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Fascinating Politics

The Controversial Career of Owen Brewster

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 20th 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 1st district and Clyde Smith of the 2nd, 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 80th 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.

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ADA Voting Records

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

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Brewster, Ralph Owen. Voteview.

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

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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

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

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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).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fascinating Politics

John Davis Lodge: The Original Actor to Republican Politician

Perhaps the most famous people in the United States to have made the jump from actor to politician are Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Donald Trump is not primarily an actor, rather he was the host of The Apprentice and has had numerous film cameos and TV appearances. Rather, he is a celebrity businessman turned politician. All of them identify or identified as Republicans during their political careers. The first actor, however, to make the jump from actor to Republican politician was John Davis Lodge (1903-1985).

To be perfectly clear, Lodge’s family background set him up to be a politician. After all, he was descended from multiple families that produced politicians. The Lodge family, for instance, was one of the most prominent early families of Boston, and both his grandfather and older brother, Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. and Jr., were both prominent and influential politicians. Although Lodge studied law at Yale and became a lawyer, the call of Hollywood had him drop his lucrative legal practice. Naturally handsome, he would appear in numerous films from 1933 to 1940. Lodge later recalled his time in Hollywood, stating that he had known Ronald Reagan although never acted in the same film with him, explaining, “We were involved in different aspects of acting. I was leading man for Marlene Dietrich, and I acted with Katharine Hepburn in ‘Little Women,’ and I played Shirley Temple’s father in ‘The Little Colonel’” (Folkart). By the way, does this not look like a movie star to you?

During World War II, Lodge served as a lieutenant and lieutenant commander in the Navy, acting a liaison between the American and French forces. He served with distinction, being awarded the rank of Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre with Palm by Charles de Gaulle (National Governors Association). In 1946, a political opportunity opened up when Clare Boothe Luce of Connecticut’s 4th Congressional district decided not to run for reelection after the death of her daughter. This was an excellent year to be a Republican, and they won majorities in the House and Senate as well as had a complete sweep of the state’s House delegation.

Congressman Lodge

Lodge was without doubt a moderate Republican, as opposed to being among the conservative Old Guard. He sided with Americans for Democratic Action 40% of the time, and his DW-Nominate score was a 0.063, which indicates centrism. While in Congress, Lodge supported income tax reduction, the Taft-Hartley Act, aid to Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan, reducing the power of the Rules Committee to bottle up legislation, and public housing. Although the 1948 election was more difficult for Republicans, he won reelection by 12 points, easily the best performance among the state’s House Republicans. Lodge was also one of the strongest Republican internationalists, opposing foreign aid reductions and supporting Point IV aid to poor nations. Although he supported amendments weakening rent control, he supported extending it in 1950. That year, he opted not to run for reelection to run for governor against incumbent Chester Bowles, and campaigned against him as extremely left-wing (Krebs). Bowles in turn was dismissive of him, publicly regarding him as merely an actor. This was a political error as numerous retired actors lived in Connecticut (Folkart). The election was close, with Lodge winning by two points with a plurality of the vote. Had the votes for the Socialist candidate gone to Bowles, he would have won the election.

Governor Lodge

Lodge was the first governor for which the four-year term applied. Previously, Connecticut governors had served two-year terms. This gave him time to enact some measures, such as enhancing unemployment and worker’s compensation, increasing funds for education and the construction of public buildings, as well as the construction of the Lodge Turnpike (National Governors Association). However, the latter is often regarded as the reason behind his loss of reelection in 1954 to Abraham Ribicoff by just over 3,000 votes. After his loss, Republicans would have a tough time winning gubernatorial elections over the next forty years. Until 1994, the only time in which Republicans won the governorship was Congressman Thomas J. Meskill’s 1970 win.

Ambassador Lodge

Like his brother, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., John was a friend of President Eisenhower, and he was tapped to the post of Ambassador to Spain. In this capacity, he played a role in the increasing normalization of relations between the US and Franco, serving until 1961. In 1964, Lodge attempted to revive his electoral career by running against Democratic Senator Thomas J. Dodd. Although he was far from being a Goldwater Republican, Dodd’s combination of domestic liberalism and anti-communism on foreign policy played well and Goldwater at the top of the ticket dragged down his campaign. Dodd won reelection by nearly 30 points, with Lodge only outperforming Goldwater by 3 points. Lodge did not run for political office again, but Republican presidents continued to find use for him. In 1969, President Nixon called him back into service as Ambassador to Argentina, a role he served in until 1973. Lodge’s last role would be as President Reagan’s Ambassador to Switzerland, serving from 1983 until his resignation in 1985. On October 29th, he delivered a speech at the Women’s National Republican Club in New York City but after he finished, he suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Clare’s Hospital.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Folkart, B.A. (1985, November 2). Ex-Envoy John Davis Lodge Dies. Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-11-02-fi-1333-story.html

Gov. John Davis Lodge. National Governors Association.

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John Davis Lodge

Krebs, A. (1986, May 26). Chester Bowles is Dead at 85; Served in 4 Administrations. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Lodge, John Davis. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/5740/john-davis-lodge

Fascinating Politics

Truman vs. Slaughter: The 1946 Kansas City Democratic Primary

Representatives Everett Dirksen, Roger Slaughter, and Howard W. Smith.

