There are not many politicians who can claim to have served in politics in the 1870s and 1920s, but along with Joe Cannon, a figure who I have previously discussed and find to be of great use in historical research, there is Isaac Sherwood (1835-1925) of Ohio. Since the Harding Administration has a much closer connection to our contemporary politics than the Grant Administration in relatability, we can have an idea how someone who voted a very conservative line could have voted in the time in which you had many Lincoln Republicans, of which Cannon and Sherwood were. Yet, Cannon and Sherwood went down different paths.
Isaac Sherwood in his youth.
Sherwood’s political career began when in 1860 he was elected probate judge of Williams County, Ohio, but on the outbreak of the War of the Rebellion, he joined the Union Army. Although he started as a private, he was an accomplished solider and by the end he was a brevet brigadier general. Sherwood resumed his political career when in 1868 he was elected Ohio’s Secretary of State and won reelection in 1870. Two years later, Isaac Sherwood is elected to Congress as a Republican. That election year is also Joe Cannon’s first. In this term, he proves supportive of inflationary currency and opposes legislation favorable to railroads. Sherwood doesn’t run for reelection in 1874, and while out of office he reevaluates his political affiliation and affiliates himself for a time with the Greenback Party, which pushed for fiat currency. However, by 1879, with Reconstruction behind the nation and economic issues more pressing, he becomes a Democrat. However, Sherwood doesn’t make his return to Congress until the 1906 election, by which time he is 71 years old.
Isaac Sherwood as an older man.
Sherwood throughout his life retains a degree of independence, and although he is of the Democratic Party, he remained faithful to his views on race relations as a Lincoln Republican; in 1915 he is one of only seven Democrats to vote against banning interracial relations in Washington D.C., and in 1916 he voted against a motion providing for segregation in D.C. probation offices. Other examples of independence during the Wilson Administration include his votes against federal licensing of cotton warehouses and for civil liberties protections during wartime. Sherwood proves a supporter of women’s suffrage as well, voting for amendments in 1915, 1918, and finally its adoption in 1919. Although there are many reforms he supports, one of them isn’t Prohibition, and he votes against the amendment as well as the enforcing Volstead Act. However, the controversial vote that causes a lot of voter anger against Sherwood is his vote against American entry into World War I. Numerous legislators suffered political consequences for this vote, an example being Republican Henry Cooper of Wisconsin, who had served since 1893 and lost renomination in 1918, only to win another election in 1920. This, plus the Republican wave of 1920, has him lose reelection to Republican William Chalmers. Although by 1922, Sherwood is 87 years old, he nonetheless runs for another term, and wins. In his last term, he supported measures reducing the power of railroads, including the Howell-Barkley bill and the Barkley proposal to prohibit railroads from adding the Pullman car surcharge to tickets. In 1924, he again loses reelection to Chalmers and dies only seven months after leaving Congress at the age of 90.
Sherwood was among the last of Union veterans to serve in Congress, with the final one, Senator Francis Warren of Wyoming, dying in 1929. It is almost unreal that Sherwood first is elected to a major political office at 33 and leaves his last at 89. If I were to defend the pop history party switch narrative, Sherwood would be an example I would cite, as he was a Lincoln Republican who moved to the Democrats over economics, similar to Benjamin Butler, thus one may argue that Republicans abandoned an egalitarian economic philosophy in the name of benefiting big business. However, one would still have to explain why he wasn’t a Teddy Roosevelt Republican (who Democrats of today would allegedly be in accord on so much) and why he supported Woodrow Wilson, a figure young Democrats are very keen on running away from given his racism, even though Wilson was thought of for the longest time as a liberal. What’s more, FDR, who I regard as the patron saint of modern liberalism, was Wilson’s protege and ideal of a young, energetic bureaucrat.
The 68th Congress was, although not a Democratic Congress, one that was far more ideologically competitive than the overwhelmingly Republican 67th Congress given the election results, and Speaker Frederick Gillett (R-Mass.) faced a serious challenge to his leadership at the start. Although big city districts turned Republican in the 1920 election, many reverted back to their Democratic ways, especially in New York City. Democrats also got a boost in the Midwest, which was continuing to struggle to the post-war environment for agriculture, which was marked by excesses in production and thus low food prices. Measures supported by progressives included reducing the power of railroads through the Howell-Barkley bill and prohibiting them from placing a Pullman car surcharge on tickets. They also pushed for a veterans’ bonus bill that became law after Congress overrode President Coolidge’s veto. There was also an interesting focus on conservation regarding salmon fishing and migratory bird refuges. The Senate also considered repealing the Railroad Labor Board, which was defeated. There were a number of notable deaths in this session as well, such as Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.) and the suicide of Frank Brandegee (R-Conn.). You might also note a significant exclusion, and that is of the Child Labor Amendment. The issue of child labor is primarily regional, as prohibitions impacted the South much deeper than the North.
In 1915, Congress voted for an anti-miscegenation law for Washington D.C. The vote was not close, passing with almost all Democrats in support and Republicans split. The most that could be said against the bill by its opponents, led by Minority Leader James Mann (R-Ill.), was that although they found interracial relationships personally objectionable, such a law would be oppressive to black people. Seven years later, Congress voted for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which met the same fate as the anti-miscegenation law: passed overwhelmingly in the House but failed to pass the Senate. One would assume that those who voted against anti-lynching legislation would also vote against interracial marriage, right? You’d be correct in all but two cases, those of Republicans R. Wayne Parker of Newark, New Jersey and William Stafford of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Similarities
Both Parker and Stafford had some striking similarities that tell us perhaps a good deal of why they voted against the Dyer bill. In 1918, the two voted against both the Prohibition Amendment and the Women’s Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution. In 1921, both voted against the Sheppard-Towner Maternity Act. In these regards, they sided with people who emphasized state’s rights. Both were strongly inclined against high government spending and supported income tax reduction. Both men also did not reside in safe districts and were persistent in their political careers. However, there were some substantial differences between the men.
