Among the states, I wouldn’t say that Maine was particularly known for making waves with the politicians its voters have sent to the Senate in the 20^th century…that is, save for Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961). Brewster was, to put it bluntly, considered ugly, one of the ugliest men to have made it big in American politics and perhaps the ugliest since Benjamin Butler. Time Magazine (1935) would describe him as “toothy, slack-jawed” and journalist Jack Anderson in 1979 described him as “billiard-bald on top, cheerless-eyed, meaty-lipped, an appearance dark and gloomy” (Simkin). However, what he lacked in looks he made up for in hard work, diligence, and intelligence. Brewster’s success helped him get married to the daughter of one of Maine’s most prominent citizens. Although in his obituary Brewster would be most noted for his conservatism and opposition to FDR, in his earlier career he was more open to reform and change. He backed both Prohibition and women’s suffrage and initially even endorsed public ownership of water power generation in Maine. Brewster would after call for reform and would battle with holding company magnate Samuel Insull.

The 1924 Gubernatorial Election

In 1924, a rising force in American politics that had factions in both parties was the Ku Klux Klan. This was the second incarnation of the “invisible empire” and this one was the most popular. This Klan was in truth many things; it was of course racist, but it was also anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, nativist, Prohibitionist, and Protestant group that engaged in numerous activities. These included multi-level marketing, summer camps, charity, political lobbying, and most notably in the South, exacting their brand of vigilante justice (usually night whippings) against those they regarded as violating their moral tenets. Unlike the first KKK which was seen only in the South, this Klan was nationwide, and even reached up to Maine, in which their primary prejudice was against French Canadian Catholics. Against what the Republican establishment of the state wanted, a 36-year-old Owen Brewster ran for governor with Klan support. Brewster played a bit of a game on this one; he would maintain a golden silence on the subject of the Klan unless it was to deny he was a member. Indeed, it has never been proven that Brewster was a member. He was supported by the Klan for two reasons: 1. He never condemned them when the press prompted him to do so, and 2. He supported cutting all government aid to parochial schools (which were primarily Catholic). The latter stance Brewster came to independent of the Klan, believing that this was too much government involvement in religion. He had introduced such a measure in the State Senate but it failed as its president, Frank Farrington, was opposed and convinced the Senate to vote it down (Syrett, 218). The GOP establishment of the state, represented most prominently by Governor Percival Baxter, Farrington, Senator Frederick Hale, and Representative Wallace White, were strongly against the Klan for its racial and religious bigotry. However, many white Protestant Americans at the time saw the Klan as a means for social advancement as well as a patriotic and Protestant organization. Although some state Klans had had ugly incidents of vigilantism (particularly in the South), Maine’s was not one of them. Brewster managed to win the nomination narrowly after Governor Baxter found that voter fraud had occurred in an Irish-American ward in Portland (The New York Times). At the time, winning the Republican nomination for a statewide office was tantamount to election in the strongly Republican Maine.

Brewster’s means of rising to power was something of a scarlet letter that could always be used against him. In 1925, he was the second governor to climb Mt. Katahdin (the first was his predecessor). In 1926, ever ambitious, Brewster attempted to win the special election to the Senate after the death of Bert Fernald but lost to the anti-Klan Arthur Gould. In 1928, he again attempted to win a Senate seat by trying to defeat the anti-Klan incumbent Frederick Hale in the primary, but Hale was retained with 63% of the vote. This marked the end of Klan influence in Maine, which had already been declining since the rape and murder conviction of Indiana Klan Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson. Maine’s Klan leader, DeForest Perkins, resigned in the aftermath of the election. However, the Great Depression, although quite bad for Republican prospects, brought opportunity for Brewster.

Brewster and the Great Depression

In 1932, Brewster defeated Congressman Donald F. Snow for renomination, and this was for the best in truth as Snow would later be sent to the penitentiary for embezzlement. However, he narrowly lost the election to Democrat John Utterback. Brewster would try again in 1934, running on a platform of supporting the Townsend Plan for old age insurance, and this time he would win despite the midterm resulting in net Democratic gains. As a representative, despite his later reputation he would be far from the most conservative of Republicans, and he would support more popular measures such as Social Security and the Fair Labor Standards Act. A few of his diversions from conservatism could be seen as him looking out for his district. For instance, in 1935, he was one of five House Republicans to vote to add potatoes to the crops covered under the Agricultural Adjustment Act. One of the counties in his district, Aroostook, was one of the leading potato growers in the nation, and Brewster called them the “forgotten crop” especially since 36 million pounds of potatoes were in storage and their market value had declined from $1.37 a bushel in 1930 to $0.37 a bushel in 1935, which depressed the county (Hill). Brewster did sustain the party line on certain other subjects, such as housing policy. He also made his displeasure known about Roosevelt’s reciprocal trade policy, which most Republicans opposed, denouncing it as “Alice in Wonderland” economics (Standard-Speaker). In Brewster’s first term, he quickly stirred up controversy when in the aftermath of his conflict with the Roosevelt Administration the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project was canceled. He alleged that Maine representatives were pressured by brain truster Thomas Corcoran to support the “Death Sentence” clause of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act in exchange for the Roosevelt Administration’s support of the project; Brewster voted to strike the clause. This was a vote that surprised people given his efforts against holding company baron Samuel Insull as Maine’s governor. Brewster claimed his vote against was a protest against “unethical lobbying” (Hill). However, Corcoran had a witness. His side of the story, in which the “threat” was him telling Brewster that if the administration can’t count on him for the “death sentence” clause of the public utilities bill that they can’t count on him for the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, was backed almost to the exact detail by witness Dr. Ernest Gruening, which made it most likely that Corcoran’s story was the accurate version of events (Time Magazine). Some constituents in Lubec were angry as they regarded Brewster as imperiling funds for the project and hung him in effigy with a sign reading, “our double-crossing Congressman” (Kansas City Journal). Nonetheless, he proved popular in his area of Maine and he was reelected in 1936. Joining him in Congress were Republicans James C. Oliver of the 1^st district and Clyde Smith of the 2^nd, both supporters of the Townsend Plan. Maine was one of the few places in which the 1936 election was good for Republicans.  

On to the Senate

In 1940, Senator Frederick Hale opted to retire, and this time Brewster won the nomination and succeeded him. Although generally known as a conservative, in truth, as previously noted, his career was a bit more complicated than that, as demonstrated by his support of the Townsend Plan and his interventionist record on foreign policy. Brewster largely supported FDR’s foreign policy before World War II, voting to end the arms embargo in 1939, voting for the peacetime draft in 1940, and Lend-Lease in 1941, but stopped short of supporting permitting merchant ships to enter belligerent ports. While an observer may look at his support from the KKK as evidence of bigotry, there are aspects of his record that defy this characterization; in 1950 he voted to end debate on the Fair Employment Practices bill and voted to kill a Southern effort to undermine army desegregation. Furthermore, Brewster backed increasing the number of refugees admitted to the United States, and this would include a fair number of Jews. During World War II, he was one of the senators selected by Senator Truman to serve on his committee to investigate wartime expenditures. The committee was non-partisan and won great acclaim for its successes in saving taxpayer money and uncovering corrupt practices, thus elevating Truman’s profile enough for him to be nominated vice president in 1944. In 1943, at the age of 55, Brewster decided that he would change the name he would be known by from “Ralph O. Brewster” to “Owen Brewster”. There were two possible reasons for this change; first, to honor his son who had died ten years earlier of the flu at the age of 15, and second, so that people would no longer think of “R.O.B.” when they thought of him. In 1946, Brewster sat on a joint House-Senate committee investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor. The committee concluded that the Roosevelt Administration had not failed to prepare and rather placed the blame on Admiral Husband E. Kimmel and General Walter Short. Brewster along with Michigan’s Homer Ferguson dissented, with the former writing that the late president “was responsible for the failure to enforce continuous, efficient, and appropriate co-operation” in Washington “in evaluating information and dispatching clear and positive orders to the Hawaiian commanders” (The Journal Herald, 1). Both Brewster and Ferguson believed that the inquiry was incomplete. In 1946, the Senate flipped from Democrat to Republican and Brewster was now chairing this committee.

