- Paul Douglas
Infobox Senator |name=Paul Howard Douglass
nationality=American
jr/sr=United States Senator
state=Illinois
party=Democratic
term_start=January 3, 1949
term_end=January 3, 1967
preceded=Charles W. Brooks
succeeded=Charles H. Percy
date of birth=birth date|1892|3|26|mf=y
place of birth=Salem, Massachusetts
dead=dead
date of death=death date and age|1976|9|24|1892|3|26|mf=y
place of death=Washington, D.C.
spouse=Dorothy Wolff Douglas , divorcedEmily Taft Douglas , deceased
profession=Economist
religion=Quaker
Served Alongside=Everett Dirksen Paul Howard Douglas (March 26, 1892 – September 24, 1976) was an American politician and
University of Chicago economist. He served as a Democratic U.S. Senator fromIllinois from 1949 to 1967.Early years
Douglas was born on March 26, 1892 in the small town of
Salem, Massachusetts . When he was four, his mother died of natural causes and his father remarried. His father was an abusive husband and his stepmother, unable to obtain adivorce , left her husband and took Douglas and his older brother toOnawa, Maine inPiscataquis County , where her brother and uncle had built a resort in the woods.Academia and family life
Douglas graduated from
Bowdoin College with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1913. He then moved on toColumbia University , where he earned amaster's degree in 1915 and a Ph.D. ineconomics in 1921. In 1915, he married Dorothy Wolff, a graduate ofBryn Mawr College who also earned a Ph.D. atColumbia University .From 1915 to 1920, the Douglases moved six times. Paul studied at
Harvard University ; taught at the University of Illinois and atOregon 'sReed College , served as a mediator of labor disputes for the Emergency Fleet Corporation ofPennsylvania and taught atUniversity of Washington . When working for the Emergency Fleet Corporation he read John Woolman's journals. When teaching in Seattle, he joined the QuakersReligious Society of Friends .In 1920, Douglas took a job teaching economics at the
University of Chicago . In 1921, he met social reformerJane Addams . Although Douglas enjoyed his job, his wife was unable to obtain a job at the university due to anti-nepotism rules. When she obtained a job atSmith College , she persuaded her husband to move the family to Massachusetts where he taught at theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst . Douglas soon decided that the situation was untenableFact|date=September 2008 and, in 1930, the couple divorced, with Dorothy taking custody of their four children and Douglas returning to Chicago. The following year, Douglas met and marriedEmily Taft Douglas , daughter of sculptor Lorado Taft and distant cousin of former President William Howard Taft. Emily was a political activist, former actress, and subsequent one-term congresswoman at-large from Illinois (1945-47).Government service and city politics
As the 1920s drew to a close, Douglas got more involved in politics. He served as an economic advisor to Republican Governor
Gifford Pinchot ofPennsylvania and Democratic GovernorFranklin D. Roosevelt ofNew York . Along with Chicago lawyerHarold L. Ickes , he launched a campaign againstpublic utility tycoonSamuel Insull 'sstock market manipulations.Fact|date=September 2008 Working with the state legislature, he helped draft laws regulating utilities and establishing old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. By the early 1930s, he was vice chairman of theLeague for Independent Political Action , a member of theFarmer-Labor Party 's national committee, and treasurer of theAmerican Commonwealth Political Federation .A registered Independent, Douglas felt that the Democratic Party was too corrupt and the Republican Party was too reactionary, views that he expressed in a 1932 book, "The Coming of a New Party", in which he called for the creation of a party similar to the British Labour Party.Fact|date=September 2008 That year, he voted for Socialist candidate
Norman Thomas forPresident of the United States .After Roosevelt's victory in the election, Douglas, at the recommendation of his friend Harold Ickes, was appointed to serve on the Consumers' Advisory Board of the
National Recovery Administration . In 1935, however, the Supreme Court ruled that the Administration was unconstitutional and it was abolished.That year, Douglas made his first foray into electoral politics, campaigning for the endorsement of the local Republican Party for
mayor of Chicago . Although the party endorsed someone else, Douglas continued to work with them to get their candidate elected to thecity council from the 5th Ward. A strong Socialist candidate split the reform vote, however, and Democrat James Cusack, a member of the Cook County political machine, was elected.Four years later, in 1939, Cusack came up for re-election, and Douglas joined a group of reform-minded Independents in attempting to select a suitable challenger. The group decided that Douglas was the best candidate for the position and he was summarily drafted. During the election, Mayor Ed Kelly, a leader of the machine who was in a tough fight for re-election, attempted to shore up his reputation by lending his support to Douglas' campaign. With Kelly's help, and his own dogged campaigning, Douglas managed a narrow victory over Cusack in a runoff election.
