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Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder | name=George Harrison Bender | nationality=Czech-American | image=George Bender of OH.jpg | office=United States Senator for..."
{{Infobox officeholder
| name=George Harrison Bender
| nationality=[[Czech]]-[[United States|American]]
| image=George Bender of OH.jpg
| office=[[United States Senator]] for [[Ohio]]
| party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
| term_start=December 16, 1954
| term_end =January 3, 1957
| preceded =Thomas A. Burke (interim for [[Robert A. Taft]])
| succeeded=[[Frank Lausche]]
| office2=[[U.S. Representative]] from Ohio<br> (at-large, later District 23, since disbanded)
| term_start2=January 3, 1939
| term_end2=January 3, 1949
| preceded2=John McSweeney
| term_start3=January 3, 1951
| term_end3=December 15, 1954
| preceded3=Stephen M. Young
| succeeded3=William Edwin Minshall, Jr.
| birth_date=September 29, 1896
| birth_place=[[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]], Ohio]]
| death_date=June 18, 1961 (aged 64)
| death_place=Chagrin Falls, Cuyahoga County, Ohio
| resting_place=Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights in Cuyahoga County
| spouse=Clara Edna Eckhardt Bender (married 1920-1961, his death)
| children=Barbara B. Stevenson<br>
Virginia B. Bartlett
| religion=[[Methodist]
|alma_mater=West Commerce High School in Cleveland]}}
'''George Harrison Bender''' (September 29, 1896 – June 18, 1961) was a [[Republican Party|Republican]] [[politician]] from his native [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]], [[Ohio]]. He served in the [[United States House of Representatives]] from 1939 to 1949 and 1951 to 1954, the last term in the former District 23. He was a [[United States Senator]] from 1954 to 1957 but lost the 1956 [[general election]] to maverick [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] [[Frank Lausche]]<ref name=findagrave>George Harrison Bender (1896-1961) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref><ref name=gtrack>George Bender, former Senator for Ohio - GovTrack.us, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref>
==Background==
Of [[Czech]] descent, Bender was the son of Joseph Bender, an employee of [[General Electric]], and the former Anna Šírová (1866-1933). He graduated in 1914 from West Commerce High School in Cleveland.<ref>Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech-American Biography, Volume 1
by Miloslav Rechcigl Jr.</ref>
As a fifteen-year-old, he developed political awareness and collected in 1912 ten thousand signatures on a petition urging former president [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to seek a third term as president; this was several decades prior to adoption of the [[Twenty-Second Amendment]] to the [[United States Constitution]], which bars a president for more than two elected terms but permits another two years of a nonelected term. Bender personally presented the petition to Roosevelt, who replied in kind with news that he would indeed challenge an Ohioan, incumbent [[William Howard Taft]], who was seeking a second term. Taft won the nomination despite losing all six of the then presidential [[primary|primaries]]. In the general election, Roosevelt and Taft both lost the general election to [[Woodrow Wilson]], but had they been united, they would have defeated Wilson, then the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[governor]] of [[New Jersey]]. Though he was briefly a member of the Progressive Party, Bender began to campaign for Republicans thereafter.
