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Fascinating Politics

The Ideological Dick Cheney

Perhaps no other figure is more identified with neo-conservatism nor reviled for it by the critics of the George W. Bush Administration than the now late Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney (1941-2025). This post will cover his Congressional career, where we get to best examine his ideology.

Dick Cheney, 1984

Cheney had a bit of a rough start, as he got into the drinking culture of college fraternities and his excessive drinking resulted in two drunk driving convictions in the early 1960s. However, he cleaned up his act, finished his college education, and in 1969 he secured an internship with moderate Republican Congressman William A. Steiger of Wisconsin. It was through this that he got connected to Donald Rumsfeld, who would bring him on into the Office of Economic Opportunity and mentored him. This connection resulted in him becoming President Gerald Ford’s deputy chief of staff under Rumsfeld and then being elevated to chief of staff. In 1978, Cheney ran for Congress, the same year that George W. Bush first ran for Congress, but unlike Bush, Cheney would win his race in Wyoming. However, this was also the first year that the consequences of his lifestyle came to bite him, as he suffered his first of five heart attacks at the age of 37. Cheney was a beer drinker, had a family history of weak hearts, had a fatty diet, and had smoked up to three packs a day (Rodriguez). After this, he began to eat healthier and quit smoking. Incidentally, his old boss Steiger also suffered a heart attack that year, but his was fatal at the age of 40.

Cheney quickly established himself as a staunch conservative, standing opposed to implementing the Panama Canal Treaty, the establishment of the Department of Education, and the bailout of Chrysler in 1979. Indeed, his first score by the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) was a 100%. Cheney was likewise opposed to the windfall profits tax and price controls on oil and gasoline. From 1979 to 1984, he sided with ACA’s positions on votes 93% of the time. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave him a similar inverse assessment; he sided only 5% of the time with their positions. His DW-Nominate score also paints the picture of a strongly conservative politician, being a 0.523. In April 1980, Cheney was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Ronald Reagan, and with his election he became one of the president’s staunchest supporters. Indeed, he was one of three reasons the Wyoming delegation to Congress was especially powerful during the Reagan years, the other two being Senators Alan Simpson and Malcolm Wallop. All three were highly influential on the White House. Cheney proved exceptionally conservative in some areas, particularly regarding domestic spending and regulations. Some examples of him being in a conservative minority include:

He was one of 56 representatives to vote against increasing food stamp funds over budget caps on May 8, 1980.

He was one of 29 votes against a foreign aid bill for food to Africa on March 6, 1984.

He was one of 27 votes against an additional three years funding for head start and numerous other social programs on September 16, 1984.

Cheney was one of 48 votes against the first vote on the South Africa sanctions bill on August 1, 1985.

He one of 59 to vote against an increase in funding of child nutrition programs on September 18, 1985.

Cheney was one of 57 representatives to vote against funding arts programs under the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 on October 10, 1985.

A critic of much environmental legislation, he was one of 33 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on December 10, 1985.

Continuing this trend, he was one of 27 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on October 10, 1986.

Cheney was one of 29 votes against the Hate Crimes Statistics bill on May 18, 1988. However, he also voted for John Miller’s (R-Wash.) amendment that substituted “homosexuality or heterosexuality” for “sexual orientation” as a covered category.

He was one of 13 votes against the AIDS Federal Policy Act on September 23, 1988. However, he also voted against a motion by Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) to require spousal notification if a patient is infected with AIDS.

Cheney was one of 51 votes against a ban on lawn darts on October 21, 1988.

During the Reagan Administration, Cheney was a faithful supporter of the president, including on some of his more controversial stances, such as sale of AWACs (surveillance planes) to Saudi Arabia in 1981 and his opposition to Congress’s imposition of sanctions on South Africa. He also backed Reagan when he partly rolled back his 1981 tax cuts with the 1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. On civil rights, Cheney voted against the 1980 Fair Housing bill over its administrative judges provision, voted for extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voted for the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1984, and voted for the Civil Rights Restoration Act in 1988 before voting against overriding President Reagan’s veto. His primary priority, however, was on foreign policy. He staunchly supported aid to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan as well as El Salvador’s anti-communist government. Cheney also backed the Strategic Defense Initiative. His expertise on foreign and military policy made him a slam dunk candidate for Secretary of Defense under the George H.W. Bush Administration, being confirmed 92-0, after former Senator John Tower was rejected by the Senate for alleged alcoholism and womanizing. As noted earlier, in this post I was only covering his Congressional career, and the only case one can make for him being a RINO is if the definition of RINO is lack of personal loyalty to our current president. By the way, a quick observation…who would have put it on their bingo card back in 2004 that 20 years later Cheney would have endorsed Harris for president while RFK Jr. would have endorsed Trump?

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Cheney, Richard Bruce. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14611/richard-bruce-cheney

Mullen, M. (2025, November 6). Cheney, the state’s most powerful and polarizing politician. Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Retrieved from

https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/wyoming-remembers-dick-cheney-the-state-s-most-powerful-and-polarizing-politician/article_2344e9ee-03e8-411b-9759-d7ce0b4c2d29.html

Rodriguez, A. (2025, November 4). Dick Cheney had five heart attacks. Here’s how science helped him live until 84. USA Today.

Retrieved from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/11/04/dick-cheney-heart-attacks-modern-medicine/87083844007/

Fascinating Politics

How They Voted: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

In 1924, Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which established a permanent National Origins Quota system, which set a quota of 2% of immigration from nations, based on foreign-born populations that had been counted in the 1890 census. The relevance of the 1890 census was that this predated a massive influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Thus, opponents of stringent quotas on these people proposed the 1910 census be used as a basis instead, thus allowing considerably more people from these nations to be admitted. Also facing severe limitations were immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and Japan along with nations in the “Asiatic Barred Zone” faced complete exclusion. Interestingly, no quota was set for any immigrants from the Western Hemisphere.

This measure was quite popular when passed, indeed the vote in favor in the House had been 323-71 and the Senate 69-9. Support and opposition were both bipartisan, but it was clear that urban politicians stood most opposed. One of these politicians was 36-year-old Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn, a Democrat who was serving his first term in Congress. By 1965, the political situation changed monumentally. Celler was not a freshman in a minority party; he was now one of the most powerful members of Congress as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the national climate had changed considerably on the issues of race and immigration. In 1924, eugenics had been in vogue and fears abounded about anarchist and communist immigrants. By 1965, the American public and its intellectuals had mostly turned away from eugenics as it was now associated with Nazi genocide of Jews, Roma, the disabled, and numerous other minority groups.  Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), a prominent proponent, argued that “The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. “It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society” and Senator Hiram Fong (R-Haw.) claimed that the population of Asian Americans “will never reach 1 percent of the population” (Richwine).  

The House version passed 318-95 on August 25th, with 209 Democrats and 109 Republicans voting for while 71 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted against. Nearly all of the Democratic votes against came from Border or Southern states. A similar pattern existed in the Senate, in which the bill was passed with amendment 76-18 on September 22nd. 52 Democrats and 24 Republicans voted for while 15 Democrats and 3 Republicans voted against in John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky (a curious dissenter given his past votes for liberally admitting postwar refugees), Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. This also included two pairs against from Republicans John Tower of Texas and Wallace Bennett of Utah. The only Democrats outside the South who voted against were Arizona’s Carl Hayden and West Virginia’s Robert Byrd. Hayden had also been supportive of expanding U.S. admittance of refugees after World War II. The House readily accepted the Senate’s changes on a vote of 320-70, with Democrats voting 202-60 for and Republicans 118-10. The House Republicans who were against were Jack Edwards, Glenn Andrews, John Buchanan, and James Martin of Alabama, James B. Utt of California, H.R. Gross of Iowa, Prentiss Walker of Mississippi, Charles Goodell of New York (an odd dissenter here), Albert Watson of South Carolina, and Jimmy Quillen and John Duncan of Tennessee. The only Democrats outside the South or Border states to oppose were Johnny Walker and Thomas Morris of New Mexico, Robert Secrest of Ohio, and Robert Nix of Pennsylvania (a very curious vote indeed!).  

