By 1930, Senator Furnifold M. Simmons had long been a powerful presence in North Carolina. He had been a senator since 1901 and had led the “white supremacy” campaign of 1898 that resulted in the Democrats coming back to power in the long run which also came with it the insurrection that overthrew the multiracial government of Wilmington, which had been the largest city in the state at the time. Although ideologically he could be thought of as a Wilsonian progressive, Simmons resolutely supported Prohibition. Thus, a problem arose for him when the Democratic Party nominated New York Governor Al Smith. Smith was against Prohibition and he had also risen in politics through New York City’s notorious Tammany Hall machine. Both were reason enough for Simmons to endorse Herbert Hoover over Smith. Simmons’ endorsement carried a lot of weight in the state and Hoover won both election and North Carolina. The last time a Republican had won North Carolina was in 1872. However, by 1930 the Great Depression had started and Hoover was very unpopular. This and that Simmons had not cultivated younger politicians made him vulnerable, and stepping in to challenge him was Josiah William Bailey (1873-1946).

Bailey had strong religious convictions as a Baptist, and after his father’s death in 1895 served as the editor of the North Carolina Baptist Convention’s newspaper the Biblical Recorder, and from 1903 to 1907, he headed the state’s Anti-Saloon League, but resigned when the organization started pushing for prohibition rather than temperance, not believing that the former would work (Moore). In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson tapped Bailey to be collector of revenue for the eastern district of North Carolina, and it was there that he gained practical experience on government efficiency, and managed to reduce the cost of collections by 65% (Moore). He served in this role until 1921 In 1914, Bailey pushed with Clarence Poe of the Progressive Farmer a platform for the Democratic Party Convention which included among its planks state primaries, increased assistance to public health and education, stronger regulation of freight and insurance rates, and strengthening child labor laws (Moore). This platform was not adopted, but it established Bailey’s reputation at the time as a progressive. By the early 1920s, Bailey became independent of the Simmons political machine and in 1924 he ran a reformist campaign in the Democratic primary for governor. Although he lost, he was now a known and credible political quantity in the state.

Bailey, who as editor of the Biblical Recorder had backed Simmons’ white supremacy campaign of 1898, hammered him for party disloyalty and this approach worked, with Bailey winning the nomination. Simmons gracefully accepted defeat and had no regrets about his decision to oppose Smith. Although Bailey had campaigned against Simmons on party disloyalty, he would ironically prove far more at odds with his party’s philosophy than Simmons had ever been. Indeed, Bailey had very distinct ideas about right and wrong. As the left-wing publication The Nation noted about him, he was a “diligent scholar whose devotion to abstract principles of right and wrong, and specifically to righteousness in civil and political affairs, borders on fanaticism…He is a brilliant but painstaking student whose mind quickly cuts through to the heart of a thing, with a logic that is irrefutable, and a command of language probably unequalled by any other living North Carolinian” (Tucker). While he campaigned for FDR in 1932, during the first 100 days of the New Deal, Bailey voted against the Agricultural Adjustment Act, being the only North Carolinian to do so. His stance was in contrast to his history of having been a progressive reformer in the 1910s and 1920s. Bailey did support some measures such as the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, FDR’s gold measures, and Social Security. In FDR’s first term, Bailey served as a sometimes supporter and sometimes opponent of the New Deal. In 1935, Bailey was one of five Democratic senators to oppose the Wagner Act, commonly regarded as the Magna Carta of labor rights. He would consistently oppose legislation to increase the power of organized labor and support legislation to reduce it. Although Bailey was not blind to social problems and wasn’t necessarily opposing every measure to address them, he had his limitations which he saw as consistent with Jeffersonianism, stating, “Being a Baptist, I am liberal, and believe in liberty. Being a Democrat, I am a liberal and believe in liberty. Once we abandon the voluntary principles, we run squarely into Communism. . . . There can be no half-way control” (Tucker). Bailey was not willing, however, to go strong in opposition until after the 1936 election, but the next year he really went after the philosophy of the New Deal. In 1937, Bailey joined Burton K. Wheeler (D-Mont.) and Vice President John Nance Garner in leading the opposition to FDR’s “court packing plan” and delivered a powerful speech against on the Senate floor. In 1937, he and a group of conservative Democrats and Republicans crafted the “Conservative Manifesto”, with he and Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) being the primary authors. This was a ten point document that outlined conservative alternatives to New Deal programs. This document, however, was prematurely leaked to The New York Times and when inquiries were made about who authored it, Bailey stepped up and admitted it while other Democrats were silent. Vandenberg and Warren Austin (R-Vt.) also stepped up and admitted themselves as participating in the drafting. The reason others were shying away from their involvement was because the ten point plan bore resemblance to what the American Liberty League had been calling for, and President Roosevelt had successfully painted the organization to the public as simply a vehicle for economic privilege. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Charles McNary (R-Ore.), who had leaked the Manifesto, did so as he was concerned that this would overshadow a planned Republican platform and stated, “Anyone who signs that thing is going to have a Liberty League tag put on him” (Moore, 31-32). Bailey’s record on domestic issues after Roosevelt’s reelection was considerably more conservative on domestic issues, and he sought a program that involved lower spending, more emphasis on state’s rights, and more emphasis on free enterprise to help recovery. He stated, stated, “We do not have a Government at Washington. It is a gift enterprise and the gifts are at the expense of those who work and earn and save. Our President is not actuated by principle, but by fears. He will try to head off anything in order that he may stay at the head. I expect him to run for a third term, and if I am living, I expect to fight a good and last fight” (Moore, 26). Bailey’s leading role in the Conservative Manifesto presaged an overall shift in the state’s politics to the right, and one could consider him as an agent of change in the state who served the role that Republican George Aiken served for his state. Both men believed that in their views they were upholding their party’s traditional values but were often differing with their own parties. Bailey led the shift of North Carolina away from the national party, while Aiken led the shift of Vermont’s Republican party away from the Coolidge-style conservatism that characterized it during the 1930s. The collaboration of Bailey and Republican Vandenberg as central authors also could be marked as the start of the bipartisan Conservative Coalition which started to have pull after the 1938 midterms.