A reformer on a council full of machine politicians and grafters, Douglas usually found himself in the minority. His attempts to reform the
public education system and lowerpublic transport ation fares were met with derision and he typically ended up on the losing end of 49-1 votes. "I have three degrees," Douglas once said after a particularly close-fought rout. "I have been associated with intelligent and intellectual people for many years. Some of these aldermen haven't gone through the fifth grade. But they're the smartest bunch of bastards I ever saw grouped together."Fact|date=September 2008In 1942, Douglas officially joined the Democratic Party and ran for its nomination for the
United States Senate . He had the support of a cadre of left-wing activists, but the machine supported the state's at-large CongressmanRaymond S. McKeough for the nomination. On the day of the primary, Douglas carried 99 of the state's 102 counties, but McKeough's strong support in Cook County allowed him to win a slim majority. He would go on to lose in the general election to incumbent Republican SenatorCharles W. Brooks .Military service
As alderman, Douglas had worked with Chicago Daily News publisher Frank Knox in fighting corruption in Chicago. Knox, who had been Republican vice-presidential nominee in 1936, had become Secretary of the Navy, thus responsible for both the navy and the marine corps.
Shortly after losing the primary, Douglas resigned from the Chicago City Council and, with the aid of Knox enlisted in the
United States Marine Corps as a private at the age of 50. Promoted to corporal, then to sergeant, Douglas was kept stateside, writing training manuals, and giving inspirational speeches to troops. He was told he was "too old to go overseas 'as an enlisted man'".Fact|date=September 2008 With the aid of Knox, and of Knox assistant Adlai Stevenson, Paul got promoted to officer, and sent to combat in the Pacific with the First Marine Division.On the second day of the
Battle of Peleliu , Captain Douglas finally saw action when his unit waded into the fray. He earned a Bronze Star for carrying ammunition to the front lines under enemy fire and earned his firstPurple Heart when he was grazed by shrapnel while carryingflamethrower ammunition to the front lines.Sledge(1990),p.90] In that six week battle, while investigating some random fire shootings, Douglas was shot at as he uncovered a two-foot-wide cave. He then killed the Japanese soldier inside at which point he wondered whether his enemy might be an economics professor at theUniversity of Tokyo . [Douglas(1972),p.120]A few months later, during the
Battle of Okinawa , Douglas earned his second Purple Heart. A volunteer rifleman in aninfantry platoon, he was helping to carry wounded from3rd Battalion, 5th Marines along theNaha -Shuri line when a burst ofmachine gun fire tore through his left arm, severing the main nerve and leaving it permanently disabled.After a thirteen-month stay in the
National Naval Medical Center atBethesda, Maryland , Douglas was given an honorable discharge as a Lieutenant Colonel with full disability pay.Campaign for the Senate
While Douglas had been serving in the Marines, his wife, Emily, had been nominated to run against isolationist Republican Congressman
Stephen A. Day , who had succeeded Raymond McKeough. Although she had defeated Day in the 1944 election, a Republican upsurge had unseated her in 1946, the same year that Douglas left the Marines.Deciding to enter politics once again, Douglas let it be generally known that he wished to seek the office of
Governor of Illinois in 1948. Cook County machine bossJacob M. Arvey , however, had a different plan. At the time, severalscandal s had broken out over the machine's activities, and Arvey decided that Douglas, a scholar and war hero with a reputation for incorruptibility, would be the perfect nominee to run against Senator Brooks. Since Brooks was hugely popular in the state and had a large campaign warchest, Arvey decide that there was no danger of Douglas winning.Fact|date=September 2008At the outset of the campaign, Douglas' chances looked slim. As a delegate to the
1948 Democratic National Convention , he had tried to draft GeneralDwight D. Eisenhower for President, calling PresidentHarry S. Truman "incompetent."Fact|date=September 2008Douglas, however, proved to be a tenacious campaigner. He stumped across the state in a
Jeep station wagon for theMarshall Plan ,civil rights , repeal of theTaft-Hartley Act , morepublic housing , and moresocial security programs. During six months of non-stop campaigning, he traveled more than convert|40000|mi|km around the state and delivered more than 1,100 speeches. When Senator Brooks refused to debate him, Douglas debated an empty chair, switching from seat to seat as he provided both his own answers and Brooks'.On
Election Day , Douglas won an upset victory, taking 55 percent of the vote and defeating the incumbent by a margin of more than 407,000 votes. President Truman, campaigning for re-election, won the state by a slim 33,600.United States Senator
As a member of the Senate, Douglas soon earned a reputation as an unconventional liberal, concerned as much with fiscal discipline as with passing the
Fair Deal . Although he was a passionate crusader forcivil rights (Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. described him as "the greatest of all the Senators"Fact|date=September 2008), Douglas earned fame as an opponent ofpork barrel spending. Early in his first term, he grabbed headlines when,magnifying glass andatlas in hand, he strode to the Senate floor and, referring to a pork barrel project for the dredging of a river inMaine , defied anyone to find the river in the atlas. When Maine'sOwen Brewster objected, and pointed out the millions of dollars in pork going to Illinois, Douglas offered to cut his state's share by 40%.Appointed to chair the Joint Economic Committee, Douglas led a series of hard-hitting investigations into fiscal mismanagement in government and appeared on the cover of "Time".Fact|date=September 2008 A profile of him in that issue was entitled "The Making of a Maverick."