Interestingly, this law was not considered to be highly ideologically salient by liberals or conservatives of the day; neither ADA nor ACA counted the votes on this law as qualifying you as a liberal or a conservative. The measure got high marks per a Gallup poll conducted at the time with 70% approval, and few people considered immigration the issue of foremost importance at the time, with Medicare being the biggest focus (Kohut). In the backdrop of the civil rights movement, eliminating discrimination in immigration quotas seemed a logical choice.

Contrary to Kennedy’s arguments, after 1965 the percent of immigrants who came from Europe fell from over 80% to 13% in 2018. The elimination of the caps on immigration did not prove to be the issue that resulted in massive immigration from South of the border. Indeed, this law for the first time placed a cap on immigration from Mexico. Rather, a development that was occurring at around the same time; the demise of the Bracero Program, which had occurred in 1964, combined with provisions in the 1965 law that exempted from quotas family members of immigrants already in the nation, resulted in 25% of the US’s immigrants being from Mexico in 2018 while 25% more were from other Latin American nations. The Immigration and Nationality Act also resulted in higher levels of immigration from Asian nations; in 2018, 28% of immigrants to the United States were Asian. Furthermore, in 1965, 5% of the population were first-generation immigrants but in 2015 they came to represent 13% of the population (Chrishti, Hipsman, and Ball). The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 has, at its 60th year, been proven to have dramatically changed the demographic makeup of America.

References

Cadava, G.L. How Should Historians Remember the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act? OAH.

Retrieved from

https://www.oah.org/tah/august-2/how-should-historians-remember-the-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act/

Chrishti, M., Hipsman, F., and Ball, I. (2015, October 15). Fifty Years On, the Immigration and Nationality Act Continues to Reshape the United States. Migration Policy Institute.

Retrieved from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states

Kohut, A. (2015, February 4). From the archives: In ‘60s, Americans gave thumbs-up to immigration law that changed the nation. Pew Research.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/09/20/in-1965-majority-of-americans-favored-immigration-and-nationality-act-2/

Massey, D.S. & Pren, K.A. (2012). Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Policy: Explaining the Post-1965 Surge from Latin America. Popul Dev Rev., 38(1)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3407978/

To Agree to the Conference Report on H.R. 2580, The Immigration and Nationality Act. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0890177

To Pass H.R. 2580, Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0890232

To Pass H.R. 2580, The Amended Immigration and Nationality Act. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0890125

Fascinating Politics

The Ratification of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

President Donald Trump recently caused a stir (which is pretty much a daily occurrence now) when he announced the resumption of nuclear weapons testing. Such an announcement made people think at minimum of underground testing or even more dramatic, above-ground testing, the latter which the US hasn’t done since Operation Dominic Tightrope on November 4, 1962. His energy secretary has since stated that these tests would be non-explosive, rather testing to make sure our weapons remain effective, and indeed what “nuclear testing” could mean does vary. This little controversy reminds me of our first ever nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviets, which was championed by President Kennedy. This treaty banned testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. Today’s post is about the process of getting this historic treaty enacted.

In 1961, President Kennedy proposed and Congress enacted the Arms Control and Disarmament Act of 1961, which created the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. This was the first agency dedicated to limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Although President Kennedy had started on the legislative of slowing down the arms race, it was President Eisenhower who had first sought to open a discussion on a test ban in 1958, which was followed by a Soviet announcement that they were stopping tests. The push for this effort was bolstered by an expert finding that nuclear weapons tests could be detected, thus making a treaty easily enforceable, and discussions began between the US, USSR, and Great Britain. On August 5, 1963, the US, USSR, and Great Britain signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Although the Democrats had 68 senators to ratify thus by modern understanding of politics no Republican support was needed, the reality of the politics of the 1960s was that Democrats had a considerable moderate to conservative wing, most of them from this time being in the South. On the plus side for the Democrats, Republicans also had a moderate to liberal wing and this wing was stronger in the Senate than in the House. To ensure that 2/3’s vote was secured, Republican support was necessary, and what’s more, it was good for sustaining the idea of bipartisan postwar foreign policy.

Winning Over Dirksen

Although Republicans never held a majority in either legislative chamber of Congress during the 1960s, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.) punched a bit above his weight in power, as he could not only sway the votes of Republicans but also conservative Democrats. Thus, winning his support for measures that required 2/3’s of the vote was rather crucial, and Dirksen relished in this role. Dirksen initially expressed skepticism, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff persuaded him to support the treaty (CQ Almanac). It also didn’t hurt in persuading him and other Republicans that both former President Eisenhower and former Vice President Richard Nixon publicly announced their support. Dirksen endorsed the treaty and corralled other Republicans in favor because to not do so would “place us in an awkward and difficult position” and that to do so would counter Soviet propaganda about a warlike US, adding that it would  “divest the unremitting effort to paint us as warmongers before the nations of the world and would lose much of its force” (CQ Almanac).

Support

The Democratic Senate leadership as well as the previously mentioned Republican leadership favored, thus you could say the internationalist establishment favored the treaty (or as some modern-day readers might say, “globalist”). This position also had the support of some prominent scientists. Dr. Harold Brown, chief civilian scientist of the Defense Department and Dr. N.E. Bradbury, head of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, supported (CQ Almanac). Best yet for Kennedy was not the support of scientists or politicians, but the American public. A Gallup poll of the time revealed that Americans supported the treaty 63-17 (CQ Almanac). The Senate outcome would not be that much different, but for the sake of interest, let’s look at the opposition.

Opposition

One of the most prominent opponents was Dr. Edward Teller, the lead scientist in the development of the Hydrogen Bomb, who believed, along with other Senate opponents, that the treaty would give an edge to the Soviets. He was joined by Dr. John S. Foster who headed the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, who shared Dr. Teller’s concerns. On the more political side, conservative Reverend Carl McIntire spoke against it as did Stanley M. Andrews, who headed Liberty Lobby’s “Americans for National Security”.

The Tower-Long Reservation

Although several amendments were proposed to the treaty, the one that got the most support was sponsored by John Tower (R-Tex.) and Russell Long (D-La.), both who would vote against the treaty, that would add an “understanding” (opponents claimed it was actually a reservation) that the treaty would not serve to bar the use of nuclear weapons in armed conflicts. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) managed to successfully table the proposal 61-33 on September 23rd. Although Democrats voted to table 46-16, the Republican vote was 15-17. The rejection of this understanding was not a dealbreaker, as on that same day the treaty was approved on a vote of 80-19, 14 votes above what was needed for treaties.

Dirksen was able to deliver all but eight of his fellow Republicans on this matter, and of the Democratic dissenters nine were from the South. 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwater of Arizona was among the dissenters, and this would not be the last time, nor the most famous time, he dissented from Dirksen on a major bipartisan issue. Perhaps the most unusual dissenter was Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith, who was a bona fide centrist. Another notable dissenter was West Virginia’s Robert Byrd, who would also differ from Democratic leadership on the same monumental issue Goldwater did with Republican leadership (as you might have guessed, it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Interestingly, Byrd was around for the debate on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999, in which he voted “present”. That debate was much different in that all other Democrats voted for while only four Republicans crossed the aisle. Although the USSR and Great Britain had signed on to the treaty, France and China declined to do so. President Kennedy himself acknowledged that the treaty was not a panacea for the troubles of the Cold War, stating that it was a “victory for mankind” but “not the millennium” and that “it will not resolve all conflicts, or cause the Communists to forego their ambitions, or eliminate the dangers of war” and “it will not reduce our need for arms or allies or programs of assistance to others. But it is an important first step– a step toward peace – a step toward reason – a step away from war” (CQ Almanac 1963).

References

ADA Voting Records. (1963). Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Click to access 1963.pdf

 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. CQ Almanac 1963.

Retrieved from

https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal63-1317011#_

Shelley, T. (2022, October 18). How a bipartisan foreign policy approach helped stave off a nuclear crisis six decades ago. WCBU.

Retrieved from

https://www.wcbu.org/local-news/2022-10-18/how-a-bipartisan-foreign-policy-approach-helped-stave-off-a-nuclear-crisis-six-decades-ago

The Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1963. Department of State Office of the Historian.