While Bailey was at odds with President Roosevelt on domestic policy, he was strongly supportive on foreign policy, backing all his major initiatives. Indeed, he contrasted considerably with his colleague, Robert Rice Reynolds, who had been much more supportive of New Deal programs but had voted against all of the president’s prewar initiatives save for the peacetime draft. Bailey was again back to the status of moderate opposition to President Roosevelt’s agenda. He was also an internationalist, and opposed the unsuccessful Revercomb (R-W.V.) amendment to require participation in international organizations be by treaty only. Although he had supported much of the president’s war policies, he was against a postwar direction of more government spending and emphasis on the public sector. However, Bailey’s role in the postwar world would be limited; in 1945, his health began to decline and on December 15, 1946, he died in office of a cerebral hemorrhage. Bailey’s DW-Nominate score is a -0.118, which although seems rather low given his domestic conservatism, party-line and procedural votes also get counted. By Democratic standards, he does fit on the party’s conservative wing. Indeed, as noted before, Bailey was the start of North Carolina’s shift to the right and away from the national Democratic Party politics. Although he is largely a forgotten figure, he got some recognition as one of the people profiled in Garland S. Tucker III’s 2015 book, Conservative Heroes: Fourteen Leaders Who Shaped America, From Jefferson to Reagan.

References

Bailey, Josiah William. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/349/josiah-william-bailey

Moore, J.R. (1979). Bailey, Josiah William. NCpedia.

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https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/bailey-josiah-william

Moore, J.R. (1965). Senator Josiah W. Bailey and the “Conservative Manifesto” of 1937. The Journal of Southern History, 31(1), 21-39.

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Click to access new-deal-critics2.pdf

Tucker, G.S. Obscure no more: N.C. Senator Josiah Bailey. Walter Magazine.

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Obscure no more: N.C. Senator Josiah Bailey

Woods, T.E. (2015, August 28). A Missing History of Conservatism. The American Conservative.

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A Missing History of Conservatism

Bipartisanship is a less common commodity than it used to be, but there was a time in which postwar foreign policy was a bipartisan creation, and one of its champions was South Dakota Republican John Chandler “Chan” Gurney (1896-1985). Although Republicans historically had an advantage in South Dakota, the Great Depression depressed their prospects everywhere, even if said Republicans were progressive. In 1930, progressive Republican Senator William McMaster lost reelection to Democrat William J. Bulow. However, given the state’s usual Republican orientation, perhaps Bulow’s election was a fluke. This was a proposition that Chan Gurney tested in 1936. Gurney was a solid pick as he had a voice that was known across South Dakota as a radio announcer for radio station KNAX in Yankton. However, that year would be FDR’s greatest election, with him winning all states except Maine and Vermont. Only one Democratic seat flipped to the GOP that year, and South Dakota’s wasn’t it. Although Gurney lost, he had only lost by two points, running ahead of Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon by ten points. An opportunity would arise less than two months after the election, as on December 20, 1936, Republican Senator Peter Norbeck died of cancer, thus was gone the power of incumbency for that seat. Although Democratic Governor Tom Berry tapped Herbert Hitchcock to serve the remainder of the term. Berry intended to run himself, and defeated Hitchcock for running for the full term. Since Gurney had a good performance considering the environment of 1936, he was able to win the GOP nomination again, and this time he won by five points. As Drew Pearson and Robert Allen (1938) reported in the Washington Merry-Go Round, “In 1936, radio announcer Chandler Gurney had the displeasure of reporting to his listeners that he had been defeated in the race for the United States senate. Last month, announcer Gurney had the pleasure of reporting that he had won his race for the senate” (32).

As a new senator, Gurney proved antagonistic to the New Deal, supported curbing the growing power of organized labor, and stressed fiscal restraint on domestic spending. However, he also supported priorities for South Dakotans, such as rural electrification projects for the state and developing the Missouri River. However, he surprised political observers by supporting an interventionist position. Of South Dakota’s federally elected officials, he was the only one to vote for all of FDR’s major interventionist measures. Gurney, who had served in World War I, believed in national service and there would be no hypocrisy in the coming war as his sons also served. Ironically, his colleague Bulow, who had shifted to the right after FDR’s first term, would be the most opposed of all of South Dakota’s federally elected officials to interventionist foreign policy. In multiple ways, Gurney was contrary to his Republican predecessor, Norbeck, who was largely supportive of the New Deal and had opposed U.S. entry into the World Court. However, he was also staunchly anti-communist, and although he voted for Lend-Lease he had voted for an amendment to prevent Lend-Lease aid going to the USSR. In October 1941, Gurney joined Senators Styles Bridges (R-N.H.) and Warren Austin (R-Vt.) in calling for outright repealing the Neutrality Act, going further than many of their colleagues wanted (Time Magazine, 1942). He was also a strong supporter of the development of aviation and opposed a 1940 effort to cut spending for the Civil Aeronautics Board. In 1942, Gurney sponsored the law reducing the draft age to 18 and increasing the upper limit to 37 and argued that “the American people want to win the war in the shortest possible fashion and will do what it takes to accomplish that” and that drafting of 18 and 19-year-olds was required to do so (Time Magazine, 1942). During World War II, Gurney supported efforts at a new postwar international order, and opposed Senator Revercomb’s (R-W.V.) unsuccessful amendment requiring membership in international organizations to be done by treaty only. In 1944, he won reelection by 28 points, winning all but two counties.