As the 1952 presidential election approached, a groundswell of support arose for a Douglas candidacy for President. The
National Editorial Association ranked him the second-most-qualified man, after Truman, to receive the Democratic presidential nomination, and a poll of 46 Democratic insiders revealed him to be a favorite for the nomination if Truman stepped aside.Douglas, however, refused to be considered as a candidate for President, and instead backed the candidacy of Senator
Estes Kefauver ofTennessee , a folksy,coonskin cap -wearing populist who had become famous for his televised investigations intoorganized crime . Douglas stumped across the country for Kefauver and stood next to him at the1952 Democratic National Convention when Kefauver was defeated by Illinois GovernorAdlai Stevenson . Four years later, in 1956, he remained publicly neutral, feeling that openly opposing Stevenson's drive for the nomination and supporting Kefauver would damage his standing with his state party.Fact|date=September 2008In addition to his battles for equal rights for
African American s and less pork barrel spending, Douglas was also known for his fights forenvironmental protection ,public housing , andtruth in lending laws. He opposedreal estate redlining , but was forced to allow a 1949 provision in a public housing bill making it possible forsuburb s to reject low-income housing. He also authored the Consumer Credit Protection Act, a bill that forced lenders to state the terms of a loan in plain language and restricted the ability of lenders to discriminate on the basis of gender, race, or income. Although the bill was not passed during his term of office, it became law in 1968.Defeat and retirement
During the 1966 election, Douglas, then 74, ran for a fourth term in office against Republican
Charles H. Percy , a wealthy businessman. A confluence of events, including Douglas' age, unhappiness within the Democratic PartyFact|date=September 2008 over his support for theVietnam War and open housing laws, as well as sympathy for Percy over the recent, unsolved murder of his daughter, caused Douglas to lose the election in an upset.After losing his seat in the Senate, Douglas taught at
the New School , chaired a commission on housing, and wrote books, including anautobiography , "In the Fullness of Time".In the early 1970s, he suffered a
stroke and withdrew from public life. On September 24, 1976, he died at his home. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in Jackson Park near the University of Chicago.Memorial
A memorial marker at the Marine Corps training base at
Parris Island reads:
DOUGLAS VISITORS CENTERin Memory ofSENATOR PAUL H. DOUGLAS1892 ~ 1976 Graduating from Parris Island in 1942 as a 50 year old Private. Mr. Douglas was an inspiration to all. He rose to the rank of Major while serving in the Pacific Theater where he was wounded at Peleliu and Okinawa. Retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. The former economics professor later served as a U.S. Senator from Illinois. By his personal courage, fortitude and leadership, the Honorable Paul H. Douglas demonstrated the personal traits characteristic of Marine leaders. [http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM494G]Notes
ee also
References
*cite book
last = Douglas
first = Paul H.
coauthors =
year = 1972
title = In the Fullness of Time;: The Memoirs of Paul H. Douglas
publisher = Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
location =
id = ISBN 0-15144-376-9Biographical Essay on the University of Chicago www site:www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/phdouglas.html
*cite book
last = Sledge
first = Eugene B.
coauthors =
year = 1990
title = With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
publisher = Oxford University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0-19506-714-2
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