Differences
Parker was extremely conservative, voting for expanding the navy to prepare for war, against the eight-hour day law for railroad workers, and for World War I but against raising the income tax to fund it. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.621. He was also the only legislator in the House from above the Mason-Dixon line to vote against the Keating-Owen Act limiting working hours for children and forbidding interstate sale of goods produced by child labor. Parker had also been chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the 61st Congress. Although he lost reelection in 1910, he returned to office in a 1914 special election in a plurality, in which the Democrats had the misfortune of having two candidates from their party. A strange incident occurred in the following year when he had a public outburst that he should go to Washington and take over the affairs of Secretary of State Robert Lansing and that he wanted to see the German Ambassador Count von Bernstorff and that he had equipped “four horses” for the purpose and was briefly placed in an asylum at the behest of his wife (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
In 1918, Parker lost reelection to Democrat Daniel Minahan but bounced back in the 1920 Harding landslide. However, the 1922 midterms went strongly against the Republicans and Parker again lost reelection to Minahan. He might have tried for his seat again, but he died in Paris on November 28, 1923, during an operation for peritonitis. The district he represented is now a solidly Democratic area. The last Republican any part of his old district elected to Congress appears to have been William Martini in 1994.
Stafford
Stafford was willing to vote for some of Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom legislation and was regarded as an independent-minded legislator. He sometimes supported the La Follette wing of the party and notably voted against American entry into World War I, although most of Wisconsin’s elected officials did so as well. Stafford was also a supporter of independence for the Philippines. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.314.
He often battled for representing his district with Socialist Victor Berger. Stafford had first won his seat in 1902, but lost reelection in 1910 in a Democratic wave with Berger becoming the first member of the Socialist Party to be elected to Congress. However, Stafford got returned to office in 1912 only to lose in 1918 to Berger. Although elected, Berger was not seated over claims of disloyalty to the United States and his conviction of sedition (it was overturned), thus leaving Wisconsin’s 5th without representation during the 66th Congress. In 1920, Stafford was elected again and had a mixed record in supporting President Harding’s policies, notably being against higher tariffs. However, he lost to Berger in 1922. Stafford tried again in 1926 but fell short as the midterms, while not bad for Republicans, were not favorable either. He tried again in 1928 and a three-way election produced a plurality for him. He didn’t face another challenge from Berger in 1930, as he had been killed in a cable car accident, but he came close to losing to another Socialist. The Great Depression, however, was too much for Stafford to politically survive and he lost renomination in 1932.
Although in 1938 he ran for the Republican nomination for the Senate, he was defeated by businessman Alexander Wiley, who would win the election. Stafford would live for quite a bit longer, dying on April 22, 1957. His district would only see fit to send two more Republicans to the House in non-interventionist Lewis Thill (1939-1943) and moderate Charles Kersten (1947-1949, 1951-1955). It has since become a Democratic stronghold.
References
Obituary – Richard Wayne Parker. (1923, November 29). The Philadelphia Inquirer.
The term “socialism” or “socialist” gets bandied about quite a bit, but we do have actual socialists in Congress and some people who identified with the Socialist Party historically before going to a different party. Two were Populists before they became members of the Socialist Party. Interestingly, there is some variation in scoring, although at least one of these inclusions is questionable. I have also added George Rhodes (D-Penn.), as he had a past in Pennsylvania’s Socialist Party. One figure I am excluding is John Travers Wood, who although he was the Socialist mayor of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho way back in the 1910s, by the time he was elected to Congress in 1950 as a Republican he was about as far as you could get from a socialist.
Perhaps the media’s most stylish if not the most touted socialist, Ocasio-Cortez’s score is strangely high given that she and “The Squad” have on some occasions voted “nay” with Republicans on Democratic legislation as it wasn’t sufficient for them.
Danny Davis (D-Ill., 1997- ) – -0.486
Danny Davis has long represented his Chicago district and has been a member of Democratic Socialists of America.
Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich., 2019- ) – -0.288
Another member of The Squad, she represents a Detroit district and like Ocasio-Cortez, she has voted “nay” on certain Democratic proposals.
Ilhan Omar (D-Minn., 2019 – ) – -0.293
Representing Minneapolis, Omar is also a member of “The Squad”.
Cori Bush (D-Mo., 2021- ) – -0.247
Cori Bush, representing urban St. Louis, became part of “The Squad” after her election in 2020.
Major Owens (D-N.Y., 1983-2007) – -0.569
Owens was a major NYC leftist and objected to the electoral vote count of Ohio for Bush in 2004. He also was the floor manager for the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y., 2021- ) – -0.356
Bowman, representing New York City, is yet another member of “The Squad”.
Summer Lee (D-Penn., 2023- ) – -0.375
Elected to Congress in 2022, Summer Lee was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and was elected with their support.
Greg Casar (D-Tex., 2023- ) – -0.378
Representing territory from East Austin to West San Antonio and formerly of the Austin City Council, Casar has been affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt., 1989- ) – -0.539
Bernie Sanders is certainly America’s most famous contemporary socialist. He is interestingly not lower on DW-Nominate as there has been the occasional issue he has sided with the GOP on, such as auditing the Fed or opposition to funding research into human cloning.
Horace Greeley (W-N.Y., 1847-49) – 0.429 – Horace Greeley actually served as a member of Congress shortly, but I actually have strong doubts about Greeley’s “socialism”, as it seems like he entertained the idea rather than embraced it, and he tended to include ideas he entertained in his newspaper. His DW-Nominate score indicates that if he was a socialist, he was by far the most right-wing socialist to ever serve in Congress.
Robert Dale Owen (D-Ind., 1843-1847) – -0.232 – This is more of an actual socialist from Greeley’s time period, as his father, Robert Owen, was a major socialist theorist, his sort being a utopian socialism. Owen throughout his life stood for socialism. Yet as a member of Congress he had a reputation as not exceptional as far as Democrats went. Owen I find an interesting example not only because he was a Democrat in the time it was thought of as the party of Jackson, but also because he identified as a socialist before The Communist Manifesto existed.
Victor Berger (S-N.Y., 1911-13, 1923-29) – 0.176 – Berger of Milwaukee represents one of the DW-Nominate anomalies for sure, as his score is above that of red hunter Richard Nixon. He faced off regularly against Republican William Stafford.