Brewster vs. Howard Hughes

Owen Brewster has not fared well in the court of historical opinion; he was portrayed by Alan Alda in the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Aviator as a villain. As chairman of the committee, he was investigating Hughes and TWA for alleged misspending in government contracts. Hughes proved a tough opponent for Brewster and although journalist Drew Pearson, a staunch New Deal liberal, was not typically inclined to back businessmen like Hughes, he did back him against Brewster, who along with Wisconsin’s Joseph McCarthy and Tennessee’s hot-tempered Kenneth McKellar ranked among his favorite political targets in the Senate. The mood of the committee on Hughes was that he was going to be easy to deal with as he had not too long ago recovered from a major plane accident that nearly killed him (Watt, 40). However, Hughes effectively played against Brewster by making Brewster himself the issue by accusing him of using this probe to try to pressure him into merging his company with Pan Am, which would be convenient for his community airline bill. Thus, the narrative became that Brewster was corruptly carrying water for Pan Am CEO Juan Trippe rather than him conducting a good government investigation on whether a big businessman had schmoozed his way into securing government contracts during wartime only to waste taxpayer money. Brewster waived his senatorial immunity to testify, and it was a bold move and one to try to convey the message that he was being honest. In the course he did admit that the subject of a potential merger with Pan Am had come up but denied that it was being used as leverage against Hughes. However, if he was the villain in this situation and this was a bluff, it didn’t pay off as he came off worse in the court of public opinion. Both men had testified under oath and thus this was yet another incident of Brewster’s word against another’s. Furthermore, the subcommittee chairman who took Brewster’s place in continuing the Hughes matter, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, was not in the best state to regulate the situation as he had poison ivy all over his feet (Watt, 41). There was also another possible motive to target Hughes…as a means of targeting the Roosevelts. The Republican 80^th Congress was very keen on uncovering anything that possibly went wrong during the Roosevelt Administration and Hughes had a connection to Elliott Roosevelt, thus this was used to attack the old Roosevelt Administration (Watt, 42-43).

Campaign Financing Controversy

Republicans still thought of Brewster highly enough after the Hughes controversy to place him as  head of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 1950 election. The results were good for the GOP, but there was a controversy regarding his neutrality in Republican primaries. Brewster was supposed to be neutral in primaries, and this meant that campaign money could not be used to fund anyone in the primaries. However, Brewster found a way to violate not the letter of the rule but the spirit of the rule by securing a $10,000 loan from the Liberty National bank in Washington and used shadowy middleman Henry Gruenwald to give $5000 each to candidates Richard Nixon of California and Milton Young of North Dakota (Quad-City Times). To his credit, it was Brewster who admitted this so this would not impact Gruenwald. Nixon did not have a contender in the primary who was actually a Republican as California at the time (and now) had an open primary, thus Democratic candidates Helen Gahagan Douglas and Manchester Boddy were also contenders. Young did have a Republican challenger in Thorstein H. Thoresen, formerly North Dakota’s lieutenant governor.

1952 Election

 In 1952, Hughes bankrolled Governor Frederick G. Payne’s primary challenge to Brewster. Payne and Brewster represented two different factions of the party. While Brewster was a strong supporter of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist crusade and supported nominating Ohio’s conservative standard-bearer Robert Taft in 1952, Payne backed picking the more moderate and internationalist General Dwight Eisenhower. Like Eisenhower defeated Taft, Payne narrowly won the primary. The significance of Payne’s win is that this is the only time in Maine’s history that a Republican incumbent senator was defeated for renomination, further underscoring Brewster’s controversial reputation. Not only did the feud with Hughes harm him but also Drew Pearson’s charge of unseemly lobbying by Francoist Spain’s lobbyist Charles Patrick Clark to convince him as well as Rep. Eugene Keogh (D-N.Y.) to sponsor aid to Spain (Hill). Clark would beat up Pearson in retaliation. However, Brewster may have managed to deal a blow to Payne that would hang over his head as a wine bottler claimed that he paid $12,000 to a political influencer to give to Payne for his product to be placed on the shelves of government liquor stores (Hill). Brewster was alleged to be behind these accusations, but he denied it. Although as noted before, he was considered a staunch conservative, the metrics I use indicate that he had voted with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action from 1947 to 1952 20% of the time while his DW-Nominate score was a 0.271. This indicates overall moderate conservatism in his career with his later career being a bit more conservative. Brewster attempted to secure another position both in the Senate and in the White House, but neither effort was successful. In the former case this was particularly a stinging blow as it constituted a rebuke by his former colleagues. Brewster would spend the rest of his life in semi-retirement, and for the last three years of his life he went around advocating for Americans for Constitutional Action, a newly formed conservative organization that was established as a counterpart to the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Brewster offered himself as a candidate for the Senate in 1958 should Payne have chosen not to run for reelection (Hill). However, Payne did opt to run for reelection, and he lost by over 20 points to Edmund Muskie for reasons that were described in my post last year about the Sherman Adams controversy.

A member of the Christian Science church, Brewster died suddenly while on a Christian Science retreat in Brookline, Massachusetts, on December 25, 1961. His death was unexpected, although he had been suffering from cancer.

My Opinion on Brewster

Owen Brewster was a figure who in many ways maintained a highly clean appearance. He neither smoked nor drank, no hint of scandal existed with his personal life, and he was strongly religious. However, he also had two incidents in which the issue became his word against someone else’s, and he came out on the wrong side of it, at least in the court of public opinion. Brewster also proved willing to use cunning and tricky methods to get things done, such as his underhanded using of the KKK to win public office and his usage of a shadowy middleman to funnel money to Senate candidates against the spirit of the rules of his position. He was also quite interested in taking advantage of causes that were rising in popularity, such as his surreptitious courting of the votes of KKK members, his public support for the fiscally infeasible Townsend Plan, and his support for Joseph McCarthy. Brewster’s conservatism also strikes me as perhaps a bit overly touted when his record gets examine. In all, he was a complicated figure whose personal morality sometimes contrasted with his political methods.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Brewster Declared Winner in Maine. (1924, August 8). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Brewster, Ralph Owen. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/1021/ralph-owen-brewster

Former U.S. Senator Dies. (1961, December 26). Standard-Speaker, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/61225510/

Hill, R. (2024). Owen Brewster of Maine. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/owen-brewster-of-maine/

Owen Brewster Dies; Former U.S. Senator. (1961, December 26). The Journal Herald, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/394350317/

Sen. Brewster Tells Trick in Using ‘Conduit’. (1952, March 21). Quad-City Times, 2.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/299380913/

Simkin, J. (1997). Owen Brewster. Spartacus Educational.

Retrieved from

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbrewsterO.htm

Syrett, J. (2001). Principle and Expediency: The Ku Klux Klan and Ralph Owen Brewster in 1924. Maine History, 39(4).

