Cleveland has long been a Democratic stronghold, but this has not always guaranteed representation by people pliant to Democratic Administrations. Martin Leonard Sweeney (1885-1960) was such an individual, who although was by many metrics a Democrat, nonetheless proved a pain in the neck for FDR. As a young man, Sweeney worked for the Central Furnace Company and was part of the Longshoremen’s Union. His support for labor causes started early, having been elected a secretary of the union in 1903. In 1909, Sweeney was fired after he refused to sign a “yellow dog” contract, meaning a contract in which you agree to not be part of a union or join a union as a condition of employment. He then pursued a law degree at the Baldwin-Wallace College and upon completion started practicing law. From 1924 to 1931, he served as a municipal court judge, where he made his staunch opposition to Prohibition clear.
In 1930, Congressman Charles Mooney died, thus Judge Sweeney ran for the seat and won. Like he was as a judge, he was outspoken in his opposition to Prohibition while in Congress. Sweeney chided Congress for “behaving like a lot of old women” on the subject and stated that Prohibition was “ a crazy law, enacted by fanatics, impossible to enforce…” (Hill). This stance was consistent with the views of his constituency and fit with his Irish Catholic background. Such a background would motivate several aspects of his politics, both favorably and unfavorably to his party.
Although Sweeney was pledged to support Al Smith at the Democratic National Convention in 1932, he switched support to FDR. He proved a strong supporter of the first New Deal including all of the first 100 Days legislation, and with the exception of veterans issues, mostly agreed with FDR in his first term. However, he consistently had an independent streak, and this first showed to the detriment of his party when he lost the Democratic nomination to run for mayor of Cleveland to incumbent Ray T. Miller. Instead of being a sport and endorsing Miller, he endorsed the Republican candidate, Harry Lyman Davis. Davis won the election as enough Democrats followed Sweeney’s endorsement. He was also the foremost supporter of and Congressional spokesman for radio personality Father Charles Coughlin, who had started out supporting FDR and employing the slogan “Roosevelt or Ruin”, but Coughlin turned against FDR and, so did Sweeney. For instance, he supported the 1936 Frazier-Lemke bill, which was opposed by the Roosevelt Administration. This opposition motivated Gerald L.K. Smith, Coughlin, and Dr. Francis Townsend to form the Union Party, which ran maverick populist Republican William Lemke of North Dakota for president. Instead of endorsing Roosevelt, Sweeney endorsed Lemke (The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 13). He considered his 1936 reelection to be a mandate for independence from the Roosevelt Administration. While Sweeney did continue his support of a number of New Deal programs that he considered pro-labor, such as the Works Progress Administration, he proved one of Roosevelt’s strongest critics on foreign policy within the Democratic Party and opposed his 1938 reorganization plan as well as the excess profits tax. One area in which Sweeney stayed loyal to New Deal principles was his strong support for organized labor; he consistently opposed proposals to curb the power of unions. He also was one of Congress’s leading advocates of the Townsend Plan in 1939. Sweeney not only had trouble with Roosevelt, however, he was also independent of the Cleveland Democratic organization given his refusal to back Ray Miller in 1933, and Miller became chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party in 1938. Now, Sweeney’s chief rival had a perch of power from which to try to oust him. In 1941, his effort to run for mayor of Cleveland was again thwarted.
Sweeney and Non-Interventionism
Martin Sweeney was considered one of the foremost if not the foremost Anglophobe in Congress given his stance as an Irish patriot. In 1936, he voted against a resolution expressing condolences for the death of King George V, not out of a personal spite against the man, rather in protest of the brutal treatment of the Irish by the notorious Black and Tans under his reign (The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 13). In 1939, Sweeney loudly and rather rudely denounced King George VI and the Queen Mother while they were visiting the U.S. and sent a telegram to the former, which he read on the House floor, “. . .do you not think it is the decent thing to give some consideration to the obligation you owe the United States of America, whose assistance in the last World War made possible the continuance of Your Majesty’s government as a world power” (Hill). Indeed, among Democrats he was one of the most extreme of non-interventionists, being one of only seven House Democrats to vote for the first Lend-Lease appropriation in 1941. On September 4, 1940, Sweeney alleged in a speech before Congress that the military conscription bill being debated was an attempt to bring the U.S. into World War II on the side of Britain. This brought him into conflict with Beverly Vincent (D-Ky.), a supporter of the administration, when he finished his speech and went to sit next to him. Then, per Time Magazine (1940), ““I’d rather you would sit somewhere else,” quietly said Beverly Vincent. When Sweeney bristled, Vincent added: “You are a traitor.” Words passed. Vincent called Sweeney a son of a bitch. Sweeney swung at him. Taking careful aim and with obvious satisfaction, Beverly Vincent planted a good hard right, smack! It staggered, and silenced, Martin Sweeney. Though Congressmen not infrequently threaten one another and have been known to throw bound copies of the Record* when vexed, ancient Doorkeeper Joseph Sinnot said it was the best blow he had heard in his 50 years in the House.” Sweeney’s stances on foreign policy played well among his constituency before Pearl Harbor.