Meyer London (S-N.Y., 1915-19, 1921-23) – -0.026 – One of the official members of the Socialist Party, he appears more conservative than most Democrats, and part of that may be his opposition to Democratic war measures, including his opposition to cracking down on civil liberties.
Andrew Biemiller (D-Wis., 1945-47, 1949-51) – -0.484 – Formerly a Socialist representative in the Wisconsin Assembly, Biemiller fairly seamlessly made the transition to a staunchly liberal Democrat in Congress. Both times he lost reelection it was to Republican Charles Kersten, the last Republican to represent Milwaukee in Congress.
David Bonior (D-Mich., 1977-2003) – -0.547
Although a member of Democratic Socialists of America, Bonior rose up to be the third-ranking Democrat in the House during the Bush Administration and was known as a major opponent of NAFTA. Interestingly, he was pro-life in his voting record.
Ron Dellums (D-Calif., 1971-98) – -0.644
Elected to represent Berkeley, California, in 1970, Dellums was a self-described socialist, staunchly anti-Vietnam War, and almost never voted for military appropriations bills.
John Conyers (D-Mich., 1965-2017) – -0.658
John Conyers long represented Detroit in Congress and notably introduced legislation to investigate the idea of reparations.
Leo Isacson (ALP-N.Y., 1948-49) – -1
Isacson won a special election in a normally staunchly Democratic district. He was left-wing to the hilt on domestic policy and his vote against the Marshall Plan can be seen as a vote friendly to the USSR.
Hugh De Lacy (D-Wash., 1945-47) – -0.501
De Lacy was one of two “secret communists” of Congress and represented Seattle for a term and was the leader of the pro-communist Washington Commonwealth Federation within the Democratic Party. However, he lost reelection in 1946, a time in which Seattle wasn’t relentlessly left-wing.
John Bernard (FL-Minn., 1937-39) – -0.353
Bernard was another of the two “secret communists” of Congress, although he would later publicly call himself a communist. He represented the Iron Range in Minnesota, now a Republican area.
Jerry J. O’Connell (D-Mont., 1937-39) – -0.396
Jerry O’Connell was known as a supporter of the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War and was a communist fellow-traveler. He later associated with Hugh De Lacy’s wing of the Democratic Party, the Washington Commonwealth Federation.
Homer T. Bone (D-Wash., 1933-44) – -0.047
Bone had a past in Washington’s Socialist Party before winning election to the Senate as a Democrat. As a senator, although he was a New Dealer, he strongly opposed FDR’s foreign policy.
George Rhodes (D-Penn., 1949-69) – -0.369
Rhodes had a history in Pennsylvania’s Socialist Party, but the future was brighter with the Democrats and he defeated Republican Frederick Muhlenberg for reelection in 1948, serving 20 years and being a staunch supporter of Democratic programs.
LaGuardia is one of the people that I would question a full-on labeling of “socialist”. Although he did win election to Congress on a fusion Progressive/Socialist ticket in 1924, but ran as a Republican again in 1926.
George Lunn (D-N.Y., 1917-19) – -0.181
Lunn had been the Socialist Party mayor of Schenectady, New York, before Democrats approached him to run for Congress on their ticket. He would lose reelection in 1918.
Harry Lane (D-Ore., 1913-17) – -0.154
Lane was a rather independent-minded progressive senator and got into a whole lot of hot water for voting against American participation in World War I in 1917. He died before there were electoral consequences.
Freeman Knowles (P-S.D., 1897-99) – -0.281
Knowles started out as a Populist but would later join the Socialist Party.
Kittel Halvorson (P-Minn., 1891-93) – -0.153
Halvorson was just like Knowles in trajectory.
Henry Smith (UL-Wis., 1887-89) – -0.148
Smith had been a Socialist in the Wisconsin Assembly and, like in Congress, represented Milwaukee. He at differing times ran on the Democratic, Union Labor, Greenback Party, and Socialist tickets.
Jerry Voorhis (D-Calif., 1937-47) – -0.329
Jerry Voorhis was a loyal New Dealer but is also notable for being defeated by Richard Nixon for reelection in 1946. Interestingly, it was Nixon’s anti-communist politicking against Voorhis that turned Governor Earl Warren, a personal friend of Voorhis, against him throughout his political career.
Vito Marcantonio (R-N.Y., 1935-37, ALP 1939-51) – -0.415
Interestingly, Marcantonio was once a Republican! He was also one of the few openly pro-communist legislators out there, but his excellent constituent service helped keep him in office until Republicans and Democrats ran a fusion candidate to defeat him in 1950.
Interestingly, it has only been relatively recently that socialists got elected to office and stayed consistently long. Milwaukee figures as having multiple socialist figures representing the district as they had a particularly strong pull there.
In November 2023, the federal government operated at a $314 billion deficit. We have largely known deficits rather than anything else in recent decades given Congress not wanting to raise taxes and/or reduce spending. However, there was a time in which we had the opposite problem, one that some legislators may wish for now, having a surplus in the US Treasury instead of a debt. Such was the case in the politics of the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Along with opposing the spread of slavery, one of the founding issues of the Republican Party was the protective tariff. These tariffs were ostensibly for the purpose of continuing with Alexander Hamilton’s American System, in which tariffs were to fund internal improvements, thereby helping domestic industry grow both through protection from foreign competition and development of roads, bridges, and canals. Once the War of the Rebellion was over, slavery abolished, and then Reconstruction ended, tariffs became the central issue (although not the only) that separated the Democratic and Republican parties. The politics of the late 19th century were rather odd in the sense that partisanship was high but ideologically the parties, at least compared to today, don’t seem THAT different. Tariffs, however, resulted in growing Treasury surpluses, and this was seen as a problem because money just sitting in there just…well…sits there, not contributing to the economy. In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison stated, “while a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil” (DiBacco). While it could have been used to retire debt, this would result in, according to economist Thomas V. DiBacco (1981), “buying securities at premium prices investors in this favorable position demanded. In this instance the government could be criticized for using public funds to reward big investors”.