Retrieved from

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1221&context=mainehistoryjournal

The Congress: Boomerang and Blackjack. (1935, July 22). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6754199/the-congress-boomerang-blackjack/

Unpardonable Sin. (1935, August 17). Kansas City Journal, 11.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1024050087/

Watt, R.Y. (1979). Oral History Interview. Washington, D.C. United States Senate Historical Office.

Retrieved from

Click to access watt-ruth-young-full-transcript-with-index.pdf

Although Hague had managed to get the lesser of the Republicans in his view, that Republican nonetheless won the gubernatorial election and indeed New Jersey had a Republican wave with Herbert Hoover winning the state by 20 points; only Hudson County voted for Democrat Al Smith. Hague had had a good run of the 1920s up to this point, having Democrats Edward I. Edwards and A. Harry Moore as governors, who could be counted on to do what Hague wanted. The same was not true for Republican Morgan F. Larson, even though Hague had collaborated with Republican Atlantic City boss Nucky Johnson to elevate him over Democrat William Dill (Murray, 26). The Republican-controlled legislature sought to take down Hague, and they focused on an area in which he was vulnerable – taxes.

Hague’s Trouble with Taxes

Frank Hague’s city government taxed quite high for the services it provided as well as for a bloated public payroll; not all “jobs” came with functions. Indeed, the cost to taxpayers for Jersey City’s government was over four times that of Kansas City and New Orleans, also ruled by bosses and both with about 100,000 more people (Life Magazine).

As mayor of Jersey City, Frank Hague’s annual salary did not exceed $8500 annually. Yet, Hague, who came from modest means, was worth millions now, and the only income he ever reported to the Treasury was his mayoral income. In addition to other sources I mentioned in my last post, he received protection money from horse gambling establishments that ran numbers rackets, and Jersey City got the reputation of being the “Horse Bourse” (Fleming). He also would receive bribes at his office. There was a desk in which the visitor would place cash on the drawer on his side, and it would come out on Hague’s side (Isherwood). Although he was compelled to answer questions about his taxes to the New Jersey legislature, he refused to answer, and they cited him for contempt. However, the Court of Errors and Appeals ruled that the legislature lacked the authority to probe an individual for felonies, only the courts did. Hague did end up having to pay $60,000 to settle with the Federal government, and his reputation as a reformer mayor was gone. In 1929, he would face his closest call as mayor against James F. Murray, a young reform Democrat, but prevailed in an election in which between 20-30% of signatures in the poll book were fraudulent and numerous people were paid to vote multiple times (Murray, 24). Throughout his career he continued to make millions while only paying the taxes on his mayoral salary. Perhaps this would have been the beginning of the end of his reign had it not been for the Great Depression, and Republicans became highly unpopular nationwide. The Great Depression also helped Hague as his machine kept on going and kept supplying public jobs, a source of relief for numerous Jersey City residents (Fleming). He might have run into more trouble with his taxes had he not gained a crucial partner in politics…Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

FDR and Hague…a Quid Pro Quo Partnership

Hague, Roosevelt, and Governor A. Harry Moore, 1932

With the Great Depression in full swing, the Democrats were in the perfect position to win the next election, but who was the nominee going to be? Hague had a history of loyalty to New York’s Al Smith and indeed he initially endorsed Smith for the primary, even attacking Roosevelt by asserting that despite him being New York’s governor that he could not “carry a single state east of the Mississippi and very few in the Far West” (Fleming). However, New York City’s James A. Farley outmaneuvered him at the Democratic National Convention and FDR won the primary. Hague came around to FDR and he offered to host his first general election campaign rally. Roosevelt’s general election campaign kicked off in Sea Girt, New Jersey, on August 27, 1932, with Hague managing to get a turnout of 120,000, an incredible figure (Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library). Hague had also hosted a rally for Al Smith at Sea Girt in 1928. Although Democrats today are expected to win New Jersey in Federal elections, this was far from always the case; in 1930 Republican Dwight Morrow had won a Senate seat by nearly 20 points, and although Roosevelt’s win was a landslide in 1932, he only won New Jersey by 2 points, and that he won at all was thanks to Hudson County. Roosevelt was thankful for Hague’s help and directed Federal patronage in New Jersey to him; usually patronage went to a Democratic governor (at the start of the Roosevelt Administration it was Hague front man A. Harry Moore) or the leading Democratic senator in a state. This gave Hague all the more power, and he used the $47 million he would receive in Works Progress Administration funds for Jersey City to construct Roosevelt Stadium as well as finish the aforementioned Jersey City Medical Center. From 1936 to 1943, New Jersey would receive over $400 million in Works Progress Administration funds, one of the highest for a state (Murray, 23). Although Hague’s influence was already a bit national with his post as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, it was furthered now. Although Roosevelt is seen as an anti-machine politician and he denied patronage to New York City’s Tammany Hall, he let it flow to Hague’s machine. Hague also managed to get Moore elected to the Senate in 1934. In 1936, Roosevelt won reelection in New Jersey by 20 points, and Republican Senator Warren Barbour lost reelection. In 1940, Hague, along with Mayor Ed Kelly of Chicago (who ran his own corrupt machine), started up the push for Roosevelt to be nominated for a third term, which propelled him to win the primary and general election. Hague would also be of great help in the 1944 election. He was indispensable to Roosevelt, and both benefited from each other. However, this meant that sometimes Hague had to do things for Roosevelt that he’d rather not do, such as support Charles Edison for governor in 1940, but the full telling of that will be for part III.

Hague’s Other Pals

Hague managed to command many allies in New Jersey, including from both parties. Quick to court women voters once they gained suffrage, he got Mary Teresa Norton into politics, and got her elected to Congress representing Jersey City’s southern wards. Norton would be the sponsor of the Fair Labor Standards Act, also known as the law that established the Federal minimum wage. The first Democratic governor that he managed to get in, Edward I. Edwards, who served from 1920 to 1923, allowed Hague to raise taxes on corporations substantially, got him some allies on the public utility commission as well as on the Hudson County tax board and board of elections (Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library). He was allied to him until 1930, when he wanted to again be governor, but by this time Edwards’ career, finances, and general well-being were in free-fall, and after a skin cancer diagnosis the next year he took his own life. Hague’s success in electing Edwards in the 1919 election got him elected the chairman of the New Jersey Democratic Party, a position he would hold for 29 years. George Silzer was another who owed his career to Hague, serving from 1923 to 1926. He most importantly picked Hague’s choice for prosecutor of Hudson County (Frank J. Guarini Library). Hague’s greatest front man statewide, however, was A. Harry Moore, who served as governor from 1926 to 1929, 1931 to 1934, and 1937 to 1940. Hague had befriended Moore early in his career and the man had some advantages to him. First, Moore was Protestant (possibly the first Hague ever met), which made a difference in the minds of numerous voters back then as opposed to the majority Catholic population of Jersey City. Second, he had fiscally conservative tendencies (as a senator he was one of only three Democrats to oppose Social Security), which made him more palatable to Republican voters and let him get on fine with the Republican-controlled legislature. However, Moore most critically would be a party organization man up and down, meaning that he would support what Hague wanted in appointments, patronage, etc. This was especially vital when it came to getting a county prosecutor, thus Hague could direct prosecutions as he pleased. He liked Moore so much that he helped get him elected governor three times and tried to recruit him for a fourth time and got him a Senate seat. However, Moore’s credibility was damaged in his third term after he tapped Hague’s son, who had twice failed to get through law school yet passed the bar, to the Court of Errors and Appeals, the highest court in New Jersey at the time. When Moore exited the Senate in 1937 to serve again as governor, his temporary replacement, John Milton, was Hague’s longtime attorney. Speaking of the state’s highest court, he managed to get his crony, his corporate counsel Thomas J. Brogan, tapped by Governor Moore to be its chief justice, and he served from 1933 to 1946. Hague was able to get some Republican state senators to back him up, which helped him exert some influence over that legislative body, but he was never able to exert control over the Assembly, which was Republican and was just itching to find a way to get him out of office. As for his Republican friends…

“Hague Republicans”

Frank Hague not only managed to become the leading figure of the Democratic Party in Hudson County and New Jersey, he came to dominate the Hudson County Republican Party and command some statewide influence through some of his followers registering Republican in Hudson County. As I wrote in part one, 20,000 people who registered Republican in Hudson County were able to tip the results of the 1928 Republican gubernatorial primary. The Hudson County Board of Elections also had Hague Republicans at the helm, and he managed to turn Republican T. James Tumulty to supporting him (and switching parties) after offering him a job, but the most prominent Hague Republican was Harold G. Hoffman.