Although Gurney was a senator who was willing to side with the Roosevelt Administration on foreign policy and on certain war measures for the home front, he was adamantly against long-term government involvement in the economy, voting to restrict the emphasis on the public sector in securing full employment in the Full Employment Act of 1946. In 1946, the Republicans won majorities in both houses of Congress, which meant that Gurney was now the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. As chairman, he introduced and led the push for the National Security Act of 1947 and the Selective Service Act of 1948, the latter reinstating the draft. For his work on defense issues, he was a trusted figure with the military brass. Gurney’s anti-communism was expressed both in his support for President Truman’s foreign policies of aid to Greece and Turkey and the Marshall Plan but also in his support for a loan for Francoist Spain, a policy Truman opposed.

Gurney and Civil Rights

Gurney had a record on civil rights that was mixed, more on the side of supporting in his first term and more to opposition in his next term. In 1940, he voted for the Wagner (D-N.Y.) Amendment to the Selective Service Act of 1940, which prohibited racial discrimination in enlistments and in 1943 he voted for an anti-discrimination rider to an education bill. However, in 1944 he voted to delete funding for the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) and voted against ending debate on establishing a permanent FEPC in 1946 and 1950. However, Gurney did vote for a short-term appropriation for the FEPC in 1945. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the 80^th Congress, he opposed Senator Langer’s (R-N.D.) efforts to add civil rights riders to the Selective Service Act of 1948, not wishing to complicate passage of the legislation with such riders. Gurney also was one of four Republican senators to support Senator Richard Russell’s (D-Ga.) unsuccessful 1950 amendment to allow soldiers to choose whether they want to serve in racially integrated units or not.

The 1950 Election

Gurney had reason to believe that he was safe in his seat. After all, he had been a highly productive legislator, especially as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. His record on domestic issues surely had been conservative enough for the Republican base, and his seniority and expertise were of value. Thus, when Representative Francis Case (R-S.D.), who had been a pre-war non-interventionist and voted against the Marshall Plan ran against him, neither Gurney nor many observers took the run seriously. However, Case barnstormed the state making his case if you will for his nomination and that economy in government was important, including on matters of foreign aid spending. Gurney had dismissed campaigning back in his home state and declined to debate Case, stating that he was “busy” (Time Magazine, 1950). He changed his mind on campaigning in South Dakota two weeks before the primary when it was abundantly clear that Case was gaining traction. His campaign stressed the benefits to South Dakota of his seniority, opposition to deficit financing, opposition to big domestic government, and his stances on foreign policy (Argus-Leader). However, it was too late and he lost renomination by 15,000 votes. Senator George Aiken (R-Vt.) commented, “It made some of those who are up for re-election realize they had better go back home to do some politicking” (Time Magazine, 1950). Gurney’s DW-Nominate score is a 0.217, certainly being depressed by his foreign policy votes, and he agreed with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 16% of the time from 1947 to 1950.

Gurney was out of elective politics, but President Truman had a job for him: to serve as a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board. He was appointed chairman in 1954, serving in this role until 1957, when he became vice chair until retirement in 1964. Gurney was subsequently on the board of directors for North Central Airlines. He died on March 9, 1985 at the age of 88, far outliving his South Dakota Republican colleagues. Gurney is remembered in South Dakota as Yankton’s municipal airport is named after him for his contributions to aviation policy.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Chan Gurney Candidate for Senator – Political Advertisement. (1950, May 26). Argus-Leader, 6.

Retrieved from

www.newspapers.com/image/230191757/

Chan Gurney left his mark on state. (1985, March 12). Rapid City Journal, 4.

Retrieved from

www.newspapers.com/image/350714418/

Gurney, John Chandler (Chan). Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/3882/john-chandler-chan-gurney

Mr. Gurney’s Convictions. (1942, September 13). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6604759/mr-gurneys-convictions/

Pearson, D. & Allen, R. (1938, December 11). Washington Merry-Go-Round. Joplin Globe, 32.