Democrat Grover Cleveland wanted to reduce tariffs to lower the surplus, while Benjamin Harrison wanted to further raise tariffs but use the surplus on veterans’ pensions. The 1888 Republican platform explicitly supported protection, while supporting reducing domestic taxes and tariffs on items that cannot be made in the United States, even asserting “If there shall remain a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the government we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system at the joint behests of the whiskey trusts and the agents of foreign manufacturers” (The American Presidency Project, Republican Party Platform). The Democratic platform, on the other hand, decried the protective tariff system. The platform held that “Judged by Democratic principles, the interests of the people are betrayed, when, by unnecessary taxation, trusts and combinations are permitted and fostered, which, while unduly enriching the few that combine, rob the body of our citizens by depriving them of the benefits of natural competition. Every Democratic rule of governmental action is violated when through unnecessary taxation a vast sum of money, far beyond the needs of an economical administration, is drawn from the people and the channels of trade, and accumulated as a demoralizing surplus in the National Treasury.
The money now lying idle in the Federal Treasury, resulting from superfluous taxation amounts to more than $125,000,000, and the surplus collected is reaching the sum of more than $60,000,000 annually” (The American Presidency Project, Democratic Platform). The Democratic platform also charged the Republicans with pushing numerous spending proposals of dubious value, materially and constitutionally, to reduce the surplus.
The 1888 election saw the victory of Benjamin Harrison and it all hinged on the state of New York. Harrison won New York thanks largely to the efforts of his campaign manager Matthew Quay. Harrison was also blessed with a Republican majority, and this majority was eager to spend the surplus. One measure was the Dependent and Disability Pension Act, which expanded pensions to all Union veterans who honorably served for at least 90 days and were unable to physically work. Others included a major expansion of the navy and more funds for internal improvements. The Congress also narrowly passed the McKinley Tariff. While all this did succeed in nearly eliminating the budget surplus, the Congress was criticized as the “Billion Dollar Congress”, to which Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed (R-Me.) responded, “This is a billion-dollar country” (NPS). The Democrats also charged that this spending was wasteful, and such a criticism is reflected in the below 1892 cartoon from the humorous Democratic magazine Puck.
While the 51st Congress was quite productive and efficient in what they sought to achieve, namely the 1888 Republican platform, this attracted a lot of opposition, and the 1890 midterms were nasty due to the recession from the Panic of 1890, caused by the near collapse of London’s Barings Bank. Although Grover Cleveland would again be elected president in 1892, a lot of his presidency would see deficits due to the reduced revenues from the Panic of 1893 and the depression that followed.
The most known Coolidge in American politics was of course President Calvin Coolidge, a conservative Republican who served from 1923 to 1929. However, did you know that there was another branch of Coolidges, kind of like the Democratic and Republican Roosevelts? The foremost elected official in this family was Democrat Marcus A. Coolidge (1865-1947), also from Massachusetts. While they were related and they do have some facial similarities, it was a relation that was “distant” (The Washington Post).
Coolidge had served as mayor of Fitchburg, Massachusetts for two terms and was well-liked by President Wilson, who picked him as envoy to Poland after World War I and was supportive of FDR (Hennessy). In 1920, he ran for lieutenant governor against Republican Alvan T. Fuller but lost as the Republicans had a boom year. Although the 1920s would be primarily years of political fortune for the Republicans, the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929 started their massive downfall.
In 1930, Senator Frederick Gillett, by this time nearing 80, was calling it quits. Not only that, but the Great Depression was also hitting the country. Coolidge saw it as his chance to run, and although the GOP picked Calvin Coolidge’s friend and former Senator Willliam M. Butler and Coolidge campaigned for him, Marcus Coolidge had former Democratic nominee Al Smith campaign for him. Both Calvin Coolidge and Smith had won Massachusetts in their elections. The Democrats, however, were ascendant, and Marcus Coolidge prevailed by over 10 points. This made it the first time in the history of Massachusetts that both of its senators were Democrats. Coolidge was supportive of the classic Democratic plank of tariff reduction and kept his options open on the question of the League of Nations (The New York Times). Coolidge, rather similar to Calvin, had some fiscally conservative points to him; he opposed veterans bonus legislation repeatedly until voting to override President Roosevelt’s veto in 1936. He would also vote against US entry into the World Court in 1935 despite voting against all proposed reservations.
Coolidge was largely a supporter of FDR’s First 100 Days legislation, such as voting for the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act. He also voted for FDR’s “wealth tax” of 1935, but had some independence in his voting record, especially in his last two years. This included voting against the “Death Sentence” clause of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, against bituminous coal regulation, and against the Revenue Act of 1936. Despite such independence, his DW-Nominate score was a -0.355. Coolidge might have had another term had Massachusetts’ governor not been Jim Curley. Curley wanted the Senate seat and, according to Time Magazine, “Senator Coolidge was simply dumped by the wayside; the Democratic convention automatically endorsed Mr. Curley” (Time Magazine, 1936). This reflected Curley’s power flexing but also perhaps his identity politics as although Coolidge was a Democrat, he was also a WASP. This didn’t end up working out for Curley and this was the only Senate seat picked up by a Republican that year in Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., and a Democrat would not be elected to this Senate seat again until 1978. In a reflection of his career in the Boston Globe, he was regarded as a “grand old 20th Century puritan” (Hennessy).
References
Hennessy, M.E. (1947, February 2). Round About. The Boston Globe.
Baltimore has historically been a place in which Republicans have seldom found themselves electable in its history. The most notable Republican to come out of Baltimore was none other than Spiro Agnew, who benefited from divisions regarding race within the state’s Democratic Party at the time. One figure who managed to do quite well before Agnew was Daniel Ellison (1886-1960). In 1923, he was elected to represent the fourth council district and most of the time he was in office he was the only Republican on the city council. He managed to stay through even during the Great Depression, a testament to his popularity. Ellison was also a bit of a rarity as a Republican in that he was Jewish. Jews have a long history of voting Democratic and although this may weaken with controversy regarding the Israel-Hamas war, I don’t generally count on super-dramatic shifts.
