wilson tapped Guffey to serve as Director of Sales for the Alien Property Custodian. In this position, he was responsible for managing billions. Because during the war 18,000 people had become millionaires and $20 billion had been spent on the war, Congressional Republicans reached the conclusion that there was some graft in war expenditures (Sanderlin, 465). After Attorney General Harry Daugherty dragged his feet on indictments (people who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones!), in 1922, Guffey was indicted on twelve counts of embezzlement by misappropriating funds he had managed. The case, however, stalled for years and in 1930 the government dropped the case as they did not believe they would be able to win a conviction. Guffey maintained his innocence for the rest of his life, and this matter, while haunting him, did not prove fatal to his political career.

The 1934 Election

Although Pennsylvania had remained loyal to Hoover in 1932 as had the black vote, FDR’s New Deal policies proved popular with both blacks and working-class voters. Republicans had been able to do well with both in the past, but the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s popularity politically taxed them, even in the Keystone State. Guffey ran for the Senate against Republican incumbent David A. Reed, who was one of the Senate’s standard-bearers of conservatism and had sponsored the Immigration Act of 1924. Governor Gifford Pinchot attacked Guffey on the basis of the 1922 indictment and declared “I can’t stand Guffey” while accusing him of obtaining a dismissal of the indictment through prominent New York State Republican Clarence H. Fay (Sanderlin, 466). The 1934 midterms proved a smashing success for the Democrats in the Keystone State as they cobbled together a coalition of working class and black voters, resulting in a net gain of eleven House seats in the state, Democrat George Earle winning the gubernatorial election to succeed Republican Gifford Pinchot, and Guffey defeating Reed by four points. Guffey’s election was the first time in sixty years that a Democrat was elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania.

Senator Guffey

He quickly became the political boss of Pennsylvania given that as senator the Roosevelt Administration funneled patronage through him as well as New Deal money. Guffey made himself known as a “100 per cent Roosevelt man” and indeed his record almost entirely reflected that (Hill). In 1935, he sponsored the Guffey-Snyder Coal Act, establishing the National Bituminous Coal Commission setting minimum prices, establish fair labor practices, and guarantee collective bargaining rights. However, this measure was struck down by the Supreme Court in Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936), which resulted in Guffey quickly drafting and getting passed a new law, Guffey-Vinson, in 1937 that left out the labor provisions that had resulted in the Supreme Court striking the law down. Even on questions in which Roosevelt was not so popular he sided with the administration, such as his vote against the 1935 Patman Bonus bill, his vote against killing the “court-packing plan” in 1937, and his vote for Roosevelt’s executive reorganization plan in 1938, which would be defeated in the House. There was a rare exception or two, such as in 1939 when he voted against the legalization of TVA’s purchase of Commonwealth & Southern’s southern properties. He was also known as rather politically shrewd. For instance, early in his time in the Senate, Guffey attacked Bureau of Narcotics chief Harry Anslinger for his racism; Anslinger was married to Republican former Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon’s niece and his criticizing a public official for racism certainly helped his standing with black voters (Hill). Unsurprisingly, he was also a supporter of civil rights legislation. In 1936, Guffey played a key role, despite being a senator, in determining the next House majority leader. After he hosted a fine luncheon for Pennsylvania’s Democrats they held an 18-6 vote for Texan Sam Rayburn over New York’s John J. O’Connor, and then he got all but one of the remaining to back Rayburn (Time Magazine). That year, Roosevelt won Pennsylvania by 16 points, the first time a Democrat had won the state in 80 years, a testament to the success of the New Deal coalition and to Guffey’s leadership of the state party. In 1940, a majority of Pennsylvanians proved pleased with Roosevelt and Guffey, reelecting them by seven and four points respectively. Pennsylvania’s Democratic organization was functioning well. In 1943, as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was profiled by Isaiah Berlin in a confidential analysis for the British Foreign Office as “a noisy Administration supporter who wraps himself in the Roosevelt flag and has been advocating for a fourth term for some time. A very typical Pennsylvania politician who has decided to throw his lot in with the President and has thus become an obedient party hack not of the purest integrity. Consistently votes in the opposite direction of his fellow Senator from Pennsylvania, James Davis” (Hachey, 146). Guffey was even more supportive of Roosevelt on foreign policy than his already staunch support of his domestic agenda.