In 1934, Democrat William Dill was running for governor again, and although officially backed by Hague, he lost the election to Hoffman, a personally popular figure. Hague turned out to be pretty fine with Hoffman as governor as he likely knew that Hoffman had sticky fingers; per Hoffman’s confession letter revealed after his death he had throughout his political career embezzled over $300,000 from the government positions he had held (Murray, 2024, 58-60). Thus, he made deals with Hague and provided considerable patronage for his machine and came to him for support after Republicans soured on him for his backing of a sales tax. Hoffman also supported certifying the election before an investigation was done, did not support any investigations into Hudson County voting practices, and refused to back the recount of the 1937 election in which A. Harry Moore was once again elected governor (Murray, 2024, 58). Speaking of the 1937 election…

The Stolen Gubernatorial Election

In 1937, Hague faced yet another figure in the GOP he didn’t want to contend with in Lester H. Clee, who he hadn’t been able to prevent from winning the nomination. Clee was a strong opponent of the Hague machine and was eager to act against him. Hague had a lot to potentially lose, and on Election Night 1937 Clee was leading by 80,000 votes…at least until the results of Hudson County were tabulated, and Moore came out over 45,000 votes ahead statewide. The official tally had Moore leading Clee by 129,137 votes in Hudson County while Democrat William Dill had led Harold Hoffman by 89,127 votes in 1934 (Murray, 33).

The Hague machine went all out to prevent the election of Lester Clee, and the Republican legislature sought a recount. There was undoubtedly fraud that came out of the election results of Hudson County, as the number of people who were recorded as having voted exceeded the number of eligible people. Some examples of fraud included a rabbi who had moved to Massachusetts three years earlier was recorded as having voted in Hudson County, an institutionalized man was recorded as voting, and people who were confirmed dead were recorded as having voted (Johnson). The recount was performed, but Clee didn’t gain much. The case went up to the Court of Errors and Appeals, and Hague’s man, Brogan, was invaluable in defending the machine from judicial consequences, only permitting a retabulating of cast ballots, not an investigation into the integrity of the election itself (Murray, 38). The high court declined to investigate the election, thus the Assembly pursued the investigation. What the legislature needed was access to the registration list and poll books, and that was something the Hague forces blocked with numerous tactics, including a claim that Board of Elections Commissioner Charles Stoebling, a Republican tied to Harold Hoffman and had custody over the records, was desperately ill at home. Ultimately, the New Jersey legislature was unable to procure the books, as Jersey City police blocked access to the records (Murray, 53). Furthermore, the Hudson County Board of Elections stuck behind Hague (as they were wont to do) and outgoing Republican Governor Harold Hoffman, as mentioned earlier, was outspoken in his support of the election outcome, and his appointees, including the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, were not inclined to help with the investigation. Democratic Attorney General David Wilentz, another Hague man, went against the investigation. Hoffman’s allegiance with Hague permanently damaged his standing with New Jersey Republicans, and when he sought the nomination for governor in 1940, which was publicly supported by Hague, he was defeated, the nomination going to anti-Hague Republican and future Senator Robert Hendrickson. The investigation came to a screeching halt when the Court of Errors and Appeals ruled 12-3 that it was unconstitutional (Murray, 59).  In 1940, the Senate decided to investigate the 1937 gubernatorial election, but they found that when they asked for the voting books of that election that they had been burned. No, this was not customary; other voting books had not been burned.

Hague’s Quirks

Mayor Hague was eager to counter stereotypes about the Irish and drunkenness, thus he was a resolute teetotaler throughout his life. Although his political career had started out with a loan from a saloon owner, he didn’t come there to drink alcoholic beverages, rather because he had realized this was where local political discussions occurred and where the local political power was. This didn’t just apply to him, if you were seated at a table with Hague, you were not to order an alcoholic beverage, and it was known that at dinners in which Hague was in attendance that people could not start ordering alcoholic beverages until he left, which he would before everyone else (Fleming). He also did not smoke and was a hypochondriac. Although there was much vice in his political behavior, there was no evidence of him straying from his marriage. This is similar to fellow Irish Catholic boss Jim Curley of Boston, who was highly politically corrupt but faithful to his wife.   

Hague vs. the CIO and Communists

An anti-communist rally held by Mayor Hague

Frank Hague was initially a supporter of unions and could get along fine with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which represented skilled craft laborers. However, in the 1930s a new union arose in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). This union was more radical than the AFL and represented unskilled laborers, and when they tried to get into Jersey City, Hague was hostile. He already taxed high for his government, and he was eager to attract business to the city. One way he could do that was to block the CIO. Union organizers were arrested for handing out leaflets on the streets. Hague was once alleged to have said “I am the law”, and although the truth has a little more context to it than that, it is undoubtedly true that this was the reality in Jersey City. He also banned the CIO from conducting meetings and no establishment would risk hosting them lest a city inspector come along and inevitably find code “violations” (Fleming). Hague justified his actions on the grounds that he believed that the CIO organizers were communists. His understanding of communism, however, seemed a bit limited. He said in one speech to the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce, “We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, “That man is a Red, that man is a Communist” (Vernon, 96). Despite Hague’s stated opposition to communism, he had some similarities to them. His hospital and maternity were mostly funded with public money and his approach has even been called “municipal socialism” (Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library). During this time it was discovered that Mayor Hague was tapping phones, a part of the police state he ran. Hague used a Jersey City ordinance requiring permits from the chief of police for the leasing of any hall, which invariably would not be granted to the CIO thus preventing meetings of any substantive size, to justify his repression of the CIO. However, the case was brought to the Supreme Court, which struck down Jersey City’s ordinance as unconstitutional 5-2 in Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization (1939). This whole affair presented a terrible difficulty for the Roosevelt Administration, which counted both Hague and the CIO as major supporters, and the Roosevelt Administration did not intervene despite calls from the CIO to do so. Hague was ultimately forced to let the CIO in. Although his understanding of communism was not impressive, it is nonetheless true that there was a significant communist presence in the CIO and some chapters were outright dominated by communists. Although Hague was brought to heel on this one by the Supreme Court, he was still in the heyday of his power. This would start to change in 1940, when Hague would have to contend with one of Thomas Edison’s sons, Charles Edison.

References

Fleming, T. (1969, June). The Political Machine II: A Case History “I Am The Law”. American Heritage, 20(4).

Retrieved from

https://www.americanheritage.com/political-machine-ii-case-history-i-am-law

Frank Hague. Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library.

Retrieved from

https://njcu.libguides.com/hague

Isherwood, D. (2013, December 2). More information surfaces on Jersey City “mystery safes”. NJ.com.