Ellison in Congress
In 1942, incumbent Democrat John A. Meyer lost renomination to Democrat Joseph Wyatt. Had Meyer been renominated, perhaps the seat would have stayed in Democratic hands. After all, the 4th district had a very long history of electing Democrats, the last time the district elected a Republican was in 1900. Ellison resigned his seat on the city council and narrowly won in the Republican wave year of 1942. To this day, Ellison is the last Republican to have held a seat on the Baltimore City Council and the last to have represented a significant portion of Baltimore in Congress.
Ellison’s DW-Nominate score was a -0.099, an astonishingly low score for a Republican, with only Charles La Follette of Indiana and Richard Welch of California having lower scores than him. He was perhaps the most consistent Republican supporter of maintaining wartime price control, voted against funding the House Committee on Un-American Activities, voted against the Smith-Connally Act on wartime labor disputes, voted against the Hobbs (D-Ala.) anti-racketeering bill opposed by organized labor in 1943, voted to retain agricultural subsidies, and for U.S. participation in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. On the conservative side, he voted against increasing funds for agricultural programs, voted to revoke FDR’s wage freeze in 1943, and voted for tax relief over President Roosevelt’s veto in 1944. Ellison was yet another figure in the storied history of dissident Republicans from Maryland, perhaps the most notable one being Charles Mathias, a major irritant to the Nixon White House who would serve in the House from 1961 to 1969 and the Senate from 1969 to 1987. Ellison’s overall liberal record wasn’t enough to stop him from losing reelection in 1944 by almost 20 points.
There are no members of the John Birch Society that I know of who are currently serving in Congress. The closest I think we get is Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has appeared at their events and gotten sky-high scores from their “Freedom Index”. Although no senator has been known to be a member of the John Birch Society, there are seven representatives I have found who at one time or another were members.
James Simpson Jr. – Robert Welch recruited this one-time conservative representative from Chicago suburbs to the John Birch Society’s National Council in early 1960, but he died only weeks later (Peterson, 177). Simpson, who only served in the first two years of FDR’s first term, voted against most of the New Deal, but voted for gold confiscation in 1934. His emphasis seemed to be on less spending in all. Simpson also voted for the investigation into the racially discriminatory practices of the House restaurant.
DW-Nominate: 0.435
Howard Buffett – The father of Warren Buffett was quite a conservative indeed, being staunchly anti-New and Fair Deal as well as being a consistent non-interventionist, opposing Greek-Turkish Aid in 1947 and the Marshall Plan in 1948. Although the John Birch Society opposed the major civil rights laws of the 1960s and regarded the civil rights movement as a communist plot, Buffett is on record having voted to ban the poll tax thrice: in 1943, 1945, and 1947. He also voted for the anti-discrimination Powell Amendment to the school lunch bill in 1946 and to kill a segregated VA hospital in 1951.
ADA (modified): 8% DW-Nominate: 0.686
Edgar Hiestand – A California representative who was in the John Birch Society while he was serving in Congress. Serving from 1953 to 1963, Hiestand was staunchly conservative and Americans for Constitutional Action only records him as having voted against their positions twice, both in 1960. On civil rights, he has something of a mixed record. While he voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1960, extending the Civil Rights Commission, and anti-discrimination riders, he paired against final passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and voted against banning the poll tax in 1962. He was defeated for reelection in his normally Republican district in 1962 on account of his association with JBS.
ACA (modified): 97% ADA (modified): 12% DW-Nominate: 0.49
John Rousselot – Easily the most successful of the John Birchers in Congress. An advertising executive by profession, Rousselot was the PR point man for the JBS. He served in the 87th Congress (1961-63) but was defeated for reelection on account of his association with JBS. However, Rousselot was again elected in 1970 after the death of Glen Lipscomb and would serve until 1983. During this time, he was a rising star in the conservative movement and with Bob Bauman and Phil Crane was a leading pusher of conservative initiatives in Congress. As freshman Representative Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) stated in 1979, “Rousselot and Bauman are the real leaders of the opposition party. They dominate the floor more than the real leadership does and sometimes they do it despite the Republican leadership” (Russell & Baker). Rousselot’s record on civil rights was mostly negative. Although he voted to fund the Civil Rights Commission in 1961, prohibiting racial discrimination in the extension of credit (only three representatives voted against this one) and voted for minority set-asides in government contracting in 1980, he voted against banning the poll tax in 1962, the Equal Rights Amendment in 1971, against strengthening fair housing laws in 1980, and in 1975 and 1981 opposed extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rousselot’s downfall was crossing powerful Congressman Phil Burton of San Francisco by recruiting a strong challenger for the San Francisco and Marin County based Congressional district held by his brother, John, for the 1980 election. Burton got Rousselot redistricted into a majority Latino district, and he was defeated. Afterwards an advisor to President Reagan, his effort to return to Congress in 1992 was unsuccessful on account of his connections to savings & loan firms.
ACA (modified): 97% ADA (modified): 6% DW-Nominate: 0.601
John G. Schmitz, R-Calf. – Like with Rousselot, I have written about this guy before. Schmitz was, in short, extremely offensive, sometimes hilariously so. He was relentlessly conservative in his voting and was even kicked out of the JBS. I cannot find an instance of Schmitz voting for a civil rights measure.
ACA (modified): 99% ADA (modified): 10% DW-Nominate: 0.896
Larry McDonald, D-Ga. – Without question the most conservative Democrat to sit in Congress, McDonald was chairman of the John Birch Society in his last year of life, dying with the rest of the shot down KAL 007.
ACA (modified): 98% ADA (modified): 5% DW-Nominate: 0.884
Albert Lee Smith, R-Ala. – Smith was a member of the JBS before running for Congress in 1980. He had defeated for renomination John Hall Buchanan, who grown increasingly moderate in past few years. Smith, a staunch conservative, was not a good fit for the Birmingham-based district as it was constituted, as he only lasted a single term, being defeated for reelection by moderate Democrat Ben Erdreich, who held the seat for ten years until a majority-black district was carved out of much of the district’s territory, making the 6th far more Republican. Smith voted for extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 1981.
