Guy Gillette (politician)

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Guy Mark Gillette​

In office
November 4, 1936​ – January 3, 1945​
Preceded by Richard L. Murphy​
Succeeded by Bourke Hickenlooper​
In office
January 3, 1949​ – January 3, 1955​
Preceded by George Allison Wilson
Succeeded by Thomas Ellsworth Martin
U.S. Representative for Iowa's former 9th Congressional District​
In office
March 4, 1933​ – November 3, 1936​
Preceded by Charles Edward Swanson​
Succeeded by Vincent F. Harrington​
Iowa State Senator
In office
1912–1916
Born February 3, 1879}​
Cherokee, Cherokee County, Iowa​
Died March 3, 1973 (aged 94)​
Cherokee, Iowa​
Resting place Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee
Political party Democrat​
Spouse(s) Rose Freeman Gillette
Children Mark Freeman Gillette

Parents:
Mark Daniel and Mary Hull Gillette

Alma mater Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa
Occupation Attorney; Farmer
Religion Presbyterian
Military Service
Allegiance United States
Service/branch United States Army
Rank Sergeant
For the American photographer, see Guy Gillette (photographer).

Guy Mark Gillette (February 3, 1879 – March 3, 1973) was a Democrat U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Iowa known particularly for his disagreements with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[1] ​

Background

A native of Cherokee in Cherokee County in northwestern Iowa, he was one of at least four children of Mark Daniel Gillette (1853–1936) and the former Mary Hull (1854–1932). He was married to the former Rose Freeman (1880–1956), and the couple had a son, Mark Freeman Gillette (1929–2013).[1]

In 1900, Gillette graduated from the law school at Drake University in the capital city of Des Moines.[2]

Political career

Upon his return from non-combat service in the United States Army during the five-month Spanish–American War, Gillette engaged in farming and for a year was the city attorney for Cherokee and then for two years the Cherokee County prosecuting attorney. He was a state senator from 1912 to 1916. In 1932, Gillette was elected to Iowa's since disbanded 9th congressional district in a heavily Republican area. In 1934, he won reelection in another strongly Democratic year but resigned before the expiration of his House term upon his victory in a special election to the U.S. Senate.[1]

U.S. Senate

Though he had initially voted for much of the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt marked Gillette for defeat when the Iowan opposed some programs[3] and joined a bipartisan Senate majority in opposition to Roosevelt's failed court packing scheme, a plan to add new as many as six new liberal justices on the United States Supreme Court.[4] Roosevelt, however, was rebuffed as Gillette defeated Otha D. Wearlin,[5] the president's primary preference. During his first full term beginning in 1937, Senator Gillette's differences with Roosevelt became more apparent. He opposed third and fourth terms for FDR, as had Roosevelt's first Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas.[6]

Gillette opposed efforts by the majority of Senate Democrats (both Northern and Southern) in 1937 to kill the anti-lynching rider amendments that year introduced by his conservative Democrat colleague Royal S. Copeland.[7][8]

Gillette's brother, Captain Claude Sexton Gillette (1886–1959), was in charge of the naval yard at the time of the Japanese attack in 1941 on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After the attack, Gillette became less isolationist in his foreign policy views.[2] In 1943, Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), a British man of letters, wrote a confidential analysis for the British Foreign Office of the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Gillette served. Berlin described Gillette as a typical midwestern senator:[9]​

“ ...with a moderately steady Isolationist voting record, although he is not an articulate opponent of the administration's policy. … 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. ... On foreign policy he is not a bigoted anti-Rooseveltite but is exceedingly uncertain. ”

Gillette was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment before the effort gained increased traction several decades later. He lost his bid for a second full Senate term in 1944 to the Republican Governor Bourke Hickenlooper.[10][11] Despite their differences, President Roosevelt nominated Gillette to be the chairman of the Surplus Property Board, but Gillette soon left the post the month after Roosevelt's death. He proceeded to join the American League for a Free Palestine.

He returned to the U.S. Senate for a third full term in January 1949, having unseated George A. Wilson (1884–1953), a Republican former governor and U.S. Senator.[12]

In 1951, Gillette chaired a subcommittee which investigated campaign practices of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who exposed communist subversion of the United States State Department and the U.S. Army.[2] Along with the majority of Democrats in addition to half of the Republicans, he voted in favor of the Senate censure against McCarthy.[13] Gillette was again unseated, unexpectedly, in 1954 by the Republican U.S. representative Thomas E. Martin (1893–1971) of Iowa City.[14][15] With Gillette's defeat, every Iowa seat in Congress was in Republican hands, a feat that the GOP has yet to match.​

Later years

After leaving the Senate, Gillette served as counsel with the Senate Post Office and Civil Service Committee (1955–1956) and the Senate Judiciary Committee (1956–1961).[2]

Gillette spent his later years back in Cherokee, where he died in 1973 at the age of ninety-four.[16] He, his wife Rose, and their son are interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee.[1] Gillette's parents are interrred at Riverside Cemetery in Crete in Saline County, Nebraska.[17] His brother Claude is interred at Maple Grove Cemetery in Bath, Maine, the hometown of his second wife.[18]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Guy Gillette. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on June 9, 2020.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Gillette, Guy Mark (1879–1973). Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on June 9, 2020.
  3. ↑ The Purge – FDR Edition. Fascinating Politics. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  4. ↑ "Time Magazine, June 13, 1938.
  5. ↑ IA US Senate - D Primary. Our Campaigns. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  6. ↑ Time Magazine, July 24, 1939.
  7. ↑ TO TABLE AN AMENDMENT TO S. 69, THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT. THE AMEND. OFFERED BY SENATOR COPELAND WHICH WOULD HAVE ADDED HOUSE BILL 1507, THE ANTILYNCHING BILL, TO S. 69, A BILL LIMITING THE SIZE OF TRAINS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  8. ↑ TO TABLE AN AMENDMENT TO S. 2475. OFFERED BY SENATOR COPELAND WHICH WOULD HAVE ADDED THE ANTILYNCHING BILL AS PERFECTED BY THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY TO THE PENDING LEGISLATION.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  9. ↑ Thomas E. Hachey (Winter 1973–1974). "American Profiles on Capitol Hill: A Confidential Study for the British Foreign Office in 1943". Wisconsin Magazine of History 57 (2): 141–153. https://web.archive.org/web/20131021185357/http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/published_works/singles/bib139a/bib139a.pdf. Retrieved June 9, 2020. 
  10. ↑ "The New Senate, Time Magazine, November 13, 1944.
  11. ↑ IA US Senate. Our Campaigns. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  12. ↑ IA US Senate. Our Campaigns. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
  13. ↑ S. RES. 301. PASSAGE.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  14. ↑ "Gillette is Upset, GOP wins State," Waterloo Daily Courier, November 3, 1954, pp. 1-2.
  15. ↑ IA US Senate. Our Campaigns. Retrieved May 23, 2021.
  16. ↑ Whitman, Alden (March 4, 1973). Ex‐Senator Guy Gillette Dead; Iowan, 94, in Congress 18 Years. The New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2021.
  17. ↑ Mark Daniel Gillette. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on June 9, 2020.
  18. ↑ Claude Sexton Gillette. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on June 9, 2020.

External links

  • Biography at The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa
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