Retrieved from

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/limited-ban

Fascinating Politics

Joseph Weldon Bailey: The Lone Star State’s Staunch Jeffersonian

Democrats were largely out of power in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and one figure who became prominent in the time of Republican dominance from 1895 to 1913 was Joseph Weldon Bailey (1862-1929). Born in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, Bailey got his start in politics after earning his law degree, and he quickly waded into controversy. Indeed, his career would be one full of controversy. In January 1884, Bailey was called to testify by the Senate over an allegation that he was among the leaders of a faction of the Democratic Party that had engaged in violent intimidation of Republican voters in the 1883 local elections, but he wouldn’t show as he refused to perjure himself (Holcomb, Bailey). Nothing came of this matter, and in 1885 he married and moved to Texas, where he continued his legal and political career.

Congressman Bailey

1890 was an excellent year for Democrats, and among the Congressional freshmen was Bailey. He quickly stood out as a talented parliamentarian as well as for his powerful oratory which he employed to advocate for Jeffersonian democracy, for state’s rights, against protective tariffs, against American expansionism, for free coinage of silver, and for increased railroad regulation. Bailey became a rising star in the Democratic Party, and this as well as his strong support for the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan in 1896 got him the post of House Minority Leader in 1897, at the mere age of 34. Few in politics have had as meteoric of a rise as that of Bailey. A strong partisan Democrat, Bailey had some trouble unifying the Democratic caucus and he controversially held that it was unconstitutional for members of Congress to accept commissions to serve in the army while serving as members of Congress, a cause that he couldn’t get a majority in his own party to support. After this loss, Bailey announced that he would not be a candidate for party leader. In 1901, he was elected to the Senate, replacing the retiring Horace Chilton.

Senator Bailey

Bailey continued to stand for the causes he supported while in the House, and although he seemed promising to lead there too, his reputation suffered after he, a fairly large man, lunged at Senator Albert Beveridge (R-Ind.) on the Senate floor in response to his heckling and threatened him with serious bodily harm. Although Bailey supported numerous causes that would place him on the political left of his time, he started to have troubles with progressives when he was one of the senators who muckraker David Graham Phillips accused of carrying water for private interests in his 1906 Cosmopolitan expose, Treason of the Senate. Although Bailey’s reputation survived this expose, it was nonetheless true that he had accepted hefty fees for legal services from multiple prominent businesses and individuals, and this expose would not be the only one of his problems.

Bailey considered himself a staunch Jeffersonian Democrat, and these beliefs from time to time placed him at odds with progressive causes. For example, many progressives supported Prohibition, and indeed Bailey supported amending the Texas Constitution in 1887 to enact it, but he opposed amending the U.S. Constitution for Prohibition. Bailey also found himself strongly against initiative, referendum, and recall. His opposition to such reform measures was the reason that he and two other Democrats joined President Taft and conservative Republicans in opposition to the admission of Arizona as the state had such provisions in its constitution. President Taft would accept admission of Arizona once the most offensive of the provisions to him, the recall of judges, was removed. Bailey was so floored that all but two of his fellow Democrats supported Arizona’s strongly progressive constitution that he resigned the Senate on March 4, 1911, but he withdrew it before the day was out on the urgings of Texas’s governor as well as the state legislature (The New York Times, 1911). Bailey also, contrary to most in his party, would support the seatings of Senators William Lorimer (R-Ill.) and Isaac Stephenson (R-Wis.), who faced controversies about the natures of their elections. Lorimer, the “blonde boss of Chicago”, would be denied his seat while Stephenson kept his. Bailey also proved an immovable foe of women’s suffrage, again on Jeffersonian grounds. There was also certainly a racial element in this opposition, and many Southerners would oppose women’s suffrage because the 19th Amendment provided for women’s suffrage regardless of race. Bailey would still support some positions that aligned with progressive pushes, such as opposition to high protective tariffs, a tax on corporations, and supporting direct election of senators. Bailey, however, suffered serious reputational damage when he was alleged to have illegally represented Waters-Pierce Oil Company while they were being charged with anti-trust violations in 1900. He had managed to secure Waters-Pierce being able to do business in Texas as an independent corporation, but in 1906 a lawsuit by the state of Missouri revealed that Waters-Pierce was still a subsidiary of Standard Oil, and their permit to do business in Texas was canceled with a $1,623,000 fine which was sustained by the Supreme Court (Holcomb, Waters-Pierce). Matters got worse for Bailey as not all had been disclosed about Bailey’s relationship with Waters-Pierce. Although he had officially not received a fee for his services from Waters-Pierce, it was revealed that he had not disclosed a $13,300 loan from the company at the time (Holcomb, Waters-Pierce). Support for Bailey getting another term was deteriorating, and on January 3, 1913, he resigned, being succeeded by Congressman Morris Sheppard, who was more willing to support emerging progressive causes. Bailey’s rise had come at a young age with his election to Congress at 28, and his political career was over at 50. The Marxist theoretician Daniel De Leon (1913) wrote of him upon his exit, “…Joseph Weldon Bailey, whose voice once rang sympathetically for the underdog in society, now earns his last Judas pence by acting as a mouthpiece of and Senator for the State of Oil”.  Although Bailey had a bit of a conservative turn later in his career, his record beforehand shows in his DW-Nominate score, which was a -0.63. He became increasingly antagonistic to the prevailing Democratic politics and claimed that President Wilson was a “socialist”. As The New York Times (1929) noted in their obituary of him that he was “not tolerant of party opinion which seemed to him veering toward Republicanism or socialism”. Although Bailey attempted a comeback in 1920 by running for governor, Texas Democrats were no longer in the mood for him, preferring progressive Pat M. Neff, a strong supporter of Prohibition.   

In his final years, he would practice law in Dallas, and on April 13, 1929, Bailey delivered an argument in a case in Sherman, Texas, and sat down. He never stood back up, having suffered a fatal heart attack. Bailey’s son and namesake, Joseph Weldon Bailey, Jr., would also have a political career, serving a term in the House at the start of the Roosevelt Administration in which he would oppose some New Deal measures and would endorse Republican Wendell Willkie in 1940 (Melugin). Bailey’s change later in his career as well as his son coming out against FDR makes me consider the elder Bailey to be one of the earliest indicators of the future shift of Texas politics. I think part of it was that progressive means were increasingly differing from traditional Jeffersonianism, but Bailey did become more of a creature of the establishment. Something I must note that I find curious about Bailey is that Sam Rayburn, staunch New Dealer and the leader of the House Democrats from 1940 to 1961 as well as their longest serving House speaker, was a lifelong friend and personal hero (Holcomb, Bailey). Rayburn, who I have examined before, strikes me as more able to adjust his views on the means to attain Jeffersonian ends than Bailey was.

References

Bailey, Joseph Weldon. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/347/joseph-weldon-bailey

Bailey Resigns, Then Reconsiders. (1911, March 5). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

De Leon, Daniel. (1913, January 10). Joseph Weldon Bailey. Daily People, 13(194).

Retrieved from

Click to access jan10_1913.pdf

Holcomb, B.C. (1952). Joseph Weldon Bailey: A Political Biography. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved from

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bailey-joseph-weldon

Holcomb, B.C. (1952). The Waters-Pierce Case: A Landmark Antitrust Suit in Texas. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved from

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/waters-pierce-case

Joseph W. Bailey. (1929, April 15). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Melugin, R.W. (1952). Joseph Weldon Bailey Jr.: A Legacy in Texas Politics. Texas State Historical Association.

Retrieved fromhttps://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/bailey-joseph-weldon-jr

Fascinating Politics

Henry Myers: The Man Who Was Elected to the Senate Without Offering His Candidacy

Before the 1914 elections, as noted in a recent post, senators were constitutionally elected by state legislatures. This could produce some interesting results to say the least. In 1899 in the state of Montana, Democrat William Clark was elected and it was uncovered that bribery of state legislators was used to achieve this, including in very obvious ways such as handing legislators envelopes of cash on the floor of the legislature. The election of the man I’m going to talk about today didn’t involve such corruption, but rather the resolution of a stalemate.