Sweeney and Antisemitism
Sweeney was, as noted, Father Coughlin’s spokesman in Congress, and his radio speeches were becoming increasingly peppered with antisemitism, including him essentially parroting the Nazi line on Kristallnacht. As part of this, journalists Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen alleged that Sweeney and Father Coughlin opposed U.S. District Attorney Emerich Burt Freed, an old legal partner of former Senator Robert Bulkley, for judge on the federal bench for Cleveland because he was a foreign-born Jew. Sweeney sued Pearson and Allen as well as newspapers that carried their Washington Merry-Go-Round column for libel, but he lost.
Life After Pearl Harbor
After Pearl Harbor, support for Sweeney’s pre-war positions dwindled in his strongly Democratic district, and both the Roosevelt Administration and Ray Miller wanted to see him defeated. In 1942, Union for Democratic Action listed him as one of the Congressional “obstructionists” they wanted to see defeated and listed him as opposed to their stances on 11 of 15 issues in which he cast a vote, and he opposed the UDA position on all foreign policy votes. To run against Sweeney, Ray Miller selected the young Michael Feighan for a second time. Feighan ran as a 100% supporter of FDR, and denounced him as the “leader of isolationism in northern Ohio and always a welcomed speaker at local German-American bund gatherings” (Hill). The fighting Irishman would not take this lying down. He retorted, “If I was connected with Nazi propaganda, take me to jail and indict me. Then prove the charge. That’s the American way” (Hill). Unlike in 1940, in which Sweeney easily defeated Feighan, Ray Miller got his wish. Sweeney commented on his loss, “It is a difficult assignment to try to beat a combination of newspapers, Communists and misguided persons” (Time Magazine, 1942). In 1943, Sweeney once again ran for mayor of Cleveland and met defeat, this time by future Senator Frank J. Lausche. The next year, he tried for the Democratic nomination for governor but lost to Lausche again, who ironically would be way more at odds with his party than Sweeney on Capitol Hill. He then endorsed the Republican Dewey-Bricker ticket to defeat FDR. Sweeney said regarding his motivations, “When Browder [Communist Party leader] and Hillman [radical head of the CIO PAC] crawl into the Democratic party, it is time for the Jeffersonian democrats to walk out” (Hill). Sweeney tried one more time before giving up the ghost, for the Ohio State Supreme Court, a race he lost overwhelmingly.
Despite his public image as an FDR opponent, his DW-Nominate score is a -0.375. Sweeney never retired from practicing law, practicing with his son, Bob, and died in his sleep on May 1, 1960 at the age of 75. The younger Sweeney would serve one term in Congress from 1965 to 1967 and unlike his father, would not cause trouble for the Johnson Administration, being a strong supporter of the president and his Great Society programs. He was also one of the first attorneys to file an asbestos lawsuit in the nation, which would make him a millionaire (Hill). Another interesting fact about Sweeney is that his first cousin was Dr. Francis Sweeney, the prime suspect in the unsolved Cleveland Torso Murders.
P.S.: I will be archiving my 2023 content by Saturday.
References
Hill, R. The Gentleman from Ohio: Martin L. Sweeney. The Knoxville Focus.
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Brennan, D. & Ryan, D.P. Sweeney, Martin L. Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
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Martin L. Sweeney, Ex-Lawmaker, Dies. (1960, May 2). The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1, 13.
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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1061405447
https://www.newspapers.com/image/1061405567
Rep. Sweeney Loses Libel Suit Over Column Which Called Him Anti-Semite. (1941, January 14). Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Sweeney, Martin Leonard. Voteview.
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https://voteview.com/person/9113/martin-leonard-sweeney
The Congress: The Bitter End. (1940, September 15). Time Magazine.
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https://time.com/archive/6764006/the-congress-the-bitter-end
U.S. At War: The Primaries. (1942, August 23). Time Magazine.
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Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 