Retrieved from

www.newspapers.com/image/1003813456/

South Dakota: Too Busy to Win. (1950, June 18). Time Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://time.com/archive/6796257/south-dakota-too-busy-to-win/

Today Iowa seems to only be getting further cemented as a Republican state, and indeed historically Iowa was a very Republican state, even if its Republicans didn’t always neatly fit the conservative mold. From the 1856 elections up to the Great Depression, Iowa had only had one Democratic senator in Daniel Steck and the circumstances of his election made it a fluke, and its only Democratic governor since the Republican Party’s foundation was Horace Boies, who served from 1890 to 1894. However, the Great Depression taxed the popularity of Republicans so much that it even hit major offices in Iowa. Democrat Richard Murphy won a Senate seat in 1932, Clyde Herring was elected governor, and Guy Gillette (1879-1973) won a Congressional seat in a typically Republican Iowa district. However, even in this early stage of his career, he proved independent from FDR and the New Deal; he voted against the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. However, Gillette backed other New Deal laws including the Tennessee Valley Authority, FDR’s gold policies, the Securities and Exchange Act, and Social Security. His margin of reelection only increased in 1934. His career was undoubtedly helped by his senatorial looks and geniality, with author Allen Drury writing in A Senate Journal that he was, “a nice fellow … impressively handsome with a friendly twinkle in his eye” (U.S. Senate). Although Gillette had won renomination for reelection to the House in 1936, fate had a different idea. On July 16, 1936, Senator Richard Murphy was killed in a car accident, and Gillette ran for his seat. This was yet another excellent year for the Democrats, he was elected to serve the remainder of the late Senator Murphy’s term.

Murphy had been a staunch New Dealer, but Gillette soon proved he would continue his independence by his opposition to FDR’s court packing plan as well as that year’s proposed Fair Labor Standards Act. A different version of the latter would be passed the following year. However, he did support his controversial proposed 1938 reorganization plan, which critics had dubbed the “dictator bill” for its centralizing of power. Not enthused about Gillette’s record, FDR backed Democratic Congressman Otha Wearin against him. Although strongly with the president now, Wearin had ironically also voted against the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933. However, Iowa Democrats were sufficiently appreciative of Gillette’s independence as well as in opposition to FDR’s putting his thumb on the scale of state primaries. It was a different time back then. Although Roosevelt did not like Gillette being the nominee again, he undoubtedly preferred him to Republican candidate Lester J. Dickinson, who had been in the Senate from 1931 to 1937 and was a staunch foe of President Roosevelt. It was a tough campaign, with Gillette winning reelection by less than 3,000 votes. Had Wearin won the nomination, it seems likely that Dickinson would have returned, thus having an outright opponent rather than someone whose vote was not always certain. This win, by the way, was historic, as this was the first time a Democrat had won reelection to the Senate from Iowa since 1852.

In his second term, Gillette more often supported Roosevelt on domestic issues than not, but he also stood as one of the Senate’s opponents of FDR’s foreign policy. Although he had voted for the repeal of the arms embargo in 1939, he opposed the peacetime draft, Lend-Lease, and the permitting of merchant ships to enter belligerent ports. Writing confidentially for the British Foreign Office, Isaiah Berlin assessed Gillette thusly,

“[He] resembles Van Nuys in that he is a typical Mid-Western Senator with a moderately steady Isolationist voting record, although he is not an articulate opponent of the Administration’s policy. Unlike Van Nuys, he is a supporter of reciprocal trade pacts but shares his suspicion of the President. A simple, confused, but very honest Presbyterian of considerable character, he views the corn interest, which he represents, with an almost religious devotion. He leads the Senate Lobby interested in producing synthetic rubber out of corn, and coming from the Republican corn belt, is virtually a Republican in sentiment and conduct. He is not at all anti-British, but as isolationist as his general environment. His speeches in Congress take the form of thinking aloud. On foreign policy he is not a bigoted anti-Rooseveltite but is exceedingly uncertain” (Hachey, 146).

During World War II, Gillette strongly pushed for active efforts to save European Jews from the Holocaust. As a devout Christian, he sympathized with the historical plight of the Jews and sought to help them. He also shifted his foreign policy views from moderate non-interventionism to support for internationalism, most notably in evidence in his vote against Senator Revercomb’s (R-W.V.) unsuccessful 1943 amendment to require participation in international organizations be established by treaty only.

Although 1944 was a considerably better year for Democrats than expected, this didn’t apply enough in Gillette’s case to save him from the candidacy of Governor Bourke B. Hickenlooper in 1944, who won with 51% of the vote. By this time, differences between Gillette and the president appeared to be patched up, and he was appointed chairman of the Surplus Property Board. However, he did not care much for his role, and he often found himself outvoted by the board’s two other members. After his resignation in May 1945, Gillette was offered a judgeship by President Truman, but he turned it down as he believed himself unqualified as he had been too long out of the practice of law, a demonstration of his personal honesty (Hill). Gillette, a committed supporter of Zionism, was president of the American League for a Free Palestine, which was disbanded after the establishment of Israel in 1948. That year, Gillette sought a political comeback. President Truman and Gillette heavily appealed to farmers in this campaign, Truman campaigned for Gillette, and told Iowans that if they didn’t elect him to the Senate again there was something wrong with them (Hill). On Election Day, Gillette pulled a stunning victory by 162,448 votes against incumbent George A. Wilson, who had previously been popular.