During the 78th Congress, the pro-New Deal Union for Democratic Action found nothing amiss with Guffey’s voting record. In the prior UDA release, the only two votes he got “wrong” by them out of twenty were on a progressive “ability to pay” formula in 1939 and on tax-exempt securities in 1940. In 1944, President Roosevelt once again won reelection in Pennsylvania, this time by less than three points, and Republican Senator James Davis was finally defeated by Philadelphia Democratic Congressman Francis J. Myers by less than a point.

In 1946, the national environment proved far different from that of 1934 or 1940. The Great Depression was over, World War II was over, and people were chafing under price controls, particularly on meat, which resulted in meat shortages. Guffey’s record had remained staunchly liberal if not having even gotten more so. Worse yet for him was that Pennsylvania had a popular Republican governor in Edward Martin, who represented a return to the sort of politics of Guffey’s predecessor, David A. Reed. The environment of 1946 was so bad for Democrats in Pennsylvania that it resulted in Republicans picking up nine House seats, including all of Philadelphia’s seats, and Guffey lost reelection by a whopping twenty points. By this time a man of 76, his career was over. According to DW-Nominate, Guffey had been the most liberal senator at -0.656 throughout his 12 years in the Senate save for the 79th Congress, in which he was beaten by Idaho’s Glen H. Taylor. Guffey retired to Washington D.C., where he lived as an elder Democratic statesman until his death on March 6, 1959, at the age of 88.

References

Guffey, Joseph Finch. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://www.voteview.com/person/3872/joseph-f-guffey

Hachey, T.E. (Winter, 1973-1974). American Profiles on Capitol Hill: A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, 57(2), 141-153.

Retrieved from

Click to access bib139a.pdf

Hill, R. (2022, July 24). The Democratic Boss of Pennsylvania: Joseph F. Guffey. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

The Democratic Boss of Pennsylvania: Joseph F. Guffey

Sanderlin, W.R. (1963, October). The Indictment of Joseph F. Guffey. Pennsylvania History: A Journal for Mid-Atlantic Studies, 30(4).

Retrieved from

https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/viewFile/22974/22743

The Congress: Leader Apparent. (1936, December 13). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6756388/the-congress-leader-apparent

Fascinating Politics

Great Conservatives from American History #30: Robert F. Rich – The Keystone State’s Spending Scold

On July 20, 1930, Congressman Edgar R. Kiess died in office, and Robert Fleming Rich (1883-1968), general manager of his family’s firm, Woolrich Woolen Mills (which still exists today), ran and won the election to replace him. He had been active in Republican politics for quite some time and had been a delegate to the 1924 Republican National Convention. He was from the start committed to holding the line on spending.

Rich opposed nearly every New Deal law; the only significant law he supported that was liberal was the Revenue Act of 1935 as a way to raise revenue in the midst of all the spending. This means that he was in opposition to numerous New Deal reforms that stuck, such as Social Security and the federal minimum wage. If FDR was in agreement with Rich, it was mostly because he had taken a stand that to Rich was conservative. For example, he voted for the Economy Act in 1933, against overriding President Roosevelt’s 1935 and 1936 vetoes of veterans’ bonus legislation, and voted against the third Frazier-Lemke farm mortgage bill in 1936. Rich was most known for consistently asking “Where are we gonna get the money?” for various New Deal spending programs, and others would join in but humorously, as all knew the money printing press (Manion). His reputation as a “watchdog of the Treasury” was difficult to match in his day.