Retrieved from

https://www.nj.com/politics/2013/12/more_information_surfaces_on_jersey_city_mystery_safes.html

Jersey City’s Mayor Hague: Last of the Bosses, Not First Of The Dictators. (1938, February 7). Life Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://www.cityofjerseycity.org/hague/life/haguespeople.shtml

Murray, J.M. (2023). The Real “Stolen Election”: Frank Hague and New Jersey’s 1937 Race for Governor. NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 20-67.

Retrieved from

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiu8_37ttOMAxVUITQIHX0LDycQFnoECBkQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnjs.libraries.rutgers.edu%2Findex.php%2Fnjs%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F353%2F420%2F779&usg=AOvVaw2UBoSE4-_ie9MeZyy_T5b3&opi=89978449

Murray, J.M. (2024). Research Notes: The Real “Stolen Election”: Frank Hague and New Jersey’s 1937 Race for Governor. NJS: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 57-60.

Retrieved from

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiFmeWzqdSMAxXCMDQIHVjJFg0QFnoECCAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnjs.libraries.rutgers.edu%2Findex.php%2Fnjs%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F353%2F420%2F779&usg=AOvVaw2UBoSE4-_ie9MeZyy_T5b3&opi=89978449

Vernon, L.F. (2011). The life and times of Jersey City mayor Frank Hague: I am the law. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing.

Frank Hague (1876-1956) is a forgotten name among many outside Jersey City today, but he was among the foremost political bosses of his time and the control he exerted over Jersey City was so extensive and the means he used to win were such that they surpassed election law. He had a strong quid pro quo relationship with FDR and used Hudson County to decide races for governor in New Jersey.

Early Life and Political Start

Born to a working class Irish family in the Horseshoe area of Jersey City, Frank Hague did not excel at school, in fact, he was expelled for his bad behavior at 13, thus he only had a sixth grade education. Indeed, some of Hague’s enemies would later swear that he was barely literate and could read no more than headlines in a newspaper (Fleming). Although school ended early for him, his political career started early too. At the age of 20, after securing a loan from bar owner Ned Kenny, he began his campaign for constable and won by 3 to 1 margin. Through his effectiveness at voter turnout for Boss Bob Davis, he was rewarded with the post of deputy sheriff and continued to rise in the political organization of Jersey City, including delivering his ward to the Democrats when Republican Mark Fagan won the mayoral election. Hague had an early scandal when in 1904 he and Deputy Sheriff Thomas “Skidder” Madigan covered for Red Dugan, a friend of his, who had been passing fraudulent checks in Boston by providing a false alibi under oath (Watkins). Dugan would subsequently admit he had done it, and the Boston court wanted to indict Hague for perjury but couldn’t extradite him. This didn’t hurt Hague with many working class Irish voters, as helping a friend, especially doing so at the behest of said friend’s mother, which Hague said was the case, was a sufficient excuse (Watkins). He made a break with Boss Davis in 1906 over an appointment and he sided with reformer H. Otto Wittpenn for mayor, who when he won in 1907 he appointed Hague city custodian. He also made an important connection with Wittpenn’s secretary, A. Harry Moore, who would become a close ally, as well as with John Milton, who would serve as his lawyer throughout his political career. After Davis died in 1911, Wittpenn sought to lead the Democratic Party in Hudson County only for Hague to turn on him and accuse him of bossism, yet Wittpenn would win. He would also critically back a new reform figure in New Jersey politics in Governor Woodrow Wilson, including his destruction of the machine of Boss Smith of Newark (Fleming). Indeed, in this time, Hague was thought of as a reformer or at least he put on the mask of one.

Hague: The Reformer?

In 1911, Hague won the post of street and water commissioner, in which he quickly cut the budget from $180,000 annually to $110,000 and fired half the staff, only to quietly bring in more than the number he fired with his own men after he won praise in the press (Watkins). He also quietly and with success requested the city council to reverse the budget cuts. Hague then set his eyes on the police department, which had become a bad joke under Boss Davis, who freely allowed all sorts of vice. Hague did so by ruthlessly enforcing regulations, including having 125 officers tried in a day for violating them, and ruthlessly demoted or fired police officers (Fleming). These men were replaced by men Hague could count on. These men would serve as a surveillance network within the police force, and soon petty bribery was stamped out. Laws against prostitution and after-hours drinking were enforced, and women were barred from saloons with legal (and possibly extralegal) punishments threatened for violations by saloon owners (Fleming). Streets were also literally cleaned. While previously the streets would have a fair amount of garbage at any one time, Hague mandated the spraying down of the streets with a fire hydrant every night (Watkins). In 1913, his efforts were crucial in netting the Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Fielder a victory. Hague managed to produce a 25,959 vote lead in Hudson County (Fleming). After this, he was widely acknowledged as the leader of the Hudson County Democratic Party. Despite being a Democratic leader, there were occasions in which he tacitly supported a Republican candidate. The first instance of this was to counter his chief rival, Otto Wittpenn.

The 1916 Election: Hague Makes a Deal

In the 1916 gubernatorial election, Hague got some bad news in the Democratic primary: Otto Wittpenn was the winner! Fearing that his influence would be countered if he managed to be elected governor, he got into contact with Republican candidate Walter Edge’s campaign manager, Nucky Johnson. Hague worked out a deal with Johnson to get Edge elected governor, and this would be done by Hague not pushing for Wittpenn’s election partly in exchange for the Holland Tunnel, to be constructed, to end in Jersey City (Murphy). Edge was elected governor with Hudson County reporting a mere 7,430 vote lead for Wittpenn, the worst for a Democratic nominee for governor in decades (Fleming). His electoral career was over, and in the following year’s municipal election, Hague won after Mark Fagan decided to step down.

Mayor Hague

Although Hague was now in power, he did not have some of the conventional skills of a leader. I mentioned earlier that his education was limited, and even though he got training for public speaking once mayor, he would still have problems. Hague was on record, for instance, saying that “One hundred ten thousand voters has endorsed my administration”, that Jersey City was “the most moralest city in America”, and once ended a speech with “And thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the privilege of listening to me” (Fleming). Fortunately for Hague, he was not short of other means for power.

The source of Hague’s power as the mayor of Jersey City and the leader overall of Hudson County lay in the economic circumstances of Jersey City. All railroad lines that had terminals in Jersey City with cargo intended for New York City had to go through the Port of Jersey City to be shipped across the Hudson Bay, as no freight lines existed between the two cities. This gave Hague the power to control the conditions in which such goods would be transported out to New York City. This was a rich source for kickbacks and shakedowns that immensely profited Hague and others who wielded control over the Hudson Waterfront (Murphy). He also maintained his power through expanding the number of public employees. Jersey City had the highest number of public sector employees of any city of that size, some of these were rewards for help in political campaigns and some had no duties, rendering them welfare by another name (Watkins). This extensive public payroll had to be funded somehow. He did so through multiple means. One was requiring that public employees kick back 3% of their pay to fund the Hague machine. Another was through raising taxes. After 20 years of Hague’s rule of Jersey City, taxes had been increased threefold, property assessments had doubled, and the city’s debt was increased by 500% (Life Magazine). He also, popularly for many of his constituents, sought huge tax increases on major businesses. In 1917 and 1918, he dramatically increased annual tax assessments on Standard Oil (from $1.5 million to $14 million), the Public Service Corporation (from $3 million to $30 million), and railroads (from $67 million to $160 million), to which they promptly went to the State Board of Taxes and Assessments, which canceled all his increases (Fleming).