Gillette’s Next Round

This time around, Gillette was a bit more supportive of the Democratic Administration and unlike his previous term in the Senate, he was solidly internationalist. He supported the Point Four program in 1950, and opposed most proposals to cut foreign aid. On domestic issues, Gillette had a hodgepodge of positions; he supported a “local option” amendment for rent control in 1949, but supported extending rent control in 1950, supported a conservative substitute for minimum wage legislation in 1949, opposed a 1950 proposal making housing credit more available to co-ops and non-profit housing projects, opposed the Knowland Amendment restricting the authority of the Social Security Administrator to enforce federal standards for unemployment compensation, and opposed the Tidelands Act in 1953. Gillette supported civil rights, opposing Senator Russell’s (D-Ga.) effort to undermine army desegregation and backed ending debate on a Fair Employment Practices bill. In 1952, Gillette voted against overriding President Truman’s veto of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act. Curiously, during the Eisenhower Administration, Gillette’s foreign policy record seemed to take a turn to the right, with him backing a significant foreign aid cut in 1953 and supporting the Bricker Amendment the following year. In 1954, Gillette went for another term, but was defeated by Congressman Thomas E. Martin, who netted 52% of the vote in an otherwise good election year for Democrats, once again placing Gillette on the low end of a good Democratic year and was a reaffirmation of Iowa’s traditional Republicanism. This was a major upset as polling had put Gillette in the lead and on Election Night he believed he would be winning another term. He had sided with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 66% of the time during his final term and his DW-Nominate score is a -0.076, the latter indicating that he was a moderate. Gillette got a cameo appearance in the 1962 film Advise and Consent, fittingly as a senator along with octogenarian former Senator Henry Ashurst (D-Ariz.) and sitting Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.). While retired, Gillette suffered a stroke which paralyzed his right side, but he succeeded in learning how to write with his left hand. On March 3, 1973, he died in a nursing home at the age of 94.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Gillette, Guy. Encyclopedia of America’s Response to the Holocaust.

Retrieved from

Gillette, Guy

Gillette, Guy Mark. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/3603/guy-mark-gillette

Guy Gillette: A Featured Biography. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_GilletteGuy.htm

Hachey, T.E. (1974). American Profiles on Capitol Hill: A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943. The Wisconsin Magazine of History, 57(2), 141-153.

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Click to access bib139a.pdf

Hill, R. (2013, February 17). Guy M. Gillette of Iowa. The Knoxville Focus.

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Guy M. Gillette of Iowa

Wearin, Otha Donner. Voteview.

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https://voteview.com/person/9890/otha-donner-wearin

Whitman, A. (1973, March 4). Ex-Senator Guy Gillette Dead; Iowan, 94, in Congress 18 Years. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

In recent times, less and less is required for the press to count a Democrat as a “moderate” or even “conservative”. The closest one has come in recent years was West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, but someone who really did fit this bill was Zell Bryan Miller (1932-2018). Miller was always two things: a Democrat and a man of Young Harris, Georgia. He never knew his father, as his father died only 17 days after his birth from cerebral meningitis. He and his sister were raised by their mother in modest circumstances and the fact that she had built the family home with rocks she got from a stream instilled into young Zell the value of rugged independence (Grant). As a young man, Miller attended and graduated from Young Harris College but lacked the discipline to proceed at Emory University. However, he gained the discipline required from his subsequent service in the U.S. Marines (Grant). In 1954, Miller married Shirley Carver and they had two sons, with him continuing his education in 1956 at the University of Georgia, earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in history, learning from prominent historian E. Merton Coulter, a proponent of the Dunning School of historical interpretation of Reconstruction. In 1958, while teaching history and political science at Young Harris College, Miller won his first election to serve as Young Harris’s mayor at the young age of 26. Serving from 1959 to 1960, he was then elected to the Georgia State Senate, serving until 1964. He attempted to win the Democratic nomination for Congress in both 1964 and 1966, and like most Georgia politicians of the time, he ran on a segregationist platform. Although not successful in his bids for Congress, Miller served as executive secretary for Governor Lester Maddox from 1968 to 1971. In this role, he was credited with influencing Maddox to make more appointments of blacks to government positions and to improve higher education (Grant). From 1971 to 1973, Miller served as chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, which set him up for a run in 1974 for lieutenant governor. Miller proved popular in this role, and his time resulted in him considering a run for the Senate.

The 1980 Senate Primary

Although the name Talmadge carried a lot of political heft in Georgia, during his fourth term, Senator Herman Talmadge’s reputation began to suffer. An alcoholic, his drinking got out of hand after the drowning death of his son in 1975, and his publicized divorce was ugly and bitter. In addition, Talmadge was hit with a dishonor that only nine senators have ever suffered, and only one has ever served another term after: he was censured by the Senate (although the term “denounced” was used in his case). Furthermore, his past as a segregationist was not aging well as black participation was increasing in the state’s Democratic Party, thus Zell Miller challenged him for renomination and received endorsements from numerous black political figures, including State Senator Julian Bond and Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson (Harris). Talmadge, however, commanded a lot of loyalty in the Democratic Party, his seniority helped, and there were black supporters of him for delivering on certain priorities. Miller fell short in his bid to deny Talmadge renomination by 18 points, but in the general election, he would narrowly lose reelection to Mack Mattingly, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. Some Democrats believed that Miller’s candidacy made the difference in the general election. in the meantime, he would continue to serve as lieutenant governor. In 1990, Miller decided to move up to governor, successfully gaining the nomination in 1990 and winning against Republican Johnny Isakson by over 8 points.

As governor, he pledged to serve only one term and sought to make the most of the time. Miller focused strongly on education, and proposed an amendment to the state’s constitution to permit a state lottery with the funds going to fund the state’s education system, which the voters passed. He also established the HOPE Scholarship Program, in which every Georgia student who averages a B or better is eligible for a fully paid scholarship to any Georgia state college or university. Miller was keen on both preventative and punitive measures on criminal justice, and got the toughest sentencing guidelines in the country passed, a two strikes law (Grant).