In 1938, President Roosevelt learned a hard lesson about the politics of the time: voters did not appreciate interference from the president in their state primaries. This is the opposite of true today, as numerous Republicans who have crossed Trump can tell you. However, his successor, President Truman, thought that he could throw his weight around in primaries. One notable figure he publicly supported was Montana Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who was facing a left-wing challenger in Leif Erickson in the primary. However, Wheeler was hit for his foreign policy views before World War II and his voting record not being regarded as sufficiently progressive and he lost the primary. Truman tried again to interfere in primaries, but this time it was on his home turf of Kansas City. For decades, the city had been ruled by the Democratic Party, and the contest was between two factions: the Goats and the Rabbits. The Goats were part of the machine of Tom Pendergast, and the Rabbits were led by Congressman Joe Shannon. However, by 1942 Shannon was long past his prime in power and 75 years old, and thus he opted not to run again. He was succeeded by Roger Slaughter.  Slaughter, a Rabbit like Shannon, would not only prove different from faction to President Truman, who was a Goat, but would also have numerous fundamental disagreements with him on policy, and this was not only a pain for Truman because he was from Kansas City but also that he sat on the powerful House Rules Committee. Perhaps the most controversial part of Truman’s political career was how he advanced, through the corrupt Pendergast machine, and the Rabbits were sort of frenemies to them by this point. One key matter Slaughter differed from Truman on was organized labor. Slaughter was strongly supportive of legislation curbing the power of organized labor and once said, “The President of the United States is a prisoner of the C.I.O.-P.A.C.” (Time Magazine, 1946). He also had also opposed reporting out fair employment practices legislation backed by the Truman Administration and consistently voted against civil rights legislation. By 1946, Truman was sick of having an opponent in his backyard and he sought the aid of the head of the Pendergast machine, Jim. Jim Pendergast was a nephew of the now deceased Tom Pendergast, and he sought to get Enos Axtell, a 37-year-old lawyer and newcomer, elected to office rather than Slaughter. Truman thought of this primary race as an important test for his power, and said regarding Slaughter, “If he’s right, I’m wrong” and although he claimed to know Axtell all his life in endorsing him, he also had trouble recalling his first name (Time Magazine). The Pendergast machine went to work on the day of the primary, and in the process, engaged in some of the old tricks of the machine under Tom Pendergast. The result was a 54-46 win for Axtell. However, the result immediately provoked suspicion, and this resulted in investigations by the House Campaign Expenditures Committee and the Kansas City Star, which found convincing evidence that voter fraud in Axtell’s favor had indeed occurred. A grand jury in Jackson County thought the same. They found from the examination of ballots in 34 of 255 precincts that a “deliberate, calculated, and premeditated plan” to commit extensive voter fraud had existed, with them concluding, “It is our belief that Slaughter was deprived of the nomination by a fraudulent miscount of votes and other types of fraud” (Time Magazine, 1947). It looked like a substantive case was going to be moving forward against the Pendergast machine, but…

KABOOM! There Goes the Evidence!

Although the grand jury had made its finding, certain actors had other ideas. The night of the grand jury’s finding, a group of unidentified burglars broke into the Kansas City courthouse, blew up the vault of the election board with nitroglycerin, and absconded with most of the evidence in the case (Time Magazine, 1947). This included poll books, ballots, and vote tallies. This was a major blow to the case.

Truman’s attorney general, Tom Clark, was not exactly keen to act. Although he had cited the FBI report as justification not to act on allegations of vote deprivation, he had limited the FBI’s use of evidence for its report to the Kansas City Star’s reporting and the findings of four Kansas City election commissioners (Time Magazine, 1947). The president’s critics bemoaned that this was so, and President Truman called for a full investigation. The suspect result of the Democratic primary plus the general national fatigue with the Democrats produced the victory of Republican Albert Reeves, Jr. in the district. I suppose for Truman if he had to have an opponent representing his home turf better it be a Republican than someone in his own party.

The End Results

After all, this victory for the Republicans would be short-lived, as in 1948 Reeves would be defeated for reelection by young anti-Pendergast liberal Richard Bolling, who was perfectly satisfactory by Truman. The Pendergast machine also went down in this election to candidates backed by mobster Charles Bonaggio. However, there were Pendergast officials who were prosecuted for voter fraud in the 1946 election, and another jury concluded in 1947 that the existing fraud had not been sufficient to have changed the outcome in the primary (Knowles). Slaughter would become a lobbyist after his defeat, but Truman’s beef with him hadn’t finished. His Justice Department indicted him for alleged violations of federal lobbying laws, but he was acquitted in 1950 (Lawrence).

References

Burnes, B. A. (2020, September 9). Sordid History of Kansas City Election Fraud. Flatland Kansas City.

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A Sordid History of Kansas City Election Fraud

Hill, R. James P. Kem of Missouri. The Knoxville Focus.

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https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/james-p-kem-of-missouri/

Knowles, C. (1947, December 19). Kansas City Vote Is Upheld By Jury. The New York Times.

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Lawrence, W.H. (1950, April 18). Slaughter Freed in Lobbying Trial. The New York Times.

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Political Notes: Home to Roost? (1947, June 16). Time Magazine.

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https://time.com/archive/6793206/political-notes-home-to-roost/

Slaughter, Roger Caldwell. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/8569/roger-caldwell-slaughter

The Presidency: If He’s Right, I’m Wrong. (1946, July 29). Time Magazine.