Rich was no more accommodating to the Roosevelt Administration on foreign policy; indeed he was if anything even more in opposition than on domestic issues. Regarding Lend-Lease, Rich stated, “I do not care what the people in my district think. If I received a telegram tomorrow from everybody in my district wanting me to vote for this bill, I would resign my job in Congress before I would vote for it” (Congressional Record). Part of his strong opposition was his uncompromising stand against communism. The considered the notion of the US allying with the USSR as the equivalent of getting “in bed with a rattlesnake and a skunk” (McMeekin, 350). As an eastern businessman, he was also fiercely against the tariff-lowering agenda of the Roosevelt Administration.

In 1942, Rich opted not to run for reelection as his home district was split in two with redistricting (Mallon). House Minority Leader Joe Martin (R-Mass.) praised him thusly, “We may have differed with him on occasion, but no one ever questioned his courage, integrity, or his zeal to work for what he believed was best for hist country” and added, “As a result of his tireless industry and his ceaseless watchfulness, he has saved the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. We regret to see him go, because we need more than one “watchdog of the Treasury” as we move toward the abyss of wild inflation and national bankruptcy” (Mansfield Advertiser). Not all were sorry to see him leave. The left-wing New Republic (1942) wrote, “A glance at The New Republic’s voting-record chart will show that Rich has a perfect minus score both on foreign and domestic issues. For twelve years he has been the loudest critic of all things decent in the whole big House. He is the owner of the company town of Woolrich, an open-shopper and a mean opponent of social progress. Getting rid of him means more than just getting rid of a reactionary Republican vote” (763). That year, he was also one of only four House Republicans to vote against banning the poll tax in federal elections. Rich would also oppose anti-poll tax legislation in 1945, 1947, and 1949. Not all was negative for him on civil rights, however; in 1937 and 1940 he voted for anti-lynching legislation and in 1946 he voted for the anti-segregation Powell amendment to the school lunch bill.

Rich was not satisfied with being out of Congress for long, and in 1944 he ran again and won. He proved no less opposed to the Truman Administration than he was to the Roosevelt Administration. In 1946, he led the successful push to kill the construction of a government-run phosphate fertilizer plant at or near Mobile, Alabama as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority. That year, in a rare siding with the liberal position, he opposed the Tidelands bill. From 1947 to 1950, Rich was only in agreement with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 2% of the time; the one vote he sided with them on was his vote to kill the Rankin pension bill in 1949, which was devised at least in part to hamstring President Truman’s push to expand Social Security. That means he opposed aid to Greece and Turkey and the Marshall Plan and supported all domestic priorities of the conservative 80th Congress. In 1950, Rich voted against admitting Hawaii and Alaska as states. That year, he opted to retire for good, wanting to focus on his business. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.664, being in the top 5 conservatives for almost his entire time in the House.

Rich vs. the Majority

Some examples of Rich taking stances against the overwhelming majority included:

On April 19, 1935, he paired against Social Security, which only 33 representatives voted against.

On May 23, 1940, he was one of 21 representatives to vote against a compromise work relief appropriations measure.

On December 18, 1945, he was one of 15 representatives to vote against US participation in the UN.

On April 18, 1946, he was one of 20 representatives to vote for a motion to kill extending price control legislation.

On May 23, 1946, he was one of 41 representatives to vote against membership and participation in UNESCO.

On February 9, 1949, he was one of 69 representatives to vote against extending the Reciprocal Trade Act.

On August 11, 1949, he was one of 35 representatives to vote against a compromise bill increasing the minimum wage.

On October 3, 1949, he was one of 42 representatives to vote against extending and increasing funding for hospital construction.

On August 26, 1950, he was on the only representative to vote against a supplemental appropriations bill.

On December 5, 1950, Rich was one of 20 representatives to vote against extending the excess corporate profits tax.

After Politics

Rich continued his business pursuits in retirement, and served as president of Woolrich Woolen Mills from 1959 to 1964, chairman of its Board of Directors from 1964 to 1966, and finally entered semi-retirement in 1966 by stepping down to honorary chairman. He died on April 29, 1968, at the age of 84.

References

87 Cong. Rec. (Bound) – Volume 87, Part 1 (January 3, 1941 to February 18, 1941), 561.

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Mallon, P. (1942, July 23). Washington Backstage. New Orleans States-Item, 10.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1322345144

Manion, C. (2011, December 7). A Debate That Will Live in Infamy. Crisis Magazine.