In 1992, Miller gave his strong backing to the candidacy of Bill Clinton and helped him get the Democratic nomination. He delivered a strong keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, in which he said, “I made it because Franklin Delano Roosevelt energized this nation. I made it because Harry Truman fought for working families like mine. I made it because John Kennedy’s rising tide lifted even our tiny boat. I made it because Lyndon Johnson showed America that people who were born poor didn’t have to die poor” (Stout).

Although Miller was successful in helping Clinton to the White House and carrying Georgia for him, he had his own political future to consider. He had been quite a success as governor, and this motivated him to change his mind and run for a second term. This was far from without controversy, and Georgia voters were souring on the Clinton Administration, which resulted in Miller only winning reelection by two points in 1994. Although on the presidential level, second terms are often considerably worse than first, Miller’s second term as governor was even better than the first. He worked hard to make the state attractive for growth and investment. Miller even established a special program to use private funding to distribute classical music CDs to every family with babies born in Georgia, and by the end of his second term, his approval rating was an astronomical 85% (Grant). Although after his term, Miller sought to continue his education career and taught at Emory, University of Georgia, and of course Young Harris College, the call of political office would come to his doorstep.

Senator Miller

On July 18, 2000, Republican Senator Paul Coverdell died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and Democratic Governor Roy Barnes tapped Miller to serve in the interim. He sought a full term, and for the 2000 special election, he faced Mack Mattingly. However, Miller had recently been an extremely popular governor while Mattingly had been out of elective office since his reelection loss in 1986. The result was a blowout for Miller, winning by 20 points while Republican George W. Bush carried the state by over 11 points. One could interpret this victory as a vindication of Miller’s 1980 candidacy for the Senate. As a senator, Miller’s record started moderate, and he was one of a few Senate Democrats to vote for the Bush tax cuts in 2001. He stated, “I agree with President Bush that the taxpayers are better judges of how to spend their own money than we are” (Stout). His disagreement with Democratic leadership grew when they came out strongly against an amendment he sponsored with Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) to loosen union and personnel rules for the Department of Homeland Security and held up the legislation shortly before the 2002 midterms over the issue, he became a critic of the party’s leadership. Miller saw this as placing the priorities of an interest group (federal employees) over the priority of national security. He blamed the results of the 2002 midterm on the Democratic Senate leadership, stating, “When you bring it down to whether you are for homeland security or for protecting federal employees’ jobs, that is pretty hard to defend” and blamed repeated votes on the issue for the defeats of Max Cleland (D-Ga.) and Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.) (Preston). Miller had campaigned for the former’s reelection. After the 2002 midterms, his record shifted strongly to the right. In 2004, Miller announced that he would not be running for a full term. This freed him to do what he wanted, including introducing a Constitutional amendment repealing the 17^th Amendment (direct election of senators) as he believed this lessened the power of states in favor of the federal government. Miller’s separation from the national Democratic Party was complete with his endorsement of George W. Bush. This time, he was a keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention. Miller delivered yet another strong speech,

“Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.

And, our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag” (Presidential Rhetoric).

He was also staunchly critical of Senator John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) voting record on defense issues, as he had a history of voting for defense cuts. During his speech, he told the audience, “This is the man who wants to be the commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces? U.S. forces armed with what? Spitballs?” (Stout). After the speech, reporters started asking him questions. When correspondent Chris Matthews asked him over a microphone to elaborate on the “spitballs” remark, Miller snapped, “Do you know what a metaphor is? Get out of my face!” and subsequently stated, “I wish we lived in the day when we could challenge someone to a duel,” but expressed regret for the remark (Stout).

Despite his endorsement of Bush, as noted earlier, Miller never switched parties, always seeing the Democratic Party as his home. He made the direct comparison when asked about why he didn’t switch, stating, “I compare it to being in an old house. It’s a house that I’ve lived in for years that’s getting kind of drafty and hard to heat. The plumbing won’t work, and some strangers have moved into the basement, and I don’t know who they are, and there’s no doubt I would be more comfortable in another house. But, you see, I was here first. I’ve lived in this house for years and years. It’s home, and I’m not going to leave” (Stout). With his departure from the Senate on January 3, 2005, was the departure of the last true conservative Democrat of the Senate in this author’s opinion. Miller sided with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action only 23% of the time, while he sided with the American Conservative Union 71% of the time. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.146, which is extremely high for a Democrat. Miller’s storied political life and the various stances he took over his career led some to call him “Zigzag Zell”, and this reflected the mixed feelings people in the Georgia Democratic Party had about him at the end. His successor, interestingly enough, was Johnny Isakson, the man he bested in 1990. President Bush subsequently appointed him to the American Battle Monuments Commission, and in 2008 the University of Georgia honored him by dedicating the Zell B. Miller Learning Center (Grant).

Although in retirement from elective office, Miller did still let his opinions be known, and often supported Republican candidates for public office, such as Saxby Chambliss for reelection to the Senate in 2008 and Governor Nathan Deal. However, he did support Democrats now and again, such as Michelle Nunn in her 2014 Senate run. In 2017, Miller retired from public life due to a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and died the next year on March 23^rd at 86 in Young Harris. Whatever happened in his life, wherever he politically stood, and whoever he supported, Zell Miller was born a Young Harris Democrat and died a Young Harris Democrat.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Former U.S. Sen. Zell Miller dies at 86; Was 2-term Georgia governor. (2018, March 23). The Florida-Times Union.

Retrieved from

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2018/03/23/former-us-sen-zell-miller-dies-at-86-was-2-term-georgia-governor/12867515007/

Grant, C. (2018, June 4). Zell Miller. New Georgia Encyclopedia.