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https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,776913,00.html

Fascinating Politics

RINOs from American History #24: Joseph C. Baldwin

New York City has had a long history of liberalism since the early 20th century, and Republicans found it more and more difficult as time passed by. There were some enclaves they had, and one of the foremost was the wealthy “silk stocking district”. This area elects Democrats now, but when it elected Republicans it often elected liberal Republicans, and the real first among the liberal Republicans to represent was Joseph Clark Baldwin (1897-1957). Baldwin’s rise to influence started after his service in World War I, becoming a political reporter for the New York Herald Tribune and getting active in the local Republican Party. In 1928, he was elected to the 95-member New York City Board of Aldermen, and from 1932 to 1934 he was the only Republican to serve on the board. Given his lonely position, he seemed to be a voice howling in the wilderness for investigating the corrupt administration of Mayor Jimmy Walker, but his voice was heard and the Seabury Investigation would expose the rot in the Walker Administration and result in numerous corruption prosecutions. In 1934, the Tammany Hall machine would be out of power with the election of liberal Republican Fiorello LaGuardia, a crusader for good government. From 1935 to 1936, Baldwin would be in the State Senate, followed by a return to New York City government, serving as city councilman from 1937 to 1941.

In 1941, opportunity grimly knocked when Representative Kenneth F. Simpson of the 17th Congressional district, the extremely wealthy “silk stocking district” of Manhattan, died of a heart attack after only 22 days in office. Baldwin ran to succeed him and won. Baldwin was a strong internationalist, and on February 13, 1943, he requested President Roosevelt send to Congress legislation to promptly enact the Atlantic Charter, stating, “Delay might prove fatal to the future peace of the world” (Independent). Baldwin was also socially liberal, being a consistent opponent of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He also opposed legislation that aimed to curb the power of organized labor, including the Smith-Connally Act of 1943, the Hobbs Act, and the Case bill in 1946. He did oppose some New Deal programs, such as a work relief bill in 1942, but he sided more with liberals than conservatives throughout his time in Congress. Indeed, his DW-Nominate score was a -0.041, unusually low for a Republican. Despite his liberalism, Baldwin was most insistent in his brand of Republicanism. He was once quoted as having said, “I would rather die as a Republican than live as a mugwump” (The Waynesburg Republican).

Baldwin was a strong supporter of taking in Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and his sympathy for the plight of Jews led him to become the administrative chairman of Political Action Committee for Palestine, Inc. in 1946, with a goal of the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1946, Baldwin sought to be reelected, be it whatever ticket he could, thus he cross-filed, running for reelection on the Republican, Democratic, and American Labor Party tickets. He was opposed in the Republican primary by State Senator R. Frederic Coudert, running to his right. Baldwin’s liberalism, which was going especially strong in how he was voting in 1946, was not playing well with the Republican base. He had voted liberal on nearly all major issues that year, including opposing every effort to weaken price control, being one of three Republicans to vote against returning U.S. Employment Service promptly to the states and he lost renomination. Baldwin also lost the Democratic nomination, but he won the American Labor Party nomination. Most of the district’s residents, however, stuck with their party rather than their representative, and Baldwin only won 8.3% of the vote. By contrast, in 1944 Baldwin had won reelection with 52.4% of the vote, with the American Labor candidate getting 8.3%. The Vicksburg Post (1946) noted the general conservative trend in the Republican primaries that year, “The defeat of Congressman Joseph C. Baldwin seeking renomination in the New York city primaries, follows the sensational overthrow of Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., in Wisconsin. Both deviated from the orthodox party line to follow what is commonly known as the liberal viewpoint.”

Baldwin would never run for public office again, rather pursuing a career in public relations, serving as a representative for United Dye and Chemical Corporation and William Recht Co., Inc. He also authored the 1950 book Flowers for the Judge. Baldwin died on October 27, 1957 in the Manhattan Veterans Administration Hospital at the age of 60.

References

Atlantic Charter Legislation Wanted. (1943, February 14). Long Beach Independent, 5.

https://www.newspapers.com/image/717839923/

Baldwin, Joseph Clark. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://www.voteview.com/person/388/joseph-clark-baldwin

J.C. Baldwin Dies; Ex-Legislator, 60. (1957, October 28). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Quotes of the Week. (1946, August 8). The Waynesburg Republican, 7.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1147389959/

The New Party Trends. (1946, August 31). Vicksburg Post, 2.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1043238575/

Fascinating Politics

The Loyd Jowers Trial: Conspiracy to Kill MLK Revealed?

Loyd Jowers at the time of the MLK trial.

Although the most theorized assassination in American history is the JFK assassination, there are also theories about the MLK assassination, and these were explored in the special House Committee on Assassinations in the 1970s. Although this committee found that there was likely a conspiracy to kill King, that the conspirators were James Earl Ray’s brothers rather than the government. However, new life was given to MLK conspiracy theories when a man allegedly in on a plot to kill King went public.

In 1993, former Memphis café owner Loyd Jowers claimed in an interview on ABC PrimeTime Live that James Earl Ray was a patsy and that he had been hired to arrange the assassination on behalf of mobster Frank Liberto. The reason Jowers was considered plausible by some is that his café had been located on the first floor of the building that the prosecution claimed James Earl Ray had shot King from. He also named the man who pulled the trigger on King as Memphis Police Lieutenant Earl Clark.  Such revelations attracted the attention of the King family, who had for years believed that there was a greater conspiracy. In 1998, they filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Jowers.

On December 8, 1999, the Memphis jury unanimously ruled that Jowers was in on a conspiracy to kill King and that others, including government agencies were involved. Did this prove that there was a vast conspiracy to kill King involving the mob and the government? Truth be told, it turns out that there are serious problems with this narrative.