ACA (modified): 90% ADA (modified): 3% DW-Nominate: 0.461
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
The Union Party’s Triumvirate of Demagogues: Dr. Francis Townsend, Gerald L.K. Smith, and Father Charles E. Coughlin.
In 1935, the presidential aspirations of Senator Huey Long (D-La.) were no secret. He had even written a book titled My First Days in the White House. Long was one of FDR’s most formidable political rivals and him running for president in 1936, potentially tanking Roosevelt’s reelection, was thought of as an actual threat. Long’s scheme was long-term: he didn’t intend to win in 1936, rather he intended to prematurely end FDR’s political career and he believed that whatever Republican won the White House would prove by 1940 to be unpopular and Long could steamroll him. He had argued before the Supreme Court before, which impressed Chief Justice William Howard Taft to the degree that he said of him that of the attorneys who argued before the court he was “the most brilliant lawyer who ever practiced” (Bishop). Roosevelt once famously wrote of him that he was “one of the most dangerous men in America”. Long’s influence has also been attributed by some historians to have considerably motivated his second New Deal, which went in a more redistributionist direction than the First New Deal, and this narrative is backed by FDR being reported as having admitted in private that he was attempting to “steal Long’s thunder” (Snyder, 117). However, this all came to a screeching halt when he was shot at the State Capitol on September 8, 1935, and died two days later. Officially, Carl Weiss was the assassin, but its possible that he was accidentally shot by his bodyguards while they gunned down Weiss. This was a serious blow to political populists, but his director of the Share Our Wealth society, Gerald L.K. Smith, aimed to continue Long’s legacy. Smith decided to team up with radio broadcaster Father Charles E. Coughlin and Townsend Plan advocate Dr. Francis Townsend. In this arrangement, according to historian Glen Jeansonne (1997) “Coughlin was the senior partner in the triumvirate because his movement was the largest and most volatile. Smith was the junior partner because he relied on the others for forums and mailing lists. But while Smith was temporarily weak, he had assets which made him potentially the strongest of the three: he was bold and fearless, unlike the aged and infirm Townsend, and he was better at speaking to a live audience than either Townsend or Coughlin. Smith was also the most ambitious and the most likely to use demagoguery and even violence to achieve his nebulous goals” (61-62). While these three men were compelling figures for people who sought answers for the Great Depression outside of FDR’s New Deal, none of them were up for running for president. Some possible contenders for this role were Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, who would later become a foe of Roosevelt, the staunchly independent Senator William E. Borah of Idaho, or Governor Floyd Olson of Minnesota. Neither of the senators proved willing to follow through, with Borah trying to win the Republican nomination and Olson by 1936 would be dead from stomach cancer.
The Union Party was named such by Coughlin based on Abraham Lincoln’s Union Party, stating, “In 1864 when Lincoln proposed to abolish physical slavery there was established a ‘union party’! In 1936, when we are determined to annihilate financial slavery, we welcome the ‘union party’ became it has the courage to go to the root of our troubles” (Parsons, 58). The Union Party was for higher tariffs and non-interventionism in foreign affairs in the plank that America must be “self-contained and self-sustained”, Father Coughlin’s inflationary monetary views, adoption of the inflationary third Frazier-Lemke Farm Mortgage bill, old-age benefits, and a limitation on annual income (Parsons, 67).
The man who was ultimately picked was Rep. William Lemke (R-N.D.), an agrarian populist who had sponsored the Frazier-Lemke Farm Mortgage Act in 1934, which was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court. The ticket had a lot of trouble gaining support from major sectors. Organized labor did not support this party, opting to stick with Roosevelt, which may have been a motivation for Coughlin and Smith’s later turns against organized labor. No major newspapers endorsed the Union Party. even had difficulty keeping unification within its own small group. It was also becoming increasingly clear that Smith was trying to take Dr. Townsend’s movement out from under him (Jeansonne, 50). He often looked shabby, was balding, often had stubble on his chin, and lacked charisma and public speaking ability, choosing to focus on facts and statistics rather than on rhetorical flare (Jeansonne, 55). While this was a more logical approach, it was a far less engaging approach than what Coughlin, Smith, and Townsend had to offer and he was not the centerpiece of the campaign. Who the centerpiece of the campaign was, incidentally, an issue throughout, with Smith and Coughlin competing for top billing. Dr. Townsend himself was by this time nearly 70 and wasn’t a commanding presence. Father Coughlin would denounce Roosevelt as “Franklin Double-crossing Roosevelt”, a “liar”, and a “great betrayer”, which he would subsequently regret as intemperate and he came to conclude it was more his advisors to blame than him (Gallagher, 22-23). However, Coughlin’s rhetoric would get more and more wild as the campaign progressed. This included in separate occasions calling Roosevelt “anti-God” and his cabinet as “Hull, the internationalist and number one communist. Then comes Ma Perkins, Ickes, Morgenthau, Tugwell, Mordecai Ezekiel – all communists” (Parsons, 77). Such an amping up of rhetoric was a bid for attention within the Union Party. As historian Glen Jeansonne (1997) wrote, “[Gerald L.K.] Smith brought out the worst in Coughlin, who was driven to excess as he tried to compete with him. His speeches became increasingly demagogic and his credibility declined” (56). Smith was the ultimate of the three demagogues, having an incredible talent for public speaking but this was combined with off-the-wall statements. In one speech, he said, “A nursing baby, they say, is content while it’s taking milk; you set in your places and take it while I pour it on, and I’ll tell you when to clap. I come to you 210 pounds of fighting Louisiana flesh, with the blood memory of Huey Long who died for the people of this country still hot in my eyes…and I’ll show you the most historic and contemptible betrayal ever put over on the American people…our people were starving and they burned the wheat…hungry and they killed the pigs…led by Mr. Henry Wallace, secretary of Swine Assassination…and by a slimy group of men culled from the pink campuses of America with friendly gaze fixed on Russia” (Jeansonne, 55). He also was apocalyptic in his rhetoric and linked FDR to two incompatible groups. Namely, international bankers and communists, and warned that if elected it would be the last free election in America (Jeansonne, 57). However, there was one speech that went way too far for Lemke and Dr. Townsend. On October 20th, Smith announced the formation of a movement to “seize the government of the United States” and that “ten million patriots” would lay down their lives to save the US from an international communist conspiracy, and that four hundred wealthy individuals would give the movement 1% of their income to “make America vigorously nationalistic” (Jeansonne, 59). Even before the election occurred, all three men were pursuing separate courses in the campaign.