The Democrats won the state legislature in the 1910 midterms, and they were set to find a replacement for Republican Thomas H. Carter. However, they had trouble finding a man who would unify the legislature. Name after name was proposed only to be deadlocked. For seven and a half hours the legislature continuously voted. A move to adjourn by Republicans, thus halting the election and leaving the Senate seat vacant, was defeated thanks to the vote against by rebel Republican Ronald Higgins of Missoula much to the joy of Democrats and the consternation of Republicans (Fergus County Democrat). Democratic Representative Woody had proposed on the 27th ballot Henry Lee Myers (1861-1943). Myers, who had been elected a judge in 1907 and had served in the state Senate from 1899 to 1903, had opposed the corrupt election of William A. Clark, despite both men being Democrats (The Great Falls Leader). The choice was met with acclaim and unified the Democrats, but it certainly surprised Myers who had not been a candidate up until this time. He accepted the legislature’s choice.

Senator Myers proved a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson and his New Freedom Agenda. He was supportive of women’s suffrage, but also voted for a Southern-backed amendment that would have restricted women’s suffrage to white women. Myers also supported Prohibition, solidly within the views of the state’s voters. On other key matters he was quite supportive of Wilson as well, backing both the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 as well as supporting the Versailles Treaty without reservations. However, Myers also backed the Esch-Cummins Act in 1920 returning railroads to the private sector under favorable conditions as well as its anti-strike clause, much to the distress of organized labor. That year, he announced that he would fight the left-wing Nonpartisan League, which had come to dominate the state Democratic Party that year, by supporting the entire Republican ticket in Montana for that year’s elections while still supporting the Cox-Roosevelt ticket nationally, stating, “Montana must be saved; the Democratic party of Montana must be saved. The gravest crisis that our beloved state has ever known in all of its history now confronts the people of this state. The are confronted with the prospect of ruination, disgrace, confiscation, and even with the overturning of our form of government” (The Montana Record-Herald).

During the Harding Administration, although Myers supported the 1921 Emergency Tariff for agriculture and supported higher tariffs for certain commodities of interest to Montana, he voted against the Fordney-McCumber Tariff. He also opposed the Fordney-Penrose tax reduction bill. Myers also voted against the veterans bonus bill in 1922. Myers retired that year, his DW-Nominate score having been a -0.223, indicating moderate liberalism. In 1927, he was appointed associate justice of Montana’s Supreme Court, but only served until 1929, choosing to resume practicing law. Myers died in Billings, Montana, on November 11, 1943, at the age of 82.

References

Death Takes Former Montana Senator. (1943, November 12). The Butte Daily Post, 3.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/958362495/

Henry L. Myers Is Named as Senator. (1911, March 7). Fergus County Democrat, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/343217307/

Henry L. Myers of Hamilton, Dark Horse, Elected Senator. (1911, March 3). The Great Falls Leader, 11.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1018497741/

Myers, Henry Lee. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/6837/henry-lee-myers

Senator Henry L. Myers Leads Regular Democrats in Organized Repudiation of Nonpartisan League Nominees. (1920, October 9). The Montana Record-Herald, 10.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/954449192/

Fascinating Politics

Olin Johnston: The Palmetto State’s FDR

Although South Carolina and progressivism are not two things that people commonly think of together, especially not contemporary progressivism, South Carolina did embrace the New Deal, and one of the New Deal’s foremost supporters in the state’s politics was Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston (1896-1965).

Born to a working class family, as a boy Johnston found himself working in a textile mill as did many working class people in the state at the time. Through his experience, he came to champion addressing the issues that befell mill workers. Johnston was an intelligent man, so he was able to work his way through college. However, before he could move into a political career, he responded to the call of service to his country and enlisted to fight in World War I in 1917. He served honorably and received a citation for bravery.

In 1922, while attending law school, Johnston won a seat in South Carolina’s House of Representatives but only served a term as he wanted to focus on practicing law. However, the call of politics came not long after and in 1926, he was again elected to the state House. Johnston championed the interests of mill workers, many who were supportive of progressive politics. Indeed, he did good work by them, most notably sponsoring and getting into law a measure that required mill owners to install sewers in their mill villages in which their workers lived. Such efforts made the young man a viable candidate for governor. In 1930, Johnston tried his hand at it and although he got the most votes on the first ballot, it wasn’t a majority, and he narrowly lost the runoff to Ibra Charles Blackwood. Governor Blackwood’s term would be troubled by a mill strike, which he responded to by calling out the National Guard. Johnston ran again in 1934, but he was up against an old hand at politics and his old hero in Coleman Blease. Blease was known for his racist demagoguery and his heavy courting of mill workers, indeed they had been central to his being elected governor and to the Senate. However, he was past his prime, and the youthful Johnston, who was with the New Deal spirit of the age, prevailed.  He also had an able partner in politics in his wife, Gladys Atkinson, who would be his closet counsel.

Governor Johnston

Many South Carolinians supported both FDR and Johnston, the latter who was lauded as “South Carolina’s Roosevelt”. He strongly supported unions, and continued to help out mill workers. Under Johnston’s administration, worker’s compensation was increased, the South Carolina Public Welfare Act was passed, the South Carolina Rural Electrification Authority was created, and employment of children under 16 in industrial work was banned (National Governors Association). However, there was a controversial incident in his administration. Johnston came to believe that the State Highway Department was acting contrary to public interests and engaging in corruption, thus he ordered the National Guard to occupy the department, but no wrong-doing was found (National Governors Association). This incident would result in opponents calling him “Machine Gun Olin”, such as Senator Ellison DuRant “Cotton Ed” Smith.

FDR in 1938: I’m Helping! I’m Helping!

Although “Cotton Ed” Smith had initially supported the New Deal, he was becoming increasingly critical. His opposition to the “Death Sentence” clause of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act in 1935 and to FDR’s “court packing plan” stung Roosevelt, who wanted someone more like him. Olin Johnston was the man for the job, and Roosevelt made it very clear that he was supporting him over Smith. Roosevelt hoped to exercise more control over the party, and his efforts at a “purge” of recalcitrant Democrats in the 1938 election would be a good demonstration. However, Smith was able to effectively capitalize on numerous voters opposing FDR’s intervening in state primaries (it was a different time back then, wasn’t it?) and furthermore sit-down strikes were not engendering sympathy with organized labor, and Smith prevailed. Cotton Ed Smith was never a particularly popular senator and was despised by his colleague, Jimmy Byrnes, who nonetheless backed him in the hope that his preferred man, Burnet Maybank, could succeed Smith in 1944. It is entirely possible that if Roosevelt had just stayed out, he could have gotten his man in the Senate. Johnston was also temporarily out of office because of this run, with Maybank succeeding him as governor.

The 1941 Senate Race

In 1941, Senator Byrnes stepped down to accept a nomination to the Supreme Court, and Johnston ran to succeed him. However, Byrnes’ ideal man, Governor Maybank, won the Democratic primary. This loss and the 1938 loss for the Senate resulted in some doubt about whether Johnston was still a viable candidate. Thus, the next election was do or die for his career: the 1942 gubernatorial election.

Going for Governor Again

In running for governor, he faced state legislator Wyndham Manning, who was a real threat to win the primary and had twice before tried for governor. However, Johnston prevailed with nearly 52% of the vote, thus putting an end to Manning’s political career. The major issue that occupied this term was the subject of the white primary. On April 3, 1944, the Supreme Court announced the decision of Smith v. Allwright, which ruled the white primary unconstitutional. In response, Johnston proceeded to hold an emergency session of the state legislature in which all references to “white primary” were scrubbed, and within days 147 bills were passed that eliminated any legal connections between state government and primaries, and a constitutional amendment was proposed and adopted by the voters that the General assembly would not regulate state primaries (Moore). However, this private approach would too be ruled unconstitutional in the federal court decision Elmore v. Rice (1947), and the Supreme Court refused to take the case. Thus, the white primary was ended for good. This push gave him the springboard he needed for his third try at the Senate. During this time, Johnston also denied clemency for a 14-year-old black boy, George Stinney, who was sentenced to death for allegedly murdering two white girls. The conclusion of an investigation many decades later was that Stinney was innocent.