In 1920, he wed the former Clara Edna Eckhardt; they had two daughters, Barbara B. Stevenson (1923-2005), the wife of Ernest B. Stevenson (1922-2004), and Virginia B. Bartlet, the widow of Brigadier General Dorsey Joseph "Joe" Bartlett.<ref>Gen Dorsey Joseph “Joe” Bartlett (1926-2013) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 20, 2021.</ref> Though his passion was politics, he worked at various jobs in the private sector, including a stint as the manager of the Cleveland Stadium.<ref name=findagrave/>
==Political career==
In 1920, as a Republican, he became the youngest person to win a seat in the Ohio State Senate up until that time. He held the seat for ten years. He pushed unsuccessfully for the introduction of teacher tenure. Initially a strong supporter of [[Prohibition]], he quickly changed his mind after police based on an anonymous tip raided his Cleveland home in search of unfound illegal liquor. Bender advocated for the [[21st Amendment]] to the Constitution, which ended national prohibition in 1933, but it permits individual states to decide the issue for themselves. In 1934, he founded and edited ''The National Republican'' and ''The Ohio Republican'' [[magazine]]s, which he edited and published.<ref name=findagrave/>
On his fifth attempt, Bender was elected in 1938, a year somewhat favorable to Republicans, to the U.S. House. He was reelected until 1948, a Democrat electoral year coinciding with President [[Harry Truman]]'s victory in Ohio. In 1950, he regained the seat in 1950 and held it for four more years. Representative Bender opposed President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in both foreign and domestic policies but did support a few [[New Deal]] programs, such as the [[Works Progress Administration]], a temporary humanitarian act from his perspective. In the early years of the [[Cold War]], he opposed President [[Harry Truman]]'s [[Marshall Plan]] and [[Truman Doctrine]]. He also opposed direct American aid to [[Greece]] and [[Turkey]], a plan designed to rescue both countries from potential [[communist]] takeover. In 1953, Representative Bender introduced the legislation to grant retroactively statehood for Ohio. Because of a legislative oversight, Ohio's admission in 1803 had not been properly completed.<ref>The Admission of Ohio as a State | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref>}
Bender played a major role in the campaigns to nominate Senator [[Robert A. Taft]],<ref>GEORGE H. BENDER EX-SENATOR, DEAD; Ohio Republican Served 2 Years -- Supporter of Taft - The New York Times (nytimes.com), accessed July 21, 2021.</ref> the son of the man whom the youthful Bender had opposed for renomination in 1912. Taft, however, lost his intraparty campaigns in 1948 and 1952, respectively, to [[Moderate Republican]]s [[Thomas E. Dewey]], the governor of [[New York], and General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Bender was assigned to provide musical entertainment and flamboyant demonstrations on Taft's behalf. Some mocked him as the "Clown Prince." In a 1952 newsreel, Bender addressed more than ten thousand supporters in the Cleveland Auditorium after vice-presidential nominee, Senator [[Richard M. Nixon]] of [[California]], delivered the long-remembered "Checkers speech," which disclaimed that Nixon had used campaign funds for private use. The speech was broadcast on the then new innovation of [[television]].
After Taft's death in 1953, Bender narrowly won the [[special election]] for the vacant Senate seat and served the remaining two years left in the term. After Taft's loss of the nomination, Bender became an avowed supporter of President Eisenhower. He steered away from his earlier isolationist views and supported more direct American involvement abroad, including aid to countries of the former British Empire. In the first eighteen, he missed 13 percent of roll call votes, double the average senator.<ref name=gtrack/>
In 1956, he lost his Senate seat after only two years to Governor Lausche, a popular Cleveland Democrat who carried the backing of many ethnic groups. Bender then worked as a special assistant to the [[United States Secretary of the Interior]], in which capacity he lobbied for the 1959 admission of [[Alaska]] as the 49th state.
In 1958, former Senator Bender was invited by [[Teamsters]] president [[Jimmy Hoffa]] to chair a commission investigating [[racketeering]] in the union. Bender reported that he had found no evidence of racketeering or "gangster" collusion. His two commission colleagues, however, disclaimed any responsibility for that finding. Bender was accused of blocking a 1956 investigation into the Teamsters, but the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management recommended no action against Bender.<ref name=findagrave/>
Bender subsequently lost his bid to be a delegate to the 1960 Republican National Convention, which met in [[Chicago]] to nominate the ticket of Vice President Nixon and former U.S. Senator [[Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.], of [[Massachusetts]]. In 1961, not long before his death at the age of fifty-four, Bender lost a bid for the position of Republican precinct committeeman. He died in Chagrin Falls, a Cleveland [[suburb]]. He is interred at Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.<ref name=findagrave/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bender, George}}
[[Category:Ohio]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Publishers]]
[[Category:Former United States Senators]]
[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:State Senators]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Methodists]]
| name=George Harrison Bender
| nationality=[[Czech]]-[[United States|American]]
| image=George Bender of OH.jpg
| office=[[United States Senator]] for [[Ohio]]
| party=[[Republican Party|Republican]]
| term_start=December 16, 1954
| term_end =January 3, 1957
| preceded =Thomas A. Burke (interim for [[Robert A. Taft]])
| succeeded=[[Frank Lausche]]
| office2=[[U.S. Representative]] from Ohio<br> (at-large, later District 23, since disbanded)
| term_start2=January 3, 1939
| term_end2=January 3, 1949
| preceded2=John McSweeney
| term_start3=January