Retrieved from

A Debate That Will Live in Infamy

McMeekin, S. (2021). Stalin’s war: a new history of World War II. London, UK: Basic Books.

Rich, Robert Fleming. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/7864/robert-fleming-rich

Tributes to Congressman Robert F. Rich. (1942, December 23). Mansfield Advertiser, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/354419369

Washington Notes. (1942, June 1). The New Republic, 763-764.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1144100116

Fascinating Politics

Great Conservatives from American History #29: Frederick C. Smith – The Buckeye State’s “Dr. No”

Rural Ohio is not generally known as a friendly place for liberalism, but during the New Deal, it certainly was, and Roosevelt was popular in many rural places in his first term, Marion, Ohio, included. However, Roosevelt’s popularity was taxed by the Roosevelt recession and the perception that he was trying to become a dictator through certain power-grabbing pushes as the “court packing plan” and his 1938 executive reorganization that got defeated by Congress. In this political context, Republicans came back in the North, and Frederick Cleveland Smith (1884-1956) of Marion was among them. Smith had served as mayor of Marion from 1935 to 1939 and had been a practicing osteopathic physician since 1908. Although Marion’s history was largely Republican, it was possible for Democrats to win there for a while, and the Democrat he defeated for reelection by nine points, Thomas B. Fletcher, had in total represented the district for ten years, from 1923 to 1927 and from 1933 to 1939.

Smith vs. The New Deal

Smith was a dedicated, uncompromising opponent of the New Deal and its works. So known he was for this that the press dubbed him “No No Smith”, which he enthusiastically embraced (The Marion Star). Had he served in the future, he would have definitely been nicknamed “Dr. No”. The liberal Union for Democratic Action identified Smith as among the obstructionists they wanted defeated in the 1942 election, profiling him thusly, “His isolationist position extends back to the last war, and his anti-New Deal position extends back to its beginning. Smith thinks of himself in the old Ohio Republican tradition of McKinley and the rest and holds what might be called a McKinley gold bias. He votes regularly in the interest of the private-power companies and thus to the benefit of his friends in the Marion Reserve Power Company. He operates the Smith Clinic for male diseases, which is not looked upon without criticism by other members of the Ohio medical profession. He finds time in the Congress to introduce numerous measures for the benefit of Dr. Tucker’s Asthma Specific, a patent medicine made in his district which has had difficulties because of the pure-food-and-drug laws” (The New Republic, 710). In 1939, Smith introduced a bill to exempt a Mount Gilead, Ohio, laboratory from an incoming pure food and drug law against mail prescribing. He spoke on behalf of the medicine’s effectiveness as did numerous other members of Congress, stating, “A Food and Drugs Act passed last year would compel firms of this sort to cease prescribing by making a diagnosis through the mails….I have practiced medicine for a good many years and have myself prescribed this remedy many times….I know physicians who use it themselves. Just before I left for Washington one of my colleagues told me he hoped they would not take this remedy away from the people. This colleague of mine has since died. He used this remedy himself [laughter]—not from the remedy” (Time Magazine). Smith was such a pain for Union for Democratic Action that they found absolutely nothing to like about his record from 1939 to 1945. However, its successor organization, Americans for Democratic Action, would find him siding with their positions 13% of the time from 1947 to 1950, although this is due to him objecting to certain measures not being strong enough from a conservative standpoint. On civil rights, you might think that Smith was also simply also a no-man, but this wasn’t necessarily so; he voted for the 1940 anti-lynching bill and for the 1946 anti-segregation Powell Amendment to that year’s school lunch bill. However, he also paired against the 1949 bill banning the poll tax.