1944: Cotton Ed Runs Out of Steam

By 1944, Smith is 80 years old and is clearly on the decline. Furthermore, his record is now much more conservative than it was when FDR sought to purge him. Johnston was also able to more loudly and effectively capitalize on the issue of race, focusing his ire on Smith v. Allwright. By contrast, during one campaign speech, Smith spoke for a few minutes and then simply played on a record of a 1938 speech. He was just tired out and given that FDR was not “helping” Johnston this time, Smith lost, dying only three months later.

Senator Johnston

Interestingly, Johnston as a senator was not quite as liberal as he was earlier in his career. Although he got a 100% from Americans for Democratic Action in 1947, which meant he was one of the few Southern senators to oppose the Taft-Hartley Act that gave states the option to become “right to work”, he also was one of the strongest opponents of foreign aid on the Democratic side and even voted against the Marshall Plan in 1948. Johnston’s overall record by liberal standards was moderate, as he sided with Americans for Democratic Action 44% of the time. However, by conservative standards, Johnston was a moderate liberal, siding with Americans for Constitutional Action 30% of the time. His DW-Nominate score was a -0.166, making him one of the more liberal postwar Southern senators. In 1959, Johnston sponsored with Senator Styles Bridges (R-N.H.) an amendment that prohibited foreign aid to nations that expropriated US property without proper compensation. Although he opposed efforts to curb labor unions, supported strong minimum wage increases, supported public housing, supported public generation of power rather than private, and twice voted for Medicare, he also voted against federal aid for education, voted against two Area Redevelopment bills, supported domestic anti-communist measures, often voted for anti-communist amendments to foreign aid bills, and of course was against civil rights legislation. Johnston was also one of the most noted advocates for federal employees and butted heads with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Johnston was clearly interested in continuing to support meat and potatoes New Deal issues but was not friendly on some more recent liberal issues.

1950: A Serious Challenge

The year 1950 was a decidedly conservative year in American politics; many candidates Senator Joseph McCarthy endorsed won their races, and on the Democratic side of the aisle in the South some liberal officeholders fell to more conservative ones, most notably Senator Claude Pepper’s defeat by Congressman George Smathers in Florida and Senator Frank Porter Graham’s defeat by Willis Smith in North Carolina. Johnston risked meeting the same fate when up against Governor Strom Thurmond. By running against Johnston, Thurmond was breaking a promise not to run against him if he supported his campaign for governor in 1946, which he had.  Johnston got his base of support in South Carolina’s northern, working class communities, while Thurmond got his support from the wealthier southern counties. The campaign was ugly, with accusations flying from both candidates, and both men tried to outdo each other in racist campaigning, including Thurmond claiming that Johnston was passive against President Truman’s civil rights pushes and Johnston condemning Thurmond for appointing a black doctor to the state’s medical board. Johnston won by single digits.

1962 Election and Decline

In 1962, Governor Fritz Hollings challenged Johnston for renomination, asserting that he was too liberal, but Johnston defeated him for renomination by a nearly 2 to 1 ratio. Interestingly, his bid for reelection proved more difficult, contrary to past years. He faced Republican journalist William D. Workman Jr., who campaigned against him as supporting socialist proposals, particularly on healthcare through his support of Medicare, but Johnston prevailed by nearly 15 points. By contrast, Johnston’s 1956 Republican opponent had pulled just under 18% of the vote. South Carolina wasn’t quite ready to elect a Republican senator. However, not all was well for him. After his reelection, he was diagnosed with cancer and by 1965 he was in serious decline. On April 17, 1965, his doctors announced that Johnston was suffering from viral pneumonia, was not responding to treatment, and had slipped into a coma. Johnston died the next day at the age of 68.

Columnist Ralph McGill (1965) praised Johnston as having had “a lot more intellectual courage than many of those whose names are better known. He not only had this courage, he showed it”  and noted, “One of the tragedies of the Southern senators and congressmen, especially the more able, is that in the past they have had to join with, encourage and expand racial prejudice to win primaries in states where there was no Republican opposition and where Negro voters were so few as to be meaningless” (37). Johnston was also praised by his successor, Donald Russell. Russell held that “I have never known a warmer, more patient and steadfast friend than he. He was equally warm and gracious to all, the lowly and the mighty” (Hill). Johnston’s legacy would continue through his daughter, Liz Patterson, who served in Congress as a Democrat from 1987 to 1993.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Gov. Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston. National Governors Association.

Retrieved from

Olin De Witt Talmadge Johnston

Hill, R. The Friend of the Workers: Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/the-friend-of-the-workers-olin-d-johnston-of-south-carolina/

Johnston, Olin DeWitt Talmadge. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5009/olin-dewitt-talmadge-johnston

McGill, R. (1965, April 28). Olin Johnston had courage. The Peninsula Times Tribune, 37.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/839749772/

Moore, W.V. (2016, August 1). South Carolina Plan. South Carolina Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/south-carolina-plan/

Simon, B. (2016, June 8). Johnston, Olin DeWitt Talmadge. South Carolina Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/johnston-olin-dewitt-talmadge/

Fascinating Politics

Great Conservatives from American History #24: W. Murray Crane


For people who make it into positions of great power, having a mentor is vital. The man I am writing about today, Winthrop Murray Crane (1853-1920), was not only a politician of great significance in his own right, but he also mentored a president. Born to family in the paper mill business, the Crane Paper Company, Crane went to work for his father upon completing school at 17, and worked his way up through the company, serving in multiple roles so he could fully understand the business. In 1872, Crane had his first major success in obtaining a wrapping paper contract for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and seven years later he followed up by securing an exclusive contract for the Crane Paper Company to provide paper for the currency of the U.S. government, a role it still has today. After Crane’s father’s death in 1887 he took the reins of the business and managed to significantly increase his family’s wealth through wise investments.

In 1892, Crane entered politics when he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and would take part in subsequent conventions. He was notably not big on public speaking and disliked the process of campaigning. Indeed, Crane never made a speech in his years campaigning for office (can you guess who he mentored?). His reticence did not hurt him in Massachusetts, and in 1897, he was elected lieutenant governor, followed up by his election in 1899 as governor, serving from 1900 to 1903. As governor, Crane practiced fiscal conservatism, succeeded in getting an asylum constructed, and mediated a strike by the Teamster’s Union. His success in resolving that strike got him national recognition, including from President Theodore Roosevelt, who brought him on to be among the negotiators to successfully mediate the national Anthracite Coal Strike in 1902. Crane also advised Roosevelt to publicly state that he would not seek a third term when running for reelection (Bent). Although Roosevelt asked him to be Secretary of the Treasury, he declined.  Crane was described thusly by author Carolyn W. Johnson, “This Governor of Massachusetts, deep in public service, was by temperament a private man. In public reticent and unwilling to speak, he conversed constantly in closed meetings, in quiet conferences, and on the telephone….he never said more than he had to, and he said it once…His program was not one of sweeping changes, but one of small steps toward his goals: curtailed expenditures, reduced indebtedness, and increased legislative self-discipline…His administration was unspectacular and widely praised; he had not been expected, or elected to introduce grand reforms…He was the classic man-behind-the-scenes. Avoiding limelight and applause, he was a man who ‘knew,’ a collector of information, an acute observer who had many sources…With an easy private approach to individuals, he won their confidence; with sound perceptions, he gained their respect. His colleagues knew that he could keep a secret. He was honest, not extravagantly frank, and eminently sensible, with a deep knowledge of men and a wide grasp of affairs” (24, 29, 39). Crane chose not to run again for governor, but public office would again call to him.