Before I proceed, there are some things to bear in mind about a civil trial as opposed to a criminal trial. First, the standard is preponderance of the evidence rather than a reasonable doubt for a ruling of liability, meaning that if over 50% of the evidence supports the plaintiff, the plaintiff wins the case. Furthermore, the standard of evidence that is allowed is lower than in a criminal case. What’s more, the defendant in a civil case usually does testify, unlike the defendant in a criminal case.

Major Problems

Before giving his story to ABC PrimeTime, Jowers had long denied having had any role in the King assassination and at the time he went public, he named several people as the trigger man, including “Raoul” who James Earl Ray alleged existed and was the shooter, before sticking with Earl Clark. Another thing to be aware of is that Frank Liberto and Clark were unable to speak in their own defenses as both were conveniently dead by 1993. During the Jowers trial the jury had not been presented with Loyd Jowers’ history of contradictions. Furthermore, we have an issue of standards of evidence. For instance, an acquaintance of Loyd Jowers testified that he had heard of a conversation in a Memphis barbershop in which a man who said he worked for the FBI claimed the CIA was responsible for the King assassination (U.S. Department of Justice). This is double hearsay, which is not usually allowed in civil court and it is not admissible in criminal court. The only eyewitness testimony that was heard was regarding government surveillance of King, not of government involvement in his assassination.

Further adding to the lack of credibility to Jowers is that he never made his allegations under oath, did not testify in King v. Jowers,  However, when he had a recorded discussion with a state investigator, Jowers stated that the idea that King was shot with a different rifle and by another man than James Earl Ray was “bullshit”, a key feature of his story (LaCapria).  In all, the Loyd Jowers story was a publicity stunt, with him hoping he could get a book deal out of the matter. When a great man is assassinated, it can be hard to accept that a man of such a low stature like James Earl Ray could be responsible. Thus, some people need a greater story than that, a story that involves powerful actors and a grand conspiracy. After all, it only makes sense that a man of great stature would be taken down by people of great stature rather than a loser.

References

LaCapria, K. (2014, January 20). Was the U.S. Government Found Guilty of Assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr.? Snopes.

Retrieved from

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/government-mlk-assassination/

Loyd Jowers; Jury Found He Played a Role in King’s Slaying. (2000, May 24). Los Angeles Times.

Retrieved from

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-may-24-me-33485-story.html

Vii. King V. Jowers Conspiracy Allegations. U.S. Department of Justice.

Retrieved from

https://www.justice.gov/crt/vii-king-v-jowers-conspiracy-allegations

Fascinating Politics

Joseph Ball: Minnesota Maverick

On August 31, 1940, Farmer-Labor Senator Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota, an outspoken non-interventionist, boards a plane from Washington D.C. to Detroit. Unfortunately for him and everyone on board, this is Flight 19 of Pennsylvania Central Airlines, which crashes near Lovettsville, Virginia, killing all on board in the worst air disaster in US history at the time. It is up to Republican Governor Harold Stassen to appoint a successor. Rather than pick any sort of established figure in Minnesota politics, he picks a 34-year-old journalist with no political experience in Joseph Hurst Ball (1905-1993) to finish Lundeen’s term.

Senator Ball

Ball is the youngest senator at the time and indeed, he is one of the youngest in American history. Where he will stand on the issues is a mystery as he has no track record and did not run an election campaign. However, Ball clears this up when in his first speech he calls for aid to Great Britain. This goes against the political mood of Minnesota, and his interventionist stance makes him highly unpopular for a time. In 1941, he is one of only two officials elected to Congress from Minnesota to vote for Lend-Lease, the other being the Iron Range’s Representative William Pittenger. Ball’s independence won him plaudits after the attack on Pearl Harbor. 1942 is a good year for Republicans, and Ball wins a four-way contest for a full term with 47% of the vote.

In 1943, Ball was tapped to the Truman Committee to investigate wartime expenditures. This committee, strongly bipartisan and full of people that Truman held in high esteem, was quite successful in its aims of bringing accountability to war spending and saving money. Although independence on foreign policy characterizes his career, so does his push against the power of labor unions. Ball, for instance, was a strong supporter of outlawing closed shops (The Vincennes Sun-Commercial). However, what he valued most was foreign policy, and this motivated a decision that stunned his party.

On October 23, 1944, Ball delivered an “October Surprise” to the Dewey-Bricker campaign when he publicly stated that he would be voting for the reelection of President Roosevelt, stating that Dewey had not presented the public with “a workable, constructive program on the domestic issues of taxation and labor relations” and had been too willing to cater to non-interventionists (The New York Times). Although he had not been uncritical of the Roosevelt Administration on the issues, he found its foreign policy preferable. Dewey’s running mate, Bricker, was most disappointed in this development. He stated that he had made a “grievous mistake” and was “doing a great disservice to his country” (Springfield Evening Union).

In 1945, Ball signaled a willingness to cooperate with Roosevelt in his support of the confirmation of Henry Wallace as Secretary of Commerce. However, his record on domestic issues proves quite to the right, such as his consistent support for private ownership as opposed to public ownership and his opposition to price controls.

During the 80th Congress, Ball played a major role in the crafting of the Taft-Hartley Act, which ended the national closed shop. His independence on foreign policy took a rather unexpected turn when on March 13, 1948, he was one of 17 senators to vote against the Marshall Plan, a stance that when Republicans took it, it was mostly out of a sense of non-interventionism. Ball had sponsored an unsuccessful amendment to create an 11-member western military alliance outside of the UN to counter Russian aggression (Daily News). His motives for opposition seem to have been a mix of wanting to take a stronger line against communism and balking at the considerable cost. This issue, in addition to his support for the Taft-Hartley Act, were key points that Hubert Humphrey used in his campaign against him.