Smith vs. Internationalism

Smith compromised no more, and arguably even less, with the Roosevelt Administration on foreign policy than he did on domestic policy. Not only did he join the majority of Republicans in opposing Lend-Lease in 1941, he was also one of 55 representatives to vote against the first appropriation, which had attracted a lot more Republican support as it was a vote on simply aiding Britain rather than granting new powers to the Roosevelt Administration. During World War II, Smith voted against Lend Lease appropriations despite them getting near unanimous support. In 1943, he was one of 29 representatives to vote against the Fulbright Resolution, an official statement of the House in favor of the formation of a United Nations. Smith argued against it thusly, “I am impelled to vote against the Fulbright resolution that Congress favor the setting up of international machinery with power to establish and maintain peace among the nations of the world. It seems to me the lower House is attempting here to perform a function which does not properly belong to it. The subject matter of this resolution deals specifically with treaties. The Constitution definitely vests in the President the “power to make treaties,” but only “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur.” I think this is sufficient reason for voting against this resolution” (Congressional Record, 7708). Smith would not change with the end of World War II, and voted against aid to Greece and Turkey in 1947 and the Marshall Plan in 1948.

Smith vs. The Majority

If there were a small minority of conservatives taking a position, chances are really good Smith was among them, and on occasion voted against major GOP legislation as he thought it too accommodating to the New Deal, such as with the House version of the Taft-Hartley Act (he had previously voted for other bills curbing organized labor). Some examples of his dissents include:

On March 10, 1943, Smith was one of 6 representatives to oppose extending Lend-Lease for one year.

On May 21, 1943, Smith paired against Lend-Lease funding, a measure that 4 representatives voted against.

On April 19, 1944, Smith was one of 21 representatives to vote against extending Lend-Lease for one year.

On December 18, 1945, Smith was one of 15 representatives to vote against appointing representatives to the UN and its organizations.

On March 7, 1946, Smith was one of 24 representatives to vote against a housing bill that was considerably compromised in its liberalism by conservative limiting amendments, including his own to limit the power of the housing expediter.

On April 2, 1946, Smith was the only representative to vote against a bill for temporary additional compensation for postmasters and employees of the postal service.

On April 18, 1946, Smith was one of 20 representatives to support a motion to recommit the price control bill to immediately end all controls.

On August 7, 1948, he was one of 9 representatives to vote against the resolution considering accepting the Senate amendment to that year’s housing bill.

On August 11, 1949, he paired against a compromised increasing of the minimum wage, which 35 representatives voted against.

On December 5, 1950, he paired against extending the excess profits tax, which 20 representatives voted against.

Congressman Smith did on a few occasions vote against nearly all Republicans in the 80th Congress, but this was out of a refusal to accept compromise, such as his vote against the Wolcott Housing Bill in 1948, which did not include any public housing and a vote for was considered by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action against their position.

In 1947, Smith’s health began to decline, which resulted in frequent absences that year and in 1949 and 1950. Reading the writing on the wall by 1950, he opted to retire. In his retirement announcement, he stated, “I wish to announce that I shall not seek the nomination for re-election to Congress at the coming primary, and want to take this opportunity to than the citizens of this Congressional District, the 8th Ohio, for the splendid cooperation and loyal support they have given me throughout all the years of my service in striving to stop the growth of political power, which I have always regarded as Communism, or dictatorship by another name. To the extent that my health permits I shall, during the remainder of my term, continue to pursue the same course as I have in the past, perhaps stressing more than I have heretofore, if that be possible, the gravity of the situation that now menaces the way of life our fathers bequeathed us” (The Marion Star). He was among the representatives that anarcho-capitalist theorist Murray Rothbard (1950) was sad to see leave and his DW-Nominate score was a whopping 0.92, making him the most conservative individual to serve during the Roosevelt Administration per that measurement. His health continued to decline after his retirement and he died on July 16, 1956, at the age of 71 at Marion General Hospital.

References

A Congress to Win The War. (1942, May 18). The New Republic.