In 1904, Senator George Frisbie Hoar, a longtime institution in Massachusetts and on Capitol Hill, died after several months of illness. Crane was appointed his successor by Governor John L. Bates, and the legislature elected him to a full term in 1907. In the Senate, he was known as a capable behind-the-scenes leader of the conservative wing of the GOP. This was attested to by his colleague, Chauncey Depew of New York, who wrote that he “never made a speech. I do not remember that he made a motion. Yet he was the most influential member of that body” (Abrams, 38). Crane also would often advise people not to act in certain situations. As he would tell people, “Do nothing” (Abrams, 39). Even though he was one of the Senate’s most conservative members in his day, he was known for his skills in persuasion and in bridging differences between the conservative and progressive wings of the party. Crane also could be direct in a way that his colleagues hesitated to be. For instance, after numerous Republicans had tried all sorts of indirect ways to divine how a fellow senator was going to vote on a crucial bill, Crane told his colleagues to “wait a minute”, strolled over to the senator and conversed with him briefly, then walked back and telling his fellow Republicans that “he’ll vote for the bill”, and when asked how he found out, he simply stated, “I asked him” (The Buffalo News). He was also inherently a high-tariff man, in line with traditional Republican economic philosophy, and voted for the Payne-Aldrich Tariff. However, Crane was also willing to vote for President Taft’s push for reciprocal trade relations with Canada, something that wouldn’t come to pass until the Reagan Administration. Crane was opposed to many reform proposals of his day, including publicizing campaign contributions, direct election of senators, and abolishing the electoral college. He could also engage in some behind-the-scenes maneuvering, possibly including Democratic Governor William L. Douglas not running for reelection. According to politician Charles Hamlin, Republicans had uncovered that Douglas had obtained by fraud an honorable discharge during the War of the Rebellion, and that Crane and Senator Lodge agreed to keep this a secret if he did not run again (Abrams, 120). Active at the Republican National Convention, Crane feared that William Howard Taft would be not be a sufficiently strong candidate, but he would fully back his reelection effort in 1912. By this point, Crane had declined to be a candidate for reelection and was succeeded by the also strongly conservative John W. Weeks. Crane’s DW-Nominate score stands at a 0.669, making him the second most conservative senator by that scale in all the time he was in office.

Mentoring a President

Crane took some interest in the career of a young state legislator who he saw as possessing great potential, this being none other than Calvin Coolidge. Although Coolidge was naturally a quiet person around strangers, Crane told him that this was the right path, advising that silence “avoids creating a situation where one would otherwise not exist” (Tacoma). Thus, Coolidge’s silence was both natural and political strategy. Coolidge noted about his mentor, “his influence was very great, but that it was of an intangible nature” (Abrams, 38). Both Crane and Coolidge were similar politically, as Coolidge was also a backer of high tariffs and both men were opposed to inflationary currency.

Crane’s Last Cause: The Versailles Treaty

Although Murray Crane had a long history of being a strong partisan, he nonetheless saw the establishment of the League of Nations and the US’s participation in it as vital. His position would be that of a mild reservationist, being for including some modest Republican reservations to the treaty before enacting it. This placed him at odds with his old colleague, Henry Cabot Lodge, who was for strong reservations to the treaty, and it is debatable whether Lodge would have really accepted a treaty in any form. Crane advocated for the adoption of a plank for the Republican Party to endorse the creation of the League of Nations with “proper reservations”, which was interpreted by journalist Mark Sullivan (1920) of the Des Moines Register to be as strong as Wilson’s as “proper” was a word that had a lot of room for interpretation (1). By this time, Crane’s health was fragile, and the hot summer of New England pushed him over the edge. On July 31, 1920, he collapsed in Northampton, Massachusetts prior to an event notifying Coolidge of his nomination for vice president, having been in the hot sun throughout the day. Although Crane recovered enough to be taken home, he found himself having several more collapses when he tried to work in subsequent days. As he himself said about the situation, “something gave out” (The Franklin Repository). The last two months of Crane’s life would be of increasing lethargy, and despite his family seeking the help of specialists he died on October 2nd of brain inflammation at his family home.

References

Abrams, R. (1964). Conservatism in a progressive era: Massachusetts politics 1900-1912. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bent, S. (1926, March 28). Murray Crane Was a Master of Politics. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Crane, Whispering Giant of G.O.P., Dies. (1920, October 3). The Commercial Appeal, 1

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/768138336/

Crane, Winthrop Murray. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/2147/winthrop-murray-crane

Ex-Sen. Crane Died Following Heart Attack. (1920, October 2). The Franklin Repository, 2.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/853770856/

Johnson, C.W. (1967). Winthrop Murray Crane: a study in Republican leadership, 1892-1920. Northampton, MA: Smith College.

Memorial to Crane Unveiled at Dalton. (1925, October 3). The New York Times.

Murray Crane. (1920, October 4). The Buffalo News, 8.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/846060620/

On Great Examples. (2013, April). The Importance of the Obvious.

Retrieved from

https://salientcal.com/2013/04/

Shlaes, A. (2013, May 12). Amity Shlaes: Irony of a Coolidge coin. Orange County Register.

Retrieved from

Amity Shlaes: Irony of a Coolidge coin

Sullivan, M. (1920, June 10). Sullivan Declares Crane’s League Plank As Strong As Wilson’s. The Des Moines Register.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/129056493/

Tacoma, T. (2019, July 4). Calvin Coolidge’s Birthday Is The Perfect Time To Dispel Popular Myths About Him. The Federalist.

Retrieved from

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/04/calvin-coolidges-birthday-perfect-time-dispel-popular-myths/

Winthrop Murray Crane Papers. Massachusetts History.

Retrieved from

https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0218

Fascinating Politics

How Much Did the 17th Amendment Change the Senate?

Peter G. Gerry was a clear beneficiary of the 17th Amendment. Had it not been enacted, Republican incumbent Henry Lippitt would have been a shoo-in for reelection in 1916 given the composition of the state legislature.

Every once in a blue moon we will hear a conservative call for the return of election of senators by state legislatures, although there will be no serious concerted movement towards this end, as it would require a constitutional change, and there is only one amendment that has ever been repealed in American history. After the Senate adopted the 17th Amendment, pushed strongly by progressives, it was ratified in 1913. Thus, the first Senate elections that would fall under the popular vote were in 1914. A question that came to my mind was did this have a significant ideological impact in the first elections?

In order to make this determination, I had to find out what party controlled the legislatures of these states, something that was a bit more difficult to accomplish than you might think and involved a mix of finding out who state House speakers were and who Senate presidents or pro tems were through Wikipedia or sources provided by state governments. Although it was by and large true that the voters of the states voted in the same party direction as their state legislatures would have, it is also true that the differences happened primarily in one direction: towards the Democrats. The only case I could find in which this arrangement benefited Republicans was the 1916 election in Maryland. A borderline case was the 1916 election in Delaware, which was won by Democrat Josiah O. Wolcott. The state House was Democratic, but the Senate was Republican at the time they would have been able to vote on a senator. Thus, whether the victor would have been a Democrat or Republican under the old rules is up to conjecture. However, I have my doubts that Republican incumbent Henry du Pont would have survived this process given that whoever got in would have likely been a compromise candidate, and it is unlikely that du Pont was someone that Democrats would have agreed to.

The 1914 Midterm: The Popular Vote Has Its Impact

Despite 1914 being a good midterm for Republicans in the House, the 17th Amendment resulted in Republicans losing rather than winning seats in that chamber. Democratic gains attributable to the 17th Amendment include the elections of James Phelan in California, Charles Thomas in Colorado, Francis Newlands in Nevada, George Chamberlain in Oregon, Edwin Johnson in South Dakota, and Paul Husting in Wisconsin. Had Senate elections remained with state legislatures, Republicans would have had a net gain of 3 rather than a net loss of 3. There is also a question surrounding the election in Illinois, as Republican Lawrence Sherman prevails, but the Illinois legislature is divided. Thus, whether Republicans would have won with the old system in this case is questionable. Also of issue in this is that the Progressive Party was running candidates and thus splitting elections for Republicans. Had the Progressive Party been taken out of the equation, it is hard to say what the results would have been.

The 1916 Midterms:

The 1916 midterms resulted in a net gain of 2 for Democrats because of the 17th Amendment. They achieved what they couldn’t in state legislatures with Andrieus Jones of New Mexico, Peter Gerry of Rhode Island, and John B. Kendrick of Wyoming, and only possibly Josiah O. Wolcott in Delaware given the divided legislature. Republicans made their gain with Maryland’s Joseph France.