Given Humphrey’s popularity as mayor of Minneapolis and his rousing pro-civil rights speech at the Democratic National Convention for the Democratic Party to shift its focus from state’s rights to human rights, he was a favorite to win. Ball may have had a chance if Henry Wallace’s campaign had decided to endorse a third-party candidate and for a time it looked like former Farmer-Labor Governor Elmer Benson would jump into the race (Wilson). If so, the left would have been divided in Minnesota, improving Ball’s chances at another term. However, by late October it was abundantly clear that Humphrey was an easy favorite, and indeed the chances of the Democratic Senate candidates were rising (The Morning Union, 6). This gain in Democratic odds in the Senate really ought to have told many political observers and pundits that President Truman was much better off than commonly thought. Humphrey ran away with the election, winning by 20 points, becoming the first Democrat to win a popular election to the Senate from Minnesota. Humphrey’s election would be part of a general shift in Minnesota politics away from its Republican history. Ball’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.241, indicating moderate conservatism, and he agreed with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 38% of the time during the 80th Congress.

Ball would never hold elected office again, but unlike the man who appointed him, he would also never run for elected office again. He continued his career as a journalist and in the 1950s he would come to the defense of some individuals his former colleague, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.), accused of disloyalty. Ball also spent some time as an executive in the shipping industry, retiring in 1962. Up until his declining health forced him to live in a retirement home, he raised Black Angus cattle in Front Royal, Virginia. Ball died of a stroke on December 18, 1993, outliving many of his contemporaries, including Hubert Humphrey by 15 years. It is clear to me that Ball was an individual for who party loyalty was not a good argument to persuade him to vote in any way and one who could be counted on to vote his conscience. I appreciate such people in politics and yes, with such people there are bound to be disagreements, but they are disagreements in good faith and produced by the conviction of the individual rather than by outer pressure or a supposed obligation.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

Ball Holds Dewey Straddles Issues. (1944, October 27). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Closed Shop Fight Heading for Showdown. (1946, November 12). The Vincennes Sun-Commercial, p. 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1052636475/

Democrats and Republicans Contest for Senate Control. (1948, October 22). The Morning Union, 1, 6.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1068535337/

GOP Senator Ball To Vote for F.D.R. (1944, October 23). Springfield Evening Union, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/1067489763/

Montgomery, R. (1948, March 14). ERP Assured; Senate Beats Substitute Plan. Daily News, 236.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/445828367/

Wilson, L.C. (1948, October 4). Wallace Hopes Begin to Skid. The Stockman’s Journal, 3.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/866246900/

Fascinating Politics

The Smith-Connally Act: Addressing Wartime Strikes

Montgomery Ward Co. CEO Sewell Avery being carried out of his headquarters as the company was being seized by the Roosevelt Administration.

World War II had a way of uniting the nation against the common enemy of the Axis powers and the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations as well as United Mine Workers among other unions agreed to a “no strike pledge” for the duration of the war in December 1941 as President Roosevelt wanted. Despite this national unity, there were still political battles at home and with wartime inflation as well as a holding down of wages given FDR’s wage freeze in the Stabilization Act of 1942, the purchasing power of the public decreased and this substantially impacted union laborers. There would be strikes during World War II despite the pledge, and the largest ones were initiated by one of America’s foremost unionists: John L. Lewis. Lewis had been a founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and during World War II he was the head of the United Mine Workers. In April 1943, he initiated a strike of 500,000 workers to demand better pay, compensation for travel to and from work, and safer working conditions. Walkouts occurred in April and May, disrupting coal production. For many in Washington this act was an outrage and a threat to the war effort. President Roosevelt ordered the mines seized and operated by government until a settlement could be reached. However, member of Congress wanted new legislation. Two politicians who took notice and opted for quick action were Senator Tom Connally (D-Tex.) and Representative Howard W. Smith (D-Va.). Although in the past Connally had been supportive of most New Deal measures, like many Southerners he had become alarmed at how much power organized labor had and had become more conservative over time. Smith was more hostile to the New Deal and was an arch-foe of left-wing radicalism, his dissent with Roosevelt starting considerably earlier than Connally’s. The Smith-Connally Act outlined conditions in which the president could seize and operate industries crucial to the war effort under the threat of striking and prohibited unions from making campaign contributions. President Roosevelt thought the measure too harsh on labor as did organized labor’s advocates in Congress. However, popular opinion was strongly against strikes during wartime as everyone had to make sacrifices this was the mood in Congress too. On May 5, 1943, the Senate passed its version 63-16 (D 33-11; R 30-4; P 0-1).  June 4th, the House passed its version 233-141 (D 100-89; R 133-48; P 0-2; AL 0-1; FL 0-1). President Roosevelt vetoed the conference report, and the House overrode it 244-108 (D 114-67; R 130-37; P 0-2; AL 0-1; FL 0-1) on June 25th and the Senate did so on the same day 56-25 (D 29-19; R 27-5; P 0-1). There were even a few politicians of liberal reputations who voted for this measure such as Florida’s Senator Claude Pepper, who normally opposed legislation curbing organized labor’s power. Indeed, Southern support for this measure was extremely strong; among the representatives of the former Confederate states, only six voted or paired against passage and five voted or paired against overriding President Roosevelt’s veto, and no senators from these states opposed. Interestingly, Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri voted for the Senate’s original version of the Smith-Connally Act only to vote against overriding President Roosevelt’s veto. For the most part, Truman would be a big backer of organized labor during his presidency.  