Retrieved from

https://archive.org/details/cainmnh_000157/mode/2up

A Congress to Win the War and the Peace. (1944, May 5). The New Republic, 110 (19), 643-58.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143419115

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Cong. Smith Not to Seek Re-Election. (1950, January 5). The Marion Star, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/293277002/

Medicine: Balm of Gilead. (1939, April 30). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6760484/medicine-balm-of-gilead

Participation in World Peace. (1943, September 21). Congressional Record, 7705-7729. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Retrieved from

https://www.congress.gov/bound-congressional-record/1943/09/21/house-section

Patton, J.G. & Loeb, J. (1945, February 5). Challenge to Progressives. The New Republic, 112 (6), 21-42.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143339882

Rothbard, M. (1950, November 15). Rothbard on the Elections. LewRockwell.

Retrieved from

Rothbard on the Elections

Smith, Frederick Cleveland. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/8619/frederick-cleveland-smith

Fascinating Politics

John M. Coffee: Tacoma’s New Deal Stalwart

Today, Washington is regarded as among the most liberal states in the nation. Indeed, according to the most recent Cook Partisan Voting Index, the state is the 6th most Democratic in the nation. The last time the state voted for a Republican governor was in 1980, the last time for a Republican for president was in 1984, and the last time its people voted for a Republican senator was 1994. The election of Katie Wilson as Seattle’s mayor has far from lessened its reputation and However, is this the most liberal period in the state’s history? Perhaps not…and one of the foremost representatives of the state’s strongly liberal politics during the Roosevelt Administration was John Main Coffee (1897-1983).

Coffee’s involvement in politics began when he came to work on the campaign of Democrat Clarence Dill in 1922, who was running against progressive-turned-conservative Republican Miles Poindexter. 1922 was a good year for Democrats and Poindexter’s pronounced shift to the right was not appreciated by voters, thus Dill won. He subsequently worked as Dill’s chief of staff. He ultimately decided to return to Tacoma to pursue a legal career. Although Republicans dominated Washington’s politics during the 1920s, the Great Depression brought about a massive change of fortune for Democrats, and Coffee was active in the implementation of the New Deal in Washington, serving as secretary for the Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration and served as the appraiser for the Pierce County State Inheritance Tax & Escheat Division (Hill). A greater opportunity would come for him by 1936.

On January 10, 1936, Congressman Wesley Lloyd of Tacoma died suddenly of a heart attack. In his place, Coffee was elected to Congress as a staunch supporter of the New Deal. Roosevelt sailed to a landslide victory as did Coffee. As a member of Congress, Coffee was firmly in support of organized labor, more New Deal programs, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and civil rights legislation. Believe it or not, the latter was not a guarantee for Washington Democrats to support at the time; Charles Leavy of the 5th district twice voted against anti-lynching legislation and Knute Hill of the 4th supported the 1937 bill but opposed the 1940 bill. The only area on domestic legislation in which he dissented from the liberal line occasionally was in regard to agriculture. Although much of the nation shifted to the right in the 1938 midterms, Coffee and other Washington Democrats sailed to reelection. He represented a district in which unions were strong and his constituents loved the New Deal. Coffee was unfailing in his defense of the power of organized labor that had been established with the Wagner Act and stood as a strong opponent of the Dies Committee, which was primarily investigating communism and communists in the United States. For a time, the most significant organization within Washington’s Democratic Party, and one that was backing Coffee, was the Washington Commonwealth Federation (WCF), which had become increasingly communist-dominated after 1938 when numerous non-communist members departed in opposition to communist influence. Some leaders of the group included Hugh De Lacy, a secret communist who would serve in the House during the 79th Congress (1945-1947) and executive Secretary Howard Costigan, who had secretly joined the Communist Party after the WCF lifted the ban on membership. Such men pushed to align WCF’s stances with those of the Communist Party, and by extension with Moscow. Coffee would have a long record of opposing domestic anti-communist measures, and although he was not among the four representatives to vote against the Smith Act (Alien Registration Act) on final passage, he was one of 48 to vote to recommit the bill without instructions (thus killing it) on July 29, 1939.