The 1918 Midterms:

The impact of the 1918 midterms was +2 for Democrats in Massachusetts with David I. Walsh and Montana with Thomas J. Walsh and +1 in a special election in Idaho with John F. Nugent.

The 17th Amendment had an intention as well as its impact, that was at least in part to increase the power of progressives (in this case it was Wilsonian progressives). However, it did not turn out of office some of the conservatives proponents most wanted out, such as Republican leader Jacob Gallinger of New Hampshire and Pennsylvania’s Republican boss Boies Penrose in 1914. Indeed, although the latter had opposed the change, he found himself having an easier time with voters than his fellow politicians. After yet another win in 1920, he said to a reformer friend, “Give me the People, every time! Look at me! No legislature would ever have dared to elect me in the Senate, not even at Harrisburg. But the People, the dear People, elected me by a bigger majority than my opponent’s total vote of half a million. You and your ‘reformer’ friends thought direct election would turn men like me out of the Senate! Give me the People, every time!” (Kennedy) 

References

Kennedy, J.F. (1956, February 21). Remarks of Senator John F. Kennedy at the New York Herald Tribune Luncheon. New York, New York. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Retrieved from

https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/new-york-ny-herald-tribune-luncheon-19560221

Fascinating Politics

Great Conservatives from American History #23: Jacob Gallinger

Among the New England states, New Hampshire long had a reputation as its most conservative, and there were numerous political figures who gave it this reputation. One of the earlier ones was Jacob Harold Gallinger (1837-1918). Although praised in his life by his supporters as fundamentally American in his values, Gallinger’s life didn’t begin in America, rather he was born in Cornwall, Ontario, British Canada, but he moved with his family to the US at a young age. In May 1858, he graduated Cincinnati Eclectic Medical Institute at the head of his class and three years later he started practicing as a homeopathic doctor and surgeon in Keene, New Hampshire, moving to Concord the next year. He was an active practitioner until 1885, and sincerely believed that homeopathy was the future.

While practicing, he began a political career in New Hampshire, being elected to the state’s House of Representatives in 1872, being reelected until his election to the state’s Senate, serving from 1878 to 1880, during which he was elected Senate President. During this time, Gallinger gained a reputation as a Stalwart, or an opponent of civil service reform, which for many years would put him in direct conflict with Half-Breed William E. Chandler. He derided proponents of civil service reform as “worshipers of Grover Cleveland” (Madura). In 1884, he was elected to the House, representing New Hampshire’s 2nd district. By 1888, Gallinger was prominent enough in the GOP to second the nomination of Benjamin Harrison at the Republican National Convention. In 1888, he was elected to the State Senate, and then to the State House in 1890, but didn’t remain as he was elected to the Senate by defeating incumbent Henry W. Blair in the primary.

As a senator, Gallinger was a faithful representative of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. According to his colleague, Democrat Henry Hollis, “He believed that any man of average intelligence could get on in the world if he would be sober, industrious, and thrifty. He did not believe that the country or the Government owed any man more than this opportunity” (Congressional Record, 10). Indeed, he had risen up from humble circumstances. Gallinger’s New York Times obituary (1918) described him as “…a conservative in most of his notions, narrow in some. He was an ancient enemy of civil service reform. He didn’t believe that railroads were an abomination and a curse. He held to the old Republican gospel of ship subsidies. Firm was his faith in a protective tariff, heaven-sent, heaven-high.” He naturally did not get on with populist or progressive causes of his day, and his conflict continued with Chandler, who was now his Senate colleague. In 1899, Chandler accused him of illegally soliciting money from federal officeholders (The New York Times, 1899). However, Gallinger wouldn’t have to worry about him for long, as Chandler had increasingly been voting independently and in 1901, he was denied renomination. Gallinger now was indisputably the most powerful figure in the politics of the Granite State. He served as a leading conservative figure in the Senate, although one who could now and again exercise independence during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1911, Maine’s William Frye, a known conservative, stepped down from the Senate Pro Tem position as his health was deteriorating. Although the Senate Republican caucus supported Gallinger, eight progressive Republicans were against him, preferring Minnesota’s Moses Clapp. The Democrats wanted Georgia’s Augustus Bacon in this position, and no majority could be achieved. A strange deal was concocted in which Gallinger and Bacon would rotate in the Senate Pro Tem position on alternate days. Also serving as Pro Tem during this session were Senators Frank Brandegee (R-Conn.), Charles Curtis (R-Kan.), and Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.). By the way, Gallinger and Bacon bore an amusing resemblance to each other:

Senator Gallinger

Senator Bacon

Behold! The Senate’s twin walruses!

As part of Gallinger’s deep-seated conservatism, he opposed constitutional amendments for the substitution of the electoral college with the popular vote for electing presidents and the direct election of senators. In 1912, he sided with Taft in the battle between him and Roosevelt for the Republican nomination. The following year, Gallinger was chosen by the Republicans to head the Senate Republican Conference. Before the positions of majority and minority leader existed, being the chairman of this conference translated to party leader. Thus, Gallinger led the Senate opposition to President Wilson’s New Freedom agenda. He voted against the Revenue Act of 1913 lowering tariffs and instituting an income tax, the Federal Reserve, and the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. On matters of national defense, he was a strong proponent of the growth of the US Navy, opposing efforts to cut battleship construction. In 1914, Gallinger faced his first popular election, but contrary to the hopes of the political left that popular elections would turn him out of office, he won reelection by 7 points.  

His conservatism persisted after his reelection, and in 1915, the Montana Progressive characterized Gallinger as “about the most reactionary of republican senators” (1). Although most of the time he was resistant to change from what was when he came into politics, he didn’t oppose all change. For instance, Gallinger voted for women’s suffrage in 1914 and paired for the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) in 1918. As an influential senator, he was also able to wield power beyond his party numbers on occasion. For instance, in 1915, Gallinger opposed the nomination of progressive New Hampshire Republican George Rublee to the Federal Trade Commission and invoked Senatorial courtesy. Wilson was able to get him in as a recess appointment, but in 1916 his continuation had to come to a vote. Rublee had been a key figure in the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission in 1914 and had opposed Gallinger’s reelection. Under Senatorial courtesy, it is a custom of the Senate to reject nominees from a senator’s state if the senator announces that he finds the nomination is “personally offensive”. The Senate upheld the tradition of Senatorial courtesy by rejecting Rublee’s nomination 36-42. The rejection of Rublee was one of the factors that resulted in the FTC being considered ineffective in its early years by progressives. Indeed, Gallinger had been one of five senators to vote against the FTC’s establishment in 1914 (although there were numerous abstentions). In 1918, Gallinger voted for the France Amendment to protect speaking the truth under the Sedition Act and after its rejection he voted against the act itself. By this time, he was 81 years old and the oldest senator. Although Gallinger hoped and believed that he would live long enough to have a few years of retirement, that year his health was deteriorating from arteriosclerosis, and he died on August 17th. His DW-Nominate score was a 0.553, placing him solidly on the conservative wing of the GOP. He would be succeeded by the also staunchly conservative Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. Gallinger’s Democratic colleague from his state, Henry Hollis, praised him as being of “an optimistic temperament, wholesome, sane, uniformly cheerful and courteous” while noting another’s observation of his conservative nature, “He was sure not to be “the first by whom the new is tried,” and he was always among “the last to lay the old aside”” (Congressional Record, 9).

Gallinger, I must note, is yet another case of a Republican who got his start in politics in a time in which Reconstruction was occurring who nonetheless gets characterized as a conservative by the 20th century, and yes, including in ways we would recognize today. Perhaps…the history of politics isn’t quite how the MSM has you understand it?

References

Chandler vs. Gallinger; One New Hampshire Senator’s Charges Against the Other. (1899, July 12). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Gallinger, Jacob Harold. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/3439/jacob-harold-gallinger

Jacob Harold Gallinger Memorial Addresses. (1919, January 19). Congressional Record.