Retrieved from

https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-politics/zell-miller-1932-2018/

Harris, A. (1980, August 23). Drawlin’ and Brawlin’. The Washington Post.

Retrieved from

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/08/23/drawlin-and-brawlin/636ce4af-b747-40f5-909e-618566f13946/

Miller, Zell Bryan. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/49904/zell-bryan-miller

Preston, M. (2003, February 14). Miller Blames Leaders for ‘02. Roll Call.

Retrieved from

https://rollcall.com/2003/02/14/miller-blames-leaders-for-02/

Speeches from the 2004 Republican National Convention: Zell Miller. (2004, September 1). Presidential Rhetoric.

Retrieved from

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/campaign/rncspeeches/miller.html

Stout, D. (2018, March 23). Zell Miller, Feisty Democrat Who Sided With G.O.P., Is Dead at 86. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

At one time, California Republicans were of great significance; Hiram Johnson was a celebrated leader of the progressive faction of the Republican Party and nationally known for his role in defeating the Versailles Treaty, Richard Nixon was from California, and Ronald Reagan’s political career began in California. As late as 2023, a California Republican had a leadership role, Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Another figure of significance, although not as well known as Nixon or Reagan, was William Fife Knowland (1908-1974), who was one of the foremost figures of Washington at the height of his power.

Knowland’s birth as well as how his father, J.R. Knowland, regarded him set him up for a career in politics. The elder Knowland had been a member of Congress in the conservative faction of the party from the Roosevelt to Wilson Administrations representing Oakland (different time, different Oakland). J.R. also was a mentor to Earl Warren, who would diverge considerably from conservative politics with time. From his youth, the younger Knowland was an active player in California politics, serving in the State Assembly from 1933 to 1935 and the State Senate from 1935 to 1939. In 1942, at the age of 34, he joined the army; he and his father’s newspaper, the Oakland Tribune, for which he worked as assistant publisher, had supported the peacetime draft law and he figured that if he supported such a policy that he should live it for the duration of the war.

After Senator Hiram Johnson died in 1945, Warren approached J.R. Knowland about a temporary Senate appointment, but he declined and recommended his son. Interestingly, Knowland learned of his appointment by the reading the Stars and Stripes newspaper; his wife Helen had attempted to call him to tell him about his appointment, but her call was turned down by military censors as “not essential government business” (Hill). The army honorably discharged him and sent him to Washington to serve.

Although Knowland would develop a public reputation as a conservative, in his first years in the Senate he was politically moderate. Indeed, when appointed, he publicly identified himself as a “liberal Republican pointed toward national social programs and business stability and international cooperation based on a non-partisan approach to foreign policy” (Montgomery and Johnson, 53). He demonstrated his willingness by backing President Truman’s Full Employment bill in 1945, which would be signed into law but in a compromised form the following year. He was, however, fiscally conservative, and was concerned about the accumulation of debt (Montgomery and Johnson, 67). Knowland’s warnings on debt have since been largely unheeded by both parties. In 1950, Knowland, a strong supporter of authority of states, sponsored an amendment to that year’s Social Security bill restricting the authority of the Social Security Administrator to require states to adopt federal standards for unemployment compensation, requiring a 90 day notice for noncompliance findings and required judicial review before funds could be withheld from states. The amendment was adopted as part of that year’s legislation. Bill Knowland was also not what we would think of as a politician temperamentally, he was humorless, not charismatic, and had a tendency not to remember people he had previously met. However, he was also highly principled, and indeed the integrity of his public life is unblemished. However, Knowland’s private life was a different story. Although he and his wife Helen loved each other, both had extra-marital affairs. They had married very young and hadn’t had a chance to “sow their wild oats”. Helen conducted an affair with journalist and later senator Blair Moody, while Knowland had an affair with Moody’s wife, Ruth.

In 1952, Knowland faithfully backed fellow Californian and family friend Earl Warren for the Republican nomination for president. Richard Nixon was also supposed to be a backer of Warren, but he double-crossed Warren by working behind the scenes to get the California delegation to flip to Eisenhower on key procedural votes during the Republican National Convention, thus securing his nomination (Farrell). Knowland himself had received an offer for an arrangement from Taft which he declined, most likely meaning a vice president nomination in exchange getting California’s delegates to his side. Had Knowland acted before Nixon, he would have secured the nomination for Taft. And since Taft died on July 31, 1953, we would have had President Knowland. This demonstrates that principles in politics can come at a cost. Earl Warren, however, would get a pretty substantial consolation prize with the advocacy of Knowland: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. During the Eisenhower presidency, he increasingly identified with the conservative wing, particularly once he succeeded Taft as Senate Republican leader, and voted against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s censure in 1954. Although not a slavish devotee of his, indeed Knowland had voted against his pushes to reject Charles Bohlen’s nomination as Ambassador to Russia as well as reducing aid to nations trading with Red China in 1953 and objected to his breaches of Senatorial decorum, he nonetheless thought that McCarthy’s prime sin was exaggeration as opposed to the validity of his crusade. He reflected on McCarthy in 1970, “…one of Joe McCarthy’s liabilities was a tendency to overstate his case. I think he hurt himself a good deal by this overstating his case, and he offended a lot of Republican senators by some of the statements he made” and further stated, “I haven’t agreed with Senator Fulbright on the way he performed either during the Eisenhower Administration or during the Johnson Administration, or even currently. But he was a senator of the United States, and I really resented when McCarthy got up on the floor and referred to him as Senator Halfbright. I mean, it was this kind of a thing, you know, that just isn’t done” (Frantz, 21).