This State Board was a problem, and he needed it replaced, and to replace it, he needed an ally, not Walter Edge, as governor. Hague denounced the board as beholden to special interests and pushed for the election of Jersey City’s First National Bank president, Edward I. Edwards, an important ally (Fleming). Major turnout in Hudson County netted Edwards the governorship. Indeed, Hague’s turnout machine was unrivaled in its time; 92% of eligible voters in Hudson County were registered and 85% or more went to the polls (Murphy). However, Hague was able to secure even more votes than that. It was not legal for names to be removed from Hudson County’s voter registration rolls, thus deaths or moves had to be noted on the rolls, but the Hudson County Board of Elections was deliberately lax on doing this. After all, the appointees to this board were on paper Republicans but in truth, owed their jobs to Hague. This was a rich source of data to produce fraudulent ballots when they were needed (Murphy). Hague needed to use such trickery to the fullest when it came to the 1920 municipal election, in which Democrats were very unpopular with Irish voters given their anger at President Woodrow Wilson, and they were facing an electoral slaughter. Hague’s machine desperately wanted to elect Skidder Madigan to the post of sheriff of Hudson County. Madigan, Hague’s old pal when they were both deputy sheriffs, could be counted on to select grand juries that were to Hague’s liking, in other words, those who would not vote to convict on any activities of Hague’s machine or would vote to convict those that Hague needed convicted. However, Madigan had a problem that year aside from being a Democrat, and that was he couldn’t read or write (Fleming). The Hague machine went all out to get him elected sheriff while other candidates went down to defeat. Violence, fraud, every trick that needed to be pulled was pulled to elect Madigan (Fleming). He also appealed to the Irish voters of the city, capitalizing on their resentments of Republican WASPs and of big businesses.

Hague’s regime, however, did come with its benefits. The poor were assisted in finding jobs and given free food, clothing, and coal (Watkins). The city streets were, as mentioned before, literally clean. Prostitution was no longer a significant presence in Jersey City, and the mob was kept out. Police, fire, and emergency services were pushed to efficiency, and Hague would sometimes personally test this efficiency by making emergency calls from a public phone booth at night. If the responding people did not come in a timely manner that satisfied Hague, he would berate them and occasionally even punch them in the face (Watkins). One example was when he was angered that an ambulance he called had taken 15 minutes to arrive. When he began berating the head intern, the young man responded, “It took me a while to wake up”, to which Hague answered by knocking him down into the gutter (Fleming). It was also due to Hague that Journal Square, the Pulaski Skyway, and the Jersey City Medical Center and a maternity hospital named after Hague’s mother, Margaret were constructed. A major benefit of living in Hague’s Jersey City was that medical care could be obtained by a fee of $35 but it would be waived if you said you couldn’t pay for it, and some of the best doctors in the nation were employed at the Jersey City Medical Center. This resulted in a hospital that cost $3 million to operate annually and received only $15,000 in revenue (Watkins). Public funds made up for the rest.  

Don’t Mess With Hague

The consequences for challenging Hague could be quite serious. In 1937, a man named John Longo sought to challenge Hague from within the Democratic Party and formed an anti-Hague slate, but this was met with arrest and a Hague judge sentenced him to nine months imprisonment on fabricated charges (Watkins). He would be screwed over again by Hague after getting an appointment as deputy clerk in 1943 for Hudson County. He would once again be arrested, and six witnesses committed perjury against him, resulting in another Hague judge sentencing Longo to prison between 18 months and 3 years (Watkins). Hague also employed violence to keep power; he had campaign workers and police beat up people who opposed him. This included one particularly notorious incident in which 245 Princeton students were sent by the Honest Ballot Association to monitor a 1920s election, which resulted in all students being blocked from the polling places and five were beaten so badly they had to be hospitalized (Watkins). Hague’s use of police to violently enforce his will was reinforced with incentives. The police force of Jersey City was the highest paid and most staffed of any police force of a city that size (Fleming). As previously mentioned, Hague could engage in physical violence himself. In one incident, he knocked out cold one of Jersey City’s commissioners, Michael Fagen (Fleming).

Further Rise to Power

In 1924, Hague’s power grew when Al Smith, thankful for his efforts on his behalf to secure the Democratic nomination (albeit unsuccessfully), managed to get him the vice chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, and he would remain in this position until 1952. This gave Hague considerable influence over who the Democrats would select for president, and he certainly played his part in getting Al Smith the nomination in 1928.

Hague Fixes the 1928 Republican Gubernatorial Primary

Frank Hague’s influence did not exist only within the Democratic Party…he extended his grip to the Republican Party in a number of ways as well. A particularly notable event was the 1928 Republican primary, in which the favorite was widely regarded as former judge Robert Carey, who was a prominent critic of Hague and promised to take on his machine. He didn’t want to risk this man winning the election, thus he managed to get 20,000 of his supporters registered as Republicans to vote in the primary, resulting in the victor being State Senator Morgan F. Larson, a mild presence. As it turns out, Hague’s scheme was 100% legal, as New Jersey law permitted a person who had not voted in the last primary to switch party registration without penalty, thus Hague, anticipating 1928 as an important election, had 20,000 of his followers not vote in the preceding primary (Fleming). It was a good thing for Hague that he had done so, as Larson won the election.

More will come on Hague in a follow-up post, as he is a considerable subject.

References

Fleming, T. (1969). The Political Machine II: A Case History “I Am the Law”. American Heritage, 20(4).

Retrieved from

https://www.americanheritage.com/political-machine-ii-case-history-i-am-law

Jersey City’s Mayor Hague: The Last of the Dictators. (1938, February 7). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://www.cityofjerseycity.org/hague/life/life020738.shtml

Murray, J.M. (2022, November 2). The Real Stolen Election – Frank Hague and the NJ Governor’s Race of 1937. YouTube.

Watkins, T. The Political Machine of Frank Hague of Jersey City, New Jersey. San Jose State University.

Retrieved from

https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/bosses.htm#HAGUE

The New Mexico territory began as a conservative Republican stronghold and this was reflected in the first senators the state elected in Thomas B. Catron and Albert B. Fall. However, over time the state’s politics were increasingly inclined towards the Democrats, with the only Republican elected to Congress after the onset of the Great Depression being the progressive Senator Bronson Cutting, who would die in an airplane crash in 1935. From then on it was Democrats all the way, including in gubernatorial races. That was, until the election of Edwin Leard Mechem (1912-2002) as governor.

New Mexico in 1950 was considered quite Democratic, and at that point Republicans often had trouble recruiting candidates for major public offices. However, “Big Ed” (he was a large man) Mechem, a 38-year-old Las Cruces lawyer, stepped up to the plate against Democratic Congressman John E. Miles. Miles, who had had a long career in New Mexico politics, had good reason to think that he was going to win this one, and it didn’t hurt that he was politically moderate, potentially offsetting him being tied closely with the increasingly unpopular Truman Administration. However, Mechem delivered a powerful message against corruption in New Mexico politics and proposed reforms to the structure of the state’s government. New Mexico had had a long history of corruption in state politics, with money often having a strong influence on elections and charges of voter fraud were frequent; Senator Dennis Chavez may have won reelection in 1946 due to voter fraud (Hill). The climate of 1950 was decidedly conservative, and although New Mexico Democrats defeated Republican challengers for Congress (the two Democratic candidates were far from liberal stalwarts), Mechem won the 1950 election with 54% of the vote in an upset. Despite Mechem being quite conservative and the state of New Mexico being Democratic, he proved the state’s biggest vote-getter for the Republicans. He was not the first member of his family to serve as the state’s governor, as his uncle Merritt had done so from 1921 to 1923, also as a Republican.