Although Coughlin and others hoped the ticket would cut into Roosevelt’s support, it really only slightly cut into the support of Roosevelt as well as Republican Alf Landon, making its net impact negligible, and it didn’t even win 1 million votes. Dr. Townsend didn’t even vote for Lemke, rather Republican Alf Landon (Grossman). Coughlin regretted the 1936 campaign as ill-conceived. He held in 1972 that he had been persuaded by “a lot of nincompoops” to do so (Gallagher, 21). One might say things would have gone better for such a third-party run had Huey Long not been killed in 1935. After all, the Roosevelt campaign estimated that if he ran, he would win 10% of the vote in 1936. However, he would likely have been indicted for tax evasion, which would probably have depressed his support (I would in past years have said certainly rather than probably, but I’ve learned not to underestimate support for demagogues) depressing these figures (Feuer herd). Dr. Townsend would withdraw from politics and as Social Security started paying out benefits, the influence of him and his plan fizzled. Smith and Coughlin would become known as anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers in their demagoguery, with Coughlin being out of politics after 1942 and Smith, although never giving up on trying for influence, was condemned to increasing obscurity.
References
Feuerherd, P. (2017, September 15). Huey Long: A Fiery Populist Who Wanted to Share the Wealth. JSTOR Daily.
Snyder, R.E. (1975, Spring). Huey Long and the Presidential Election of 1936. Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, 16(2).
Morris Sheppard (D-Tex.), the Senate sponsor of the bill.
After suffrage for women became a reality in the United States with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, women’s advocacy groups decided to wield their new power by securing maternity aid legislation. While there was a lot of popular support and a lot of pressure for the legislation, there were groups that opposed, notably the Sentinels of the Republic and the anti-suffrage publication Woman Patriot. Some opponents made claims about this legislation being socialist or a step to bolshevism. The relevance of this bill is that it was a significant major foray into social welfare legislation.
Arguments for in the Senate:
William Kenyon (R-Iowa), responding to Senator James A. Reed’s (D-Mo.) acerbic criticisms of the bill, states, “Who were the men who formulated this measure? As I have sat here and listened to the wonderful satire, humor, and shafts of irony, I have wondered about the men who fathered this measure. It is not my bill, though I am glad to stand here and champion it, for I believe in it. It is the bill of the Senator from Texas [Mr. Sheppard]. Is he a bolshevist? Is he trying to tear mothers away from babies and babies away from mothers? He has more babies to exhibit than either the Senator from Missouri or myself. He has stood for everything that is good in public and private life. He has not a diseased, brain, evolving bolshevistic ideas.
How about the joint author of the bill in the House, Judge Towner, from my State? He is one of the ablest, most conservative, and careful men in public life, and one of the best men. He was a lecturer on constitutional law in the State University of Iowa, a man with a family. He is not a bolshevist. He has not one of these diseased brains that the Senator from Missouri is talking about” (July 22, 4207).
Arguments against:
Francis Warren (R-Wyo.) argued against on the grounds of limiting spending and government interference, holding that “…the Treasury of the United States is to-day a sick patient. We shall either have to put an end to these miscellaneous new fad appropriations, which, like the camel’s nose under the tent, seem small and unimportant in the first view we take of them, but which crowd upon us with every succeeding year until they help to place us under a taxation of burden that is wringing the withers of every taxpayer – individual, partnership, or corporation – or else we shall have to submit to an appreciable increase of the burden” (July 22, 4210).
Arguments for in the House:
John E. Raker (D-Calif.), held, “The purpose and the only purpose of the bill is to promote the welfare and hygiene of maternity and infancy as provided in the bill. All our schools and all our efforts in the line of education from the primary schools to the college, all the money spent for schools and for education is to better the condition of the human race. This bill has for its object like education on a specific and on special lines. No one has raised the constitutional question, no one has gone into hysteria over the study of animal life or money expended by the Federal Government for those purposes; no one has gone into hysteria over spending money in order to see that we might have better plant life; not one has gone into hysteria over a thousand and one other things that we are spending money on to better plant and animal life” (November 19, 7980).
Alben Barkley (D-Ky.), future vice president, argued that “We appropriate millions each year to save the lives of dumb animals” (November 18, 7934). He also argued that prominent opponent Thomas U. Sisson (D-Miss.) had no problem supporting $50,000 for rural sanitation and questioned the distinction between that and maternity aid (November 19, 7984).
Clarence F. Lea (D-Calif.) argued that this measure was primarily educational, and not a matter of government doing what the individual can do, as it cannot be expected that the individual would be able to self-educate on such a matter, and cites government educating farmers on best farming practices as a legitimate precedent (November 19, 7988).
Wynne F. Clouse (R-Tenn.) argued that appropriations for this purpose were constitutional, and cited the general welfare clause of the Constitution (November 19, 7984).
Everett Sanders (R-Ind.), who would serve as President Coolidge’s secretary, contested that this bill was socialist, stating, “It is claimed that it is socialism for the State or municipality to carry on the work as it is for the Federal Government. What is mean is that it ought not to be done by the Central Government. Well, we have centralized powers in the Federal Government, and that is as inevitable as the rising sun” (November 19, 7987).
Jasper Tincher (R-Kan.) argued that the bill does not violate “state’s rights” rather helps them with funding maternity aid (November 19, 7987).
R. Walton Moore (D-Va.) argued that this bill is an extension of what the Federal Government had been doing through the Public Health Service (November 19, 7988).
William Graham (R-Ill.) cited a broad public consensus for this measure, including support from President Harding and endorsement by the Republican and Democratic platforms of 1920, argued that one in ten babies dies within their first year and that the US ranked behind ten other nations in infant mortality, and cited New York City’s adoption of the bureau of child hygiene as a model for success (November 19, 7989-7991).