As a leader, Knowland was not as skilled as Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson, who often got the better of him. As veteran journalist William S. White noted, “Knowland was very inflexible and not one-tenth as bright as Johnson in maneuvers and so on. So Johnson took care that he always maintained a very close personal relationship with Knowland, so that he could approach him at any time. He really just sort of overwhelmed Knowland with his brilliance as a leader” but also added that, “It only meant that he was a more intuitive man, operating with more freedom of motion in a more relaxed party. To put it another way, the stiffness of Knowland, an honorable and very down-right man quite incapable of subtlety, had a kind of inevitability in the very nature of his party. The flexible, inventive, more volatile characteristics of Johnson were in a sense really the human characteristics of his party” (Montgomery and Johnson, 140-141). President Eisenhower also noted Knowland’s deficit in leadership. He wrote in his diary on January 18, 1954, “Knowland means to be helpful and loyal, but he is cumbersome. He does not have the sharp mind and the great experience that Taft did. Consequently, he does not command the respect in the Senate that Senator Taft enjoyed” (Montgomery and Johnson, 150-151). While Knowland was without question a man of integrity in his public actions, his leadership deficiencies precluded moving higher. Interestingly, something that also connects to today is Knowland’s recounting of himself and other members of the Republican Senate leadership trying to convince President Eisenhower to replace some of Truman’s people in government departments, which he would not budge on as he did not want to be seen as attacking the civil service (Frantz, 24-25). Republican presidents since have been more friendly to the views of Knowland and other Republican bigwigs in the need to build up the party. Although Eisenhower had his differences with Knowland and others in the Republican leadership, Knowland rejected the interpretation that Eisenhower was ideologically closer to Democratic leader Lyndon B. Johnson than the GOP (Frantz, 29). In 1957, he sponsored an unsuccessful amendment retaining the restriction on bartering of commodities for communist nations, in keeping with his anti-communist stance. In 1958, Knowland successfully introduced an amendment blocking liberalization of the Battle Act as an amendment to foreign aid legislation to permit aid to communist nations aside from the USSR, China, and North Korea. Consistent with his views on unions, he also sponsored two unsuccessful secret ballot amendments to that year’s proposed labor reform bill.

Knowland and Civil Rights

After the decision of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), legislative action was bound to follow. In 1956, the House passed an Eisenhower Administration-backed civil rights bill, which focused on voting rights. Knowland and Majority Leader Johnson wanted to hold off on civil rights until after the election, and all but five senators agreed. In 1957, Knowland backed the Eisenhower Administration bill fully, and managed to bypass the Senate Judiciary Committee to bring it to the floor. The committee was chaired by James Eastland (D-Miss.), one of the most prominent and outspoken segregationists who made the committee a graveyard for civil rights bills. However, Knowland did not prevail in his effort to prevent weakening amendments, most notably striking the section of the bill granting the Attorney General authority to initiate 14^th Amendment lawsuits and the adoption of a jury trial provision for contempt of court voting rights cases. Majority Leader Johnson had prevailed in the adoption of the latter two, which resulted in passage of the bill, as the Southern bloc had agreed not to have a coordinated filibuster if these weakening amendments were added. Johnson got a good deal of credit for securing the passage of the first civil rights bill, which also cemented him as a national rather than regional figure and made him a presidential contender.

Knowland atop an elephant during the 1958 Senate campaign.

Defeat and After

I have already covered the story of Knowland and the 1958 election, so long story short, he lost the gubernatorial election badly to Pat Brown in a deeply troubled campaign, and this ended his political career. Knowland sided with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 31% of the time, and the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 77% of the time, both measures indicating a moderate conservatism. His DW-Nominate score is a 0.227. Knowland’s political career was over at the age of 50, and he resumed publishing, succeeding his father as publisher for the Oakland Tribune.

Although Helen Knowland’s extra-marital activities had ended with Blair Moody’s death in 1954, Bill’s affair with Ruth lasted until her death in 1961, and he continued to have affairs after. Finally, in 1972, the couple divorced so Bill could marry a much younger woman. However, she was a tempestuous woman, a full-blown alcoholic, and addicted to spending. This, combined with Knowland’s gambling addiction drained the family fortune. By 1974, Knowland was over $900,000 (over $5 million in today’s money) in debt to banks and mobsters. He considered selling the Oakland Tribune, but he ended up landing on a different course of action. On the morning of February 23, 1974, Knowland drove up to his compound in Guerneville, got his gun, went to his pier on the Russian River, and fired a shot into his right temple, dying instantly at the age of 65.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Farrell, J.A. (2017, March 21). Richard Nixon’s Ugly, 30-Year Feud with Earl Warren. Smithsonian Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-story-richard-nixons-ugly-30-year-feud-earl-warren-180962614/

Frantz, J.B. (1970, March 23). Oral history transcript, William F. Knowland, interview 1 (I). LBJ Presidential Library.

Retrieved from

https://discoverlbj.org/item/oh-knowlandw-19700323-1-00-05

Knowland, William Fife. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5343/william-fife-knowland

Montgomery, G.B. & Johnson, J.W. (1998). One step from the White House: the rise and fall of Senator William F. Knowland. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Retrieved from

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4k4005jq;chunk.id=0;doc.view=print