As governor, Mechem proved a reformer, restructuring New Mexico government and standing independent of political machines. He also was quite politically savvy, and journalist James B. Barber of the Carlsbad Current-Argus noted that he was “a politician who can stumble into a vat of limburger cheese and come up reeking of [Chanel] No. 5. Some of it is luck, maybe, but there’s a lot of political savvy, too, in this big stubborn Las Cruces lawyer, who seldom takes advice from anyone” (28). He won reelection in 1952, running only two points behind Dwight Eisenhower. Mechem had a rather amusing tendency, as Barber noted, to issue forth a deep laugh from his chest that came out “ho ho ho” when he was dodging an inconvenient question (24). However, Mechem was term-limited, and instead of running for governor again, he tried to win a seat in the Senate. His opponent was Senator Clinton Anderson, a shrewd politician who was considered the foremost figure of the state’s Democratic Party. This would produce for him the worst defeat of his career, as the 1954 midterms resulted in the loss of control of Congress for the Republicans, and he would only net 43% of the vote. Mechem was not out of the game for long, and in 1956 he was again elected governor, defeating incumbent John F. Simms with 52% of the vote.

The 1958 election was particularly bad for Republicans, with Mechem losing by only a point to Democrat John Burroughs, but in a rematch in 1960 he campaigned against Burroughs’ forming his own political machine and came out ahead by less than a point. The Gallup Daily Independent had endorsed his bid for a comeback, citing his record as an efficient governor without ties to political machines (4). Although a victory, voters were less enthused about Mechem than in the past, and in 1962 Democrats managed to get New Mexico Representative Jack Campbell, a man known for being free of the control and influence of machines, to run against him. Campbell defeated him by 6 points. However, fate granted him an opportunity. On November 18^th, the long-ailing Senator Chavez died, and Mechem pulled a maneuver that seldom works out in the long-run for politicians: resigning the governorship and having his successor appoint him to the Senate. This move was highly controversial in New Mexico as the voters had just rejected him for another term in public office only for him to move into the Senate.

Senator Mechem aligned himself closely with the staunchly conservative Barry Goldwater and his record proved among the most conservative in the Senate, opposing all major New Frontier and Great Society measures considered in his time in office as well as the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action rated him zeroes in both 1963 and 1964, not an easy feat to accomplish. He sided with Americans for Constitutional Action (Mechem would later serve on its Board of Trustees) 98% of the time by contrast, with the only position he had taken they considered liberal being voting against Senator Proxmire’s (D-Wis.) proposal to cut to Labor-HEW Appropriations in 1963. This meant, rather controversially for his state in which there were many Latinos, that he was one of six Republican senators to vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mechem also opposed most sections of the bill and was the only Republican to vote in favor of Senator Gore’s (D-Tenn.) motion to recommit the bill to ease the provision cutting off aid to segregated schools. Mechem’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.585, placing him as the fourth most conservative senator in the 88^th Congress. Although he had voted his conscience as his voting was far from tailored to win reelection in New Mexico at the time, this was politically tough as he was up for election to a full term in 1964, and that year was worse for the average Republican candidate than 1962 had been.

The 1964 Election: “Big Ed” vs. “Little Joe”

The 1964 election was one of great contrasts, both in the presidential election and in the New Mexico Senate election. “Big Ed” was facing a challenge from Joseph “Little Joe” Montoya, who represented one of New Mexico’s two At-Large districts. Little Joe supported JFK’s New Frontier legislation and LBJ’s Great Society, Big Ed did not. Little Joe supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Big Ed did not. A lot of support for Mechem’s campaign likely came from people remembering him as a good and effective governor of the state, but the candidacy of Barry Goldwater was tough for him to work with, especially since he voted with him on almost all key issues.

Although Mechem tried his best, he was defeated by nine points in 1964, with Montoya getting excellent results in Spanish-American areas. Mechem’s move to the Senate had only temporarily stayed the execution of his political career, and he demonstrated that he was the rule and not the exception when it came to governors getting themselves appointed to the Senate. As a side note, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin is an example of how to do it right; after Senator Robert Byrd died in 2009, he appointed an interim successor and ran in a proper election to finish the late Byrd’s term in 2010 and won despite West Virginia no longer being competitive for Democrats in presidential elections and the 2010 midterms being what President Obama called a “shellacking” for the Democrats. Journalist Will Harrison (1964) wrote of the outcome for Mechem, “The Nov. 3 election was very likely the end of Ed Mechem’s political career. It is possible that he might have beaten Montoya in a head-to-head run without the presidential influence, but the writing was on the wall for Mechem in 1962 when Jack Campbell demonstrated that a clean, aggressive Democrat could beat him without outside influence. Mechem’s 1962 loss of Albuquerque and his home county of Dona Ana, and the loss of such formerly reliable areas as San Juan and Santa Fe were signals that he had reached the end of his string” (4). Harrison was right; the New Mexico voters had tired of “Big Ed” Mechem, and he would never again be elected to public office. However, one important person had not tired of “Big Ed”, and that was Richard Nixon.

Judge Mechem

In 1970, President Nixon nominated Mechem, who he dubbed “Mr. Republican” as a Federal court judge for the district of New Mexico, and he was confirmed. While a judge, Mechem’s judicial record was not influenced by his political leanings; he ruled that age discrimination was occurring at Sandia National Labs, that sex discrimination was occurring in the Albuquerque police department, that the Socorro County jail had been indifferent to the medical needs of a prisoner who died, and made several rulings favorable to American Indians (Hill). Mechem assumed senior status (a state of semi-retirement for judges) in 1982 but would continue to work as much as he could for the last twenty years of his life. He died on November 27, 2002, at the age of 90 from his longtime heart condition.

Future of New Mexico Politics

Interestingly, not too long after Mechem’s 1964 defeat, the politics of New Mexico improved considerably for Republicans and conservatives, with Richard Nixon winning the state in 1968, two Republicans being elected to Congress that year, and the 1972 election resulting in the election of Republican Pete Domenici to the Senate, who represented the state for 36 years. New Mexico today is now politically what it was during the time of FDR, Democratic all around for major offices, and the last Republican the state voted for in a presidential election was George W. Bush in 2004. Is a comeback in store for the Republicans in New Mexico? Undoubtedly at some point, but when that’s going to be is anyone’s guess.

Correction, 3/4/25: I had originally written of Joe Manchin’s election in 2010 to the Senate as for a full term, but it was actually to complete the late Senator Byrd’s term. Manchin ran for a full term in 2012. My thanks to Daniel Fox for spotting this.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Barber, J.B. (1953, May 10). If It’s Politics, Big Ed’s Coming Out Ahead. Carlsbad Current-Argus, 28.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/504660962/

Barber, J.B. (1953, March 29). Will Mechem Try For Senate Seat? Ho Ho Ho. Carlsbad Current-Argus, 24.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/504706110/

Harrison, W. (1964, November 8). Perfect Drive For Little Joe. Carlsbad Current-Argus, 4.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/504842775/

Hill, R. E.L. Mechem of New Mexico: BIG ED. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved fromhttps://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/e-l-mechem-new-mexico-big-ed/

Mechem, Edwin Leard. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/10811/edwin-leard-mechem

The 1952 election brought Dwight Eisenhower to the presidency as well as Republicans to a majority in Congress. One of Eisenhower’s policies was instead of public construction of dams, as had been the norm with the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, that there would be a partnership between government and private companies, with government using private companies to construct and own the dams generating power. This proved highly controversial in the West, and the proposal for constructing the Hells Canyon Dam was at the center of this controversy.