This would be the first and only time a bill that was strongly opposed by organized labor would be passed over President Roosevelt’s veto. He nonetheless invoked this law multiple times to crack down on strikes. On August 1, 1944, numerous white workers went on a “sick out” for six days over the promotion of black workers to motormen and conductors required by the Fair Employment Practices Committee (these positions had been de facto “whites only”), and Roosevelt broke the strike by sending 8,000 troops to operate the transit system and threatened workers with being drafted if they did not return within 48 hours. This was certainly an ironic consequence of a law sponsored by segregationists. Roosevelt also applied this law to management when on April 25, 1944, and again on December 27th, he had Secretary of War Henry Stimson seize Montgomery Ward Co. after the company refused to abide by a labor agreement that the War Labor Board had hammered out and soldiers physically escorted the defiant 70-year-old CEO Sewell Avery, a staunch conservative, off the premises on April 27th after he refused to leave.

The Smith-Connally Act was an answer to a wartime situation and once the war was over, the law was no longer appropriate. Congressional conservatives sought to enact a peacetime substitute in a bill sponsored by Francis Case (R-S.D.) in 1946, but President Truman considered the measure too harsh and vetoed it. Congress would be even more conservative after the next election and pass the similar Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, this time over President Truman’s veto, which repealed the Smith-Connally Act and established among other things that states could decide whether to be “right to work” or not, a controversial provision that remains law. Although derided as a “slave labor law” at the time by its opponents and thought to be an effort to destroy unions, this did not prove the case. Indeed, union membership increased by three million in the ten years that followed, thus if destroying unions had been the intent of the crafters of Taft-Hartley, the law was a miserable failure.

References

Glass, A. (2016, December 26). FDR seizes control of Montgomery Ward, Dec. 27, 1944. Politico.

Retrieved from

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/this-day-in-politics-dec-27-1944-232931

Hunt, K. (2024, August 1). In Philly 80 years ago, a racist subway strike paralyzed the city in the middle of World War II. Philly Voice.

Retrieved from

https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-subway-transit-strike-1944-wwii-national-guard/

The Smith-Connally Act and Labor Battles on the Home Front. (2023, June 22). National World War II Museum.

Retrieved from

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/smith-connally-act-and-labor-battles-home-front

To Override Veto of S. 796, a Bill Concerning the Use and Operation of War Plants for the Prosecution of the War. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0780062

To Override Veto on S. 796, Prevention of Strikes in Defense Industries. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0780061

To Pass S. 796… Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RH0780047

To Pass S. 796, a Bill Relating to the Use and Operation by the U.S. of Certain Plants in the Interest of the National Defense. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/rollcall/RS0780027

Fascinating Politics

The Ruml Plan: The Foundation of Income Tax Withholding

Beardsley Ruml

All American workers are used to the idea that their taxes are withheld from their income rather than them having to worry about paying a big tax bill on tax day, that is if you are not an independent contractor. However, from 1913 until 1943 income taxes were indeed paid in this way…you’d be paying for your last year of income. By 1942, the US was in a total war economy and that year the Revenue Act of 1942 was passed, a massive tax measure to fund the war, and with this the income tax came to not be a mere class tax, rather a tax that hit taxpayers across the board. The tax revenue that came from this measure, even though a lot, was not enough to fund the war effort as noted by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. The next revenue bill was going to be a sea-change in tax law as it was widely agreed upon that current-year taxation would be for the best. However, what would happen in the first year of implementation is that many people would get hit with taxes for both 1942 and 1943, making 1943 a really hard tax year for many. Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bob Doughton (D-N.C.) lamented the difficulty of changing the tax system, “We are dealing with the most hateful, difficult problem that ever came along in the annals of mankind” (Time Magazine). Enter Beardsley Ruml (1894-1960).

Ruml was an economist and the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and he had an idea of how to mitigate the difficulty of this change: forgive 1942 tax liability. As you might have expected, Republicans embraced Ruml’s push, but Democrats, who had a Congressional majority, were opposed. This forgiveness would largely benefit upper income taxpayers, and providing such a benefit for upper income taxpayers went directly against the political ethos of President Roosevelt and New Dealers. Interestingly, Southerners by and large objected to the Ruml Plan, at least at 100% forgiveness. Doughton, for instance, was strongly opposed to 100% forgiveness, considering it “the biggest outrage ever attempted to be perpetrated upon the people of the United States” (Thorndike, March 24). However, he would prove willing to accept a lower level of forgiveness. After all, tax relief was popular among voters and Republicans knew it! House Minority Leader Joe Martin (R-Mass.), for instance, strongly pushed this measure, stating of the majority Democrats on this issue, “They’ll know they’ve been in a fight” (Time Magazine). On March 30, 1943, the full implementation, pushed by Rep. Frank Carlson (R-Kan.), was voted down 198-215 although Congress opted to shelve the Ways and Means Committee bill 248-168 on the same day, resulting in an impasse. The House eventually passed 60% forgiveness 313-95 on May 4, 1943, but the Senate had different ideas and on May 14th voted for the Ruml Plan 49-30. This was unacceptable for President Roosevelt, who wrote to Congressional leaders, “This cancellation would result in a highly inequitable distribution of the cost of the war and in an unjust and discriminatory enrichment of thousands of taxpayers in the upper income groups. Such groups would be enriched by the cancellation of taxes already owing by them” (Thorndike, March 24).