Retrieved from

govinfo.gov/content/pkg/SERIALSET-07467_00_00-005-0454-0000/pdf/SERIALSET-07467_00_00-005-0454-0000.pdf

Madura, J. (2025, April 21). Beyond Party Lines: How One 19th Century Leader Chose Ideals Over Loyalty. Foundation for Economic Education.

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https://fee.org/articles/beyond-party-lines-how-one-19th-century-leader-chose-ideals-over-loyalty/

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Senatorial “Courtesy”. Carbon County Journal, 4.

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Fascinating Politics

Thomas A. Hendricks: “The Professional Candidate”

Thomas A. Hendricks, 1860s

Vice Presidents are an easily forgotten group, especially when they don’t last long. Indiana’s Thomas Andrews Hendricks (1819-1885) only lasted eight months as vice president, but this obscures his lengthy political career in a state that in his time was politically tumultuous. 

Hendricks was born for politics, as he was raised in a family that staunchly adhered to Jacksonian principles and he was politically connected as his uncle, William Hendricks, had served as Indiana’s governor. However, his uncle was anti-Jacksonian as opposed to the views of his immediate family. Hendricks married Eliza Morgan in 1845 and they had one child, Morgan, but he tragically died at the age of three.

In 1848, he had his first political success when he was elected to the Indiana State House, but he wasn’t there long, as in 1850 he won election to the U.S. House in a district that was normally aligned with the Whigs. Hendricks aligned himself with the foremost young Midwestern politician of his day in Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Like Douglas, Hendricks believed in popular sovereignty as the answer to the issue of slavery; the people of the states get to decide whether they are slave or free states. In 1854, consistent with this belief, he voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed the Compromise of 1820 and permitted residents of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to decide whether they were to be free or slave states. This resulted in pro and anti-slavery settlers moving into Kansas to influence the state’s vote, and the result were numerous incidents of violence and massacres from 1854 to 1859 that became known nationally as “Bleeding Kansas” and was a preview of the War of the Rebellion. Hendricks was also opposed to repealing the Fugitive Slave law unless slavery were abolished. Despite his political skills, the 1854 midterms were bad for the Democrats and he lost his seat.

Hendricks was subsequently picked by President Pierce to serve as the U.S. Commissioner of the General Land Office. However, like Senator Stephen Douglas, he had differences with President Buchanan. For one, Hendricks was an advocate of a homestead law to encourage settlement of the west, which Buchanan opposed. He also objected to Buchanan’s catering to the interests of slavery, and resigned in 1859.

In 1860, he ran for governor, but narrowly lost to Republican Henry Lane. However, an opportunity would arise for Hendricks given the actions of Senator Jesse Bright. Bright, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party in Indiana, was discovered to have engaged in correspondence with Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In February 1862, the Senate expelled him for treason and the following year, the Indiana legislature elected Hendricks to the Senate. He was a unionist or “War Democrat”, opposing the Copperhead faction of the Democrats and voting for funds for the war, serving as the leader of the small Democratic opposition. However, Hendricks opposed emancipation as a war aim as well as draft legislation. He would not differ from his party in opposition to Reconstruction, having not only opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments but also the 13th Amendment. Hendricks accepted that slavery was no more but believed that the Southern states should be represented as he was of the view that they had never actually left the union. He held that it would be “unpropitious” to change the Constitution at that time (Gray). Had Hendricks gotten his way, the 13th Amendment would have faced a harder vote and the 14th and 15th Amendments would have likely been sunk. Indeed, enacting the amendments before the Southern states were readmitted would be an argument some Southern politicians would use against the legitimacy of the 14th and 15th Amendments in the future. Hendricks also expressed his beliefs that blacks were morally and intellectually inferior and unfit for citizenship and on numerous occasions he said, “This is the white man’s Government, made by the white man, for the white man” (Gray). Although President Lincoln and Senator Hendricks had many disagreements, Lincoln praised him for always having been respectful to his administration. In 1868, Hendricks again tried for governor, but narrowly lost to incumbent Conrad Baker. That year he was also considered for the Democratic nomination for president but that went to Horatio Seymour, who had twice been New York’s governor. By 1869, Republicans had regained control of the Indiana legislature, and Hendricks was out. His DW-Nominate score was a -0.436. Hendricks would subsequently focus his politics on supporting inflationary currency and federal aid to rural areas.

Thomas A. Hendricks was not only for easy money, but was also an easy candidate, regularly being available. Indeed, some Democrats thought him too available for the presidency. This, plus a reasonable belief that him at the top of the ticket with his soft currency stance would lose the Democrats New York, he was twice relegated to vice president. However, electors in Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, and Texas did cast their votes for him in 1872 after the Liberal Republican/Democratic candidate, Horace Greeley, died only weeks after the election. So technically, he did win four states and six electoral votes from Kentucky despite not officially being a candidate.

Hendricks in 1875.

In 1876, Hendricks got the nomination for vice president. The ticket of Tilden/Hendricks didn’t just win the popular vote, it also won the majority of the vote. Yet, Tilden/Hendricks lost to the Republican Hayes/Wheeler ticket by one electoral vote. The election was the most controversial in the nation’s history (yes, even more than the 2000 election) and there were widespread allegations of voter fraud, intimidation, and violence from both parties. This was the only election that was decided by a special created commission, the Electoral Commission, which produced the controversial result. Tilden and Hendricks opted not to contest this result in the name of keeping the nation from entering yet another War of the Rebellion. Nonetheless, Democrats were bitter after this election and were calling President Hayes “Rutherfraud B. Hayes” and “his fraudulency”. Hendricks declined to participate in the 1880 election on health grounds, but when 1884 rolled around, he was again available for the vice president nomination. Although some Democrats wanted to run Samuel J. Tilden again to redeem the 1876 election, he was 70 and in poor health, so he declined. Hendricks as vice president, however, was a replay of 1876 and Democrats were for that. What’s more, Hendricks provided a good balance as he was far more amenable to political machines than reformer Grover Cleveland and he was for using the government to help agriculture and inflationary currency as opposed to Cleveland, who did not want to intervene with agriculture and was a gold standard guy. Furthermore, both Cleveland and Hendricks were from states that were must-wins for Democrats, and indeed in 1884 they won both New York and Indiana as well as the election.

Vice President Hendricks

While vice president, Hendricks had a friendly relationship with Cleveland and said of him that he was “courteous and affable”, traits that Hendricks himself possessed. However, he issued strong objections to him initially refusing to dole out patronage out of his sense of good government. Eventually political reality forced Cleveland to engage in patronage to reward his party’s supporters. On September 8, 1885, Hendricks delivered a controversial speech in which he called for Ireland’s independence, which although was to the consternation of the British, a lot of Irish Americans appreciated the speech. On November 24, 1885, Hendricks reported feeling ill and he went to bed early. He never woke up as his heart had given out. Hendricks’ death was a shock to the public as he had appeared to be fine. The truth, however, was that his health had been declining over the past five years. Hendricks had suffered a stroke in 1880 which resulted in his right foot becoming lame, thus making it hard for him to stand. The truth of his health had been known only to his family and doctors. His funeral in Indianapolis was attended by hundreds of people, including President Cleveland. Hendricks’ death inspired a change to the law on succession for the presidency, as the next in line was the Senate president pro tempore, who at the time was a Republican as Republicans had a majority, and both Democrats and Republicans of the time recognized that it would not be suitable for whoever succeeded a dead president to be a member of a party that the public hadn’t voted for and removed Congressional leaders from succession, thus the Secretary of State became third in line for the presidency. This arrangement would hold until 1947, when Congressional leaders were put back on the succession order.  

References

Caffrey, C. (2023). Thomas Andrews Hendricks. EBSCO.

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https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/thomas-andrews-hendricks

Gray, R.D. (2017, August 21). Thomas A. Hendricks: “The Constitution as it is, the Union as it was”. Untold Indiana.

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https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/racist/

Hendricks, Thomas Andrews. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/4319/thomas-andrews-hendricks

Thomas A. Hendricks. UVA Miller Center.

Retrieved from

https://millercenter.org/president/cleveland/essays/hendricks-1885-vicepresident