Non-Interventionist

Although left-wing domestic policies were popular in Washington during the Roosevelt Administration, Washingtonians were not as pro-Administration on foreign policy. Although Coffee voted for repealing the arms embargo in 1939, he voted against the peacetime draft in 1940, against Lend-Lease in 1941, against extending the peacetime draft, and against the repeal of the bar on U.S. ships entering belligerent ports. Something to bear in mind is that the WCF had been following the Soviet line on foreign policy, thus after the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, they were pushing messaging that FDR was a warmonger for trying to get involved. This messaging promptly changed after Operation Barbarossa, in line with Moscow. After Pearl Harbor, Coffee was once again in near full accord with liberal opinion. In the 78th Congress, Coffee did not differ from the position of Union for Democratic Action at all, and the only dissents he had had with them before were on foreign policy.

In 1944, Coffee read excerpts on the floor of the House from love letters Connecticut businesswoman and tax protestor Vivien Kellems had written to Count Friedrich Carl von Zedlitz in Argentina, who was on a British blacklist and suspected of being a Nazi agent. He charged, “Miss Kellems poses as a patriotic citizen and yet has consistently played the Nazi game. She is today giving aid and comfort to the enemy and is a tool of the Goebbels propaganda machine. ” (McLaughlin). Ultimately no charges came out of the allegation that her correspondence amounted to treason. That year, he won reelection resoundingly against Republican Thor Tollefson, prosecutor of Pierce County, by 23 points. However, the next two years would be rough on Coffee.

Charges of Radicalism and Corruption

Tollefson ran again, and during his campaign he accused Coffee of being a member of 28 communist front groups. To rebut the charge, Coffee claimed that former chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Martin Dies (D-Tex.), told him that he would go up to Washington to campaign for him. However, a Republican operative called Dies, and he stated that he strongly disagreed with his philosophy of government and would not campaign on his behalf (Hill). He also along with Congressmen Hugh De Lacy and Charles Savage had signed a letter in to Henry Wallace in praise of his pro-Soviet foreign policy views and urged him to come and speak in Washington, to which the conservative Spokesman-Review condemned them as the “three faithful who don’t deviate in their loyalty to Russia” (Hill). Maybe he could have survived this alone, but he was also dogged on ethics.

In 1945, Coffee came to the attention of the Mead Committee investigating wartime contract expenditures when contractor Eivind Anderson testified that he had received a no-bid war contract after making a contribution to Coffee’s campaign in 1941 that amounted to $50,000 when adjusting for inflation. Chairman Mead (D-N.Y.) publicly regarded this relationship as immoral, but clarified that no money had been lost towards the war effort (Hill). The statute of limitations on any charges that could have been brought against Coffee had expired, which although it kept him out of legal jeopardy, it also blocked him from having a shot at legally clearing his name. The mood of the nation, Coffee’s ethics baggage, and the nation turning increasingly against the USSR resulted in him netting 46% of the vote against Tollefson. Coffee’s DW-Nominate score is a -0.48, or strongly liberal.

Although Coffee attempted a comeback in 1950, Tollefson was now a popular representative who had a pro-union voting record and was of the moderate to liberal wing of the Republican Party, and he netted only 38.9% of the vote. He tried one more time to beat Tollefson, in 1958. This was an excellent year for Democrats and liberals in general, thus if there was a time for him to return, it would be now. However, he only netted 46% of the vote. Coffee’s political career was now undoubtedly over. Reporter Jack Pyle of Tacoma News Tribune summed up his situation after the 1958 election thusly, he was “unbeatable up to 1946, and unelectable after that” (Hill). Coffee would continue the practice of law until his death on June 2, 1983 at the age of 86.

References

Black, G., Salter, D., and Gregory, J. (2005). Who’s Who in the Communist Party of Washington. Communism in Washington State History and Memory Project.

Retrieved from

https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/whos_who.shtml#

Coffee, John Main. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/1899/john-main-coffee

Hill, R. (2025, May 4). John M. Coffee of Washington State. The Knoxville Focus.

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John M. Coffee of Washington State

McLaughlin, K. (1944, April 1). Urges U.S. Study of Vivien Kellems; Coffee Says Tax Recalcitrant for Years Has Written to Nazi Agent in Argentina. The New York Times.

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