William Bankhead (D-Ala.) concurred with Graham’s citing of infant mortality numbers in the US and defended the measure’s constitutionality (November 19, 7992).
Daniel Reed (R-N.Y.) argued for the measure both on a humanitarian and an economic basis, stating that the price of saving a baby was $5 vs. $50 for burying a baby, and went on to say that “We are spending $200,000 a year to look after the benighted reindeer up in Alaska” (November 19, 7993-7994). Something to note about Daniel Reed: he would become one of the most uncompromising opponents of the New Deal.
Meyer London (S-N.Y.) argued for the importance of education in proper maternity practices, “The progress of our civilization, if we have any, is due to the rising of the general level of education, to the spreading of knowledge. The individual brain has not improved. We have no intellect to-day that is greater than intellects produced thousands of years ago, nor have we added a single ethical conception to the code of ethics of the world” (November 19, 7994). London was the only member of the Socialist Party in this Congress, and his support was made as a point against the bill by some opponents.
Walter Newton (R-Minn.) argued that the unconstitutionality argument is a stock argument used against any progressive measure and that it is only socialistic if public health and public education itself is, and interestingly stated as well, “…it has been claimed that the passage of this bill would result in the payment of cash to mothers on the birth of a child. I disagree wholly with European systems of maternity subsidies or gratuities. Let that system remain in Europe where it originated; that is the way I feel about it. This bill, however, does not only not provide for maternity benefits of this nature but, on the contrary, it expressly provides against any such payments” (November 19, 7997). Newton’s argument is interesting because it uses a differing conception of progressivism than we think of today. Usually when we think of progressivism, we think of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and AOC, but I don’t think any of them in a thousand years would express opposition to payments to mothers for having children. Newton was I conclude thinking about Theodore Roosevelt-style progressivism, one with in practice quite distinct limits. William Upshaw (D-Ga.) argued that “This bill is not an effort to supplant State functions or parental authority. It simply proposes to stimulate and encourage each to the noblest possible effort. The liquor traffic was outlawed because it prospered on the destruction of human life and happiness. The highest function of government is not the adjustment of the Nation’s commercial machinery, however important, but the development of that citizenship without which all Government activities would refuse to act. There would simply be no government at all if humanity were not in healthy action” (November 19, 7999).
Arguments against in the House:
The two representatives who figured most in this debate were Caleb Layton (R-Del.) and Thomas U. Sisson (D-Miss.). Layton feared an erosion of state’s rights and socialism, while Sisson asserted this measure was unconstitutional and socialistic.
Caleb Layton (R-Del.) argued, “This bill is unnecessary, because there is no accumulating demand for its passage by reason of any unusual mortality either in expectant mothers or in the newborn children. There never was a time since this Government was established when human life was more carefully guarded and conserved than it is now. The science and art of medicine and surgery have kept pace fully with developments in any other pursuit of man” and held that progress was already being sufficiently made (Congressional Record, November 18, 7927).
Alice Robertson (R-Okla.), the second woman ever elected to Congress, questioned the negative comparison between infant mortality rates in the US vs. New Zealand, stating, “I for one am mortally sick of New Zealand in capitals with the notion that her death rate is less than that of any other country. New Zealand statistics, where birth control is legally taught, are based on her white population only and therefore worthless. But her per capita debt is four times ours in spite of not having unwanted babies. Also the whole thermometer, to use plain English, lies, because there is nothing to tell the year for which these statistics were compared; dates are not given.” (November 19, 7980).
Frank Greene (R-Vt.) argued against the reasoning that the Federal Government aids livestock thus it must aid babies because the purpose of aiding livestock is to feed people (November 18, 7934).
Joseph Deal (D-Va.) argued there was no necessity for this bill as if the statistics were flawed given many births that went unrecorded, and that if the statistics were more accurate the US would be roughly on par with other nations (November 19, 8010).
Thomas U. Sisson (D-Miss.) claimed the bill was unconstitutional and socialistic, asserting that “I do not believe that this bill is constitutional, nor do I feel that as to the legislative provision in it there is a man on either side of this aisle who can convince anyone it is constitutional” and “If the vote could be by secret ballot and Members voted their real sentiments there would not be as many votes for this bill as there will be against it. I doubt if there will be 50 of us who will vote against the bill as is; but if the vote could be secret there would not be 50 votes for it. The gentleman from New York [Mr. London] of course will vote for it because it is purely socialistic” (November 19, 7984).
There was a strong correlation between opposition to Sheppard-Towner and opposition to the 19th Amendment in the Senate. Only nine senators registered opposition to the measure, and of the seven senators who voted or paired against and were present for the vote on suffrage amendment, five had opposed. Interestingly in the House, there was a split among the opposition of those who had voted for the 19th Amendment and against, with 15 for and 12 against. However, when we take into account some people who were known to have been anti-suffrage, the anti-suffrage people outnumber the pro-suffrage people. This includes Charles Underhill (R-Mass.) and Alice Robertson (R-Okla.) who had been previously known for their anti-suffrage activism as well as Joseph Deal (D-Va.) who had opposed it to the hilt as a state legislature. This also includes those who voted against the amendment in 1918 in Gordon Lee (D-Ga.), Peter Tague (D-Mass.), R. Wayne Parker (R-N.J.) and William Stafford (R-Wis.). However, if we use this measure too, we must add James Gallivan (D-Mass.) and Tom Connally (D-Tex.) to the pro-suffrage, anti-Sheppard column. This brings the total to 19 against suffrage and 17 for. Not as strong of a correlation as the Senate, but for both chambers when you account for there being many more supporters of suffrage than opponents, this heightens saliency. What also is of great interest is how much more support Sheppard-Towner received than women’s suffrage, and this is the greatest proof of all of the newfound power of women in politics. That someone like Senator Frank Brandegee, a man known as rigidly principled, archconservative, and outspoken against women’s suffrage, could be moved to vote for this measure, is nothing short of incredible. Although the Sheppard-Towner Act’s opponents rallied sufficiently to prevent its reauthorization in 1929, more comprehensive social insurance would come with the Social Security Act in 1935.
References
Congressional Record. (1921, July 22). U.S. Government Printing Office.
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 