Hells Canyon is a deep canyon between Idaho, Oregon, and a small portion of Washington, and has the snake river, and was seen as a rich source of hydroelectric power. The Eisenhower Administration favored the Idaho Power Company constructing three dams to generate power, but this met strong opposition from Democrats. Unfortunately for the Republicans, there was more opposition than that among the public. In 1954, Oregon Republican Senator Guy Cordon, the last conservative to represent the state in the Senate, narrowly lost reelection to Democrat Richard Neuberger despite President Eisenhower coming to Oregon to campaign with him, and one of the key issues Neuberger pushed was opposition to private power as opposed to public power, painting it as a giveaway of public rights (LaLande). After the 1954 election, Oregon had two Democratic senators for the first time since the Wilson Administration.

Votes on Hells Canyon Dam and an Alleged Deal

In 1956, the Senate voted down public construction of Hells Canyon Dam 41-51 on July 19th. Most Republicans voted against it along with several Southern Democrats. The 1956 election didn’t produce a different party makeup of the Senate, as Republicans and Democrats both gained and lost different seats. Yet, on June 21, 1957, the Senate approved public construction of Hells Canyon Dam 45-38. The senators who had voted against in 1956 but voted for this time were George Smathers (D-Fla.), Richard Russell (D-Ga.), Russell Long (D-La.), Margaret Chase Smith (R-Me.), James Eastland (D-Miss.), Sam Ervin (D-N.C.), and George Aiken (R-Vt.). The flip of five Southern Democrats was key to securing this victory, and Senator Charles Potter (R-Mich.), a supporter of a strong civil rights bill and opponent of public ownership of Hells Canyon Dam, alleged right after the vote that this flip was done in exchange for the support of Western Democrats for watering down the pending civil rights bill (The New York Times). Senator Wayne Morse (D-Ore.), a supporter of strong civil rights legislation and a co-sponsor of the Hells Canyon Dam denied the charge. Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), who had voted for both of the key amendments weakening the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and had co-sponsored the Jury Trial Amendment as well as the Hells Canyon Dam bill, denied that a deal had occurred. He stated, “There was never any understanding between Lyndon Johnson and me that I would take a role in the Civil Rights Bill or I would join in the sponsorship of the Jury Trial Amendment in exchange for his help on Hells Canyon. That’s pure fiction utterly without any basis in fact” (Gellman). Although this flip of the Southern senators is suggestive of a deal, there was a public explanation for the flip from the de facto leader of the Southern Democrats. Senator Richard Russell (D-Ga.) stated as to his own reason, “I happen to be one of the five Democrats who changed his vote on Hells Canyon. I did it because of the tax amortization feature which made it very apparent that the Federal Government was going to pay for the dam in any event. If we were going to pay for it, I thought we ought to have title to it” (Bill Downs, War Correspondent). Several senators who were alleged to be participants in this deal denied that a deal occurred, but historian Robert Caro gave this allegation credence as he reported that Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Tex.) masterminded this deal. However, historian Irving Gellman (2015) contests this, holding that Hells Canyon Dam had been killed in a House subcommittee before the vote on the Jury Trial Amendment. However, this counter-argument might be off as well, as the exchange, according to Time Magazine, was over the vote to send the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by segregationist James Eastland (D-Miss.), to undo Minority Leader William Knowland’s (R-Calif.) maneuver bypassing it. Indeed, the vote on sending the bill to the Judiciary Committee was held the day before the Hells Canyon Dam vote and numerous Western senators voted with the South on this one, with the five Southern senators voting for the dam allegedly in gratitude for the support of Western senators. Interestingly, Frank Church was not among the senators to vote to bring it back to committee, pointing to his denial being accurate that he didn’t make a deal. Although Wayne Morse voted to send it back, his record was consistent as a stickler for legislative procedure and he voted against efforts to weaken the bill, making his denial credible as well. Although several senators had denied there was a deal, Russell Long (D-La.) would give credence to the notion of an informal deal, stating, “Johnson put together sort of a gentleman’s agreement where about four of us would vote for the high dam at Hells Canyon and about four on the other side would vote with us (…) on a completely unrelated subject: civil rights” (Lange, 69).

Political Consequences of Support for Private Power

There were significant political consequences for those in the Pacific Northwest who supported private construction and ownership of the Hells Canyon Dam; although President Eisenhower easily won reelection in Oregon, Oregon Republicans got hit hard; Oregon Republican Congressmen Sam Coon and Harris Ellsworth lost reelection in districts that had been held by Republicans since the 1942 election. Coon’s loss was directly attributed to his opponent Al Ullman’s opposition to private construction of dams in Hells Canyon (Foss). Indeed, the 1956 election had bad results for Oregon Republicans by and large. That year, Republican Governor Elmo Smith lost reelection to Democrat Robert Holmes and Democrats won control of the state legislature for the first time since 1878 (Swarthout). In Idaho, Democrat Frank Church, a supporter of public ownership of dams at Hells Canyon, defeated Republican incumbent Herman Welker, a supporter of private ownership, in the last election in which a Democrat would defeat a Republican Senate incumbent in Idaho. Although in this case, Welker’s loss was attributable to more than that as his behavior was increasingly volatile and erratic, with him being prone to temper tantrums and bouts of depression as well as appearing to have poor balance, which included a public incident of stumbling and falling down airplane stairs (Hill). At the time his critics alleged that this was the product of heavy drinking, but the truth was worse: it turned out Welker had a brain tumor, and it would kill him on October 30, 1957. Welker’s strong support of Joseph McCarthy also proved a hindrance rather than a help by 1956.

Despite these political consequences, the Hells Canyon legislation being killed in the House subcommittee proved to be the final word on it, as the Idaho Power Company would later construct three dams on the Snake River.

References

Foss, C. Albert Conrad “Al” Ullman. Oregon Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/ullman_al/

Gellman, I.F. (2015, November 9). Robert Caro Gives LBJ More Credit than He Deserves for the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. History News Network.

Retrieved from

https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/robert-caro-gives-lbj-more-credit-than-he-deserves

Hill, R. Idaho’s Conservative: Herman Welker. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/idahos-conservative-herman-welker/rom

HR. 6127. Civil Rights Act of 1957. Point of Order Against Objection by Knowland to Referral of Bill to Judiciary Committee. Rejected. (Bill Thus Bypassed the Judiciary Committee). Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/s57

LaLand, J. (2022, September 16). Guy Cordon. Oregon Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/cordon_guy_1890_1969_/

Lange, O.M. (2017). “The Miracle of 1957”: Southern senators and the making of the 1957 Civil Rights Act (Master’s thesis). University of Oslo.

Retrieved from

Click to access MASTEROPPGAVE—Opplasting-til-print.pdf

National Affairs: Balance Tipped. (1957, July 1). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6611890/national-affairs-balance-tipped/

Potter Charges Dam – Rights Deal. (1957, June 22). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Russell Rejects Criticism of South on Civil Rights. (2024, February 13). Bill Downs, War Correspondent.

Retrieved from

https://www.billdownscbs.com/2024/02/1957-senator-richard-b-russell-rejects.html

S. 1333. Authorize Construction, Operation, and Maintenance of Hells Canyon Dam. Govtrack.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/84-1956/s200

S. 555. Authorize Federal Construction of Hells Canyon Dam. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/s59

Swarthout, J.M. (1957). The 1956 Election in Oregon. The Western Political Quarterly, 10(1).

Retrieved from

https://www.jstor.org/stable/444252