Resolution

A compromise version of what became known as the Current Taxpayer Act was adopted 257-114 on June 1st. The Senate agreed to the measure 62-19 the next day. President Roosevelt would sign the bill into law on June 9th. The final law forgave 75% of the lower figure of either 1942 or 1943 tax liability and instituted withholding of the income tax at 20% automatically. Interestingly, the matter that had the longest and most consequential impact was the least controversial of the issues in tax withholding and the most controversial thing was a matter that is easily forgotten. Also of note, although Ruml’s full plan was embraced mostly by conservative Republicans, Ruml himself was something of a political enigma. Although a registered Republican, he more often supported Democrats than Republicans for public office, and in 1952 he backed and helped raise funds for Democrat Adlai Stevenson over Republican Dwight Eisenhower (The New York Times). There likely isn’t a soul working today who knows a tax system before withholding, unless there’s a working 100-year-old out there who wishes to contradict me. Feel free to leave a message if so!

Beardsley Ruml, 65, Tax Planner, Dead. (1960, April 19). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

The Congress: Tax Soliloquy. (1943, March 22). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6598446/the-congress-tax-soliloquy/

Thorndike, J.J. (2024, March 4). Tax History: Beardsley Ruml: The Man Who Invented Withholding – Sort Of. Tax Notes.

Retrieved from

https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-project/tax-history-beardsley-ruml-man-who-invented-withholding-sort/2024/03/01/7j878

Thorndike, J.J. (2024, March 25). Tax History: Compromising on the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943. Tax Notes.

Retrieved from

https://www.taxnotes.com/tax-history-project/tax-history-compromising-current-tax-payment-act-1943/2024/03/22/7jbgq

Fascinating Politics

James H. Morrison: The Bayou State’s Independent Populist

Version 1.0.0


Louisiana’s politics, like the South’s generally, had a considerable shift in the 20th century. One of the figures who proved among the more resistant to the state’s increasing shift to the right was James Hobson Morrison (1908-2000).

Morrison was an attorney by profession who frequently supported organized labor, including creating a union for strawberry pickers. As a young man, he made a critical connection with Huey Long, but Long was assassinated before he could win a major office. Morrison was highly ambitious, unsuccessfully running in the Democratic primary for governor in 1939 and 1944. However, it would be between these runs in which he would have his major successful race.  

In 1942, Morrison defeated anti-Long incumbent Jared Y. Sanders, Jr., for renomination. This would be the start of a long career for him, and although he had a reputation over his career as a progressive populist, in truth his earlier record was a bit more mixed. His first Congress was the 78th, in which although Democrats maintained their majority, it acted much like a Republican Congress and Morrison sometimes voted with the Conservative Coalition, including some tax votes and in voting for the Smith-Connally Act to resolve labor disputes over President Roosevelt’s veto. This early vote on labor demonstrated he could be independent from his union background, much like his vote for the Hobbs Act in 1945. However, Morrison was at heart a union man and in 1946 he voted against the proposed Case bill as too harsh on labor. Morrison’s record on price control was mixed, supporting some limitations but supporting the general concept. Morrison also championed highway projects in his Baton Rouge-based district.

At the end of World War II, Morrison controversially sponsored a bill that provided for the relief of Sylvestro “Silver Dollar Sam” Carolla from deportation by making him a naturalized citizen. Carolla was the boss of the New Orleans crime family. This bill did not pass, and he was deported in 1947.

Morrison had a mixed record during the Republican 80th Congress. He voted for several Republican-pushed measures such as tax reduction legislation and the Reed-Bulwinkle Act during the 80th Congress but was also one of the few Southerners to vote against the Taft-Hartley Act. Morrison proved one of the more favorable Southerners to President Truman’s Fair Deal, but it would not be until the Eisenhower Administration in which he was firmly identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Morrison proved second only to New Orleans’ Hale Boggs among Louisiana supporters of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, supporting most New Frontier and Great Society measures. He voted for accelerated public works, minimum wage legislation, public housing, anti-poverty legislation, federal aid to education, and Medicare. He even bent on an area in which tough to do for his region: civil rights.

Morrison had signed the Southern Manifesto and had not supported a single civil rights measure until his vote for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, being one of two Louisianans to vote for it. His vote for this plus his strong support of the Great Society made him a target for defeat for renomination as LBJ was not popular in his district, which had voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964 (Western Washington University). This opened him up to a primary challenge from segregationist Judge John Rarick. Rarick was a staunchly conservative figure who had a history of racism, once telling a black lawyer who entered his courtroom, “I didn’t know they let you coons practice law” (Time Magazine). Morrison campaigned against Rarick by publicizing his ties with the KKK. Rarick denounced him as a candidate of the “black power voting bloc” (Webb). Morrison had an uphill battle as a strong LBJ supporter as much of his previous support was bleeding away. Rarick had also campaigned against Morrison as a “handmaiden to LBJ” (The Town Talk). The Democratic primary’s first vote resulted in a runoff, which Rarick won. Morrison never ran for public office again, resuming his legal career and raising money for Southeastern Louisiana University. He had agreed with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 12% of the time from 1957 to 1966, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 64% of the time from 1947 to 1966, and his DW-Nominate score was a -0.28.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

ADA Voting Records

1964 United States Presidential Election, Results by Congressional District. Western Washington University.

Retrieved from

https://wwu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/minimalist/index.html?appid=c50a65162a924020a2404711cef83587

Lawyers: Harassment in the South. (1968, August 16). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,838559,00.html

Mearns, G. (1966, September 26). Rarick Beats Morrison In House Race. The Town Talk, 21.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/215830230/

Morrison Defeated in 6th District. (1966, September 25). The Shreveport Times, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/213448882/

Morrison, James Hobson. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://www.voteview.com/person/6721/james-hobson-morrison

Fascinating Politics

The Hobbs Act: A Response to Labor Racketeering

Sam Hobbs, sponsor of the Hobbs Act.

In 1934, Congress passed and FDR signed the Anti-Racketeering Act. This law, aimed at gangsters, contained an exemption for organized labor. The consequences of this would become apparent when members of the Teamsters Union sought to secure wages by rather unsavory means. As Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone wrote, “They [the members of the teamsters’ union], or some of them, lay in wait for trucks passing from New Jersey to New York, forced their way onto the trucks, and by beating or threats of beating the drivers procured payments to themselves from the drivers or their employers of a sum of money for each truck, $9.42 for a large truck and $8.41 for a small one, said to be the equivalent of the union wage scale for a day’s work. In some instances they assisted or offered to assist in unloading the truck and in others they disappeared as soon as the money was paid without rendering or offering to render any service” (The New York Times, 1942). The case against the union, Teamsters Local 807, made its way up to the Supreme Court as incidents had involved interstate commerce, and on March 2, 1942, they ruled 6-1 in United States v. Teamsters Local 807 that workers of the Teamsters Union had not been in violation of the Anti-Racketeering Act. The majority opinion being delivered by Justice James F. Byrnes, the majority’s holdings were:

“1. That the legislative history of the Act shows that it was intended to suppress terroristic activities of professional gangsters, and not to interfere with traditional labor union activities.

2. The exception is not limited to those who had acquired the status of employees prior to the time when they obtained, or attempted or conspired to obtain, the payment.

3. The exception is applicable to an agreement by members of a city union of truck drivers, who, for the purpose of obtaining employment at union wages in connection with “over the road” trucks entering the city, agree to tender their services in good faith to each truck owner and to do the work if he accepts their offer, but agree further that, should he refuse it, they will nevertheless, for the protection of their union interests, require him to pay them the wages, even by resort to threats and violence.

The test of the applicability of the exception in such case is whether the objective of the conspirators was to obtain “the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee,” and not whether the intent of the truck owner in making payment was to pay for services, rather than for protection.

4. Labor union activities such as those disclosed by the record in this case are not beyond the reach of federal legislative control, and the use of violence such as that here disclosed is subject to the ordinary criminal law.

118 F.2d 684 reversed” (315 U.S. 521).

Given that Justices Owen Roberts and Robert Jackson were not participating in the case, Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone was the sole dissenter. Dissenting even more on this decision was Congress.

This particular act of racketeering by Teamster members unfortunately reflected a wider problem, and Representative Sam Hobbs (D-Ala.) opted to act (Neeley). Hobbs was a close ally of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who specialized in law enforcement measures, responded by introducing legislation to apply the Anti-Racketeering Act to labor unions, thus prohibiting extortion and robbery in interstate commerce. American Federation of Labor President William Green opposed the legislation as “anti-labor” and argued that “there is no necessity for it” (The New York Times, 1942). The New York Times was for this measure, regarding it as necessary for the reputation of organized labor. Although Hobbs’ bill passed the House in 1943 by a vote of 270-107 (D 115-70, R 154-34, P 0-2, AL 0-1, FL 1-0) (yes there were five parties in the House at the time), it was not taken up in the Senate.  Numerous Congressional allies of organized labor in Washington came out strongly against the Hobbs bill as overly broad. Representative Emanuel Celler (D-N.Y.), a frequent champion of liberalism, held that the bill’s definitions were “so broad that as to permit one to drive a coach and six through them” and Representative Luther Patrick (D-Ala.), one of the strongest of the Southern liberals, warned with this law “we are simply burning the house down…to get rid of a few rats” (CQ Almanac). However, there were some liberals who found merit in this measure as a way of improving the reputation of unions. Representative Jerry Voorhis (D-Calif.), normally a voice for liberalism, thought organized labor’s fears about the bill unjustified, stating, “when one attempts to read the bill with care it just is not possible to find in the bill the dangers that are alleged to be there” (CQ Almanac). In the next Congress, the key vote was to approve the rule for consideration, which was adopted 259-108 (D 113-93, R 146-13, P 0-1, AL 01). The Hobbs Act subsequently passed by voice vote in the House and Senate and President Truman found the provisions of this bill sufficiently acceptable to sign it into law the following year. With the exceptions of signing this measure and his bad-tempered push to draft strikers, he was known as a favorable president to organized labor for his pushing for increasing the minimum wage and his vetoes of the 1946 Case bill and the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. The Hobbs Act is a relevant law to this day.

References

Anti-Racketeering Act Amendments. CQ Almanac 1945. Congressional Quarterly.

Retrieved from

https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal45-1403306

H. Res. 406. Resolution Providing for the Consideration of HR 32 to Amend the Act Entitle “An Act to Protect Trade and Commerce Against Interference by Violence, Threats, Coercion or Intimidation.”. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/79-1945/h97

Neeley, G.R. (2017, November 15). Samuel Francis Hobbs. Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Retrieved from

https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/samuel-francis-hobbs/

To Curb Labor Racketeering. (1942, May 20). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

To Pass H.R. 653, a Bill to Make Extortion and Robbery in Interstate Commerce Unlawful. Govtrack.

Retrieved from

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/78-1943/h23

United States v. Teamsters Local 807, 315 U.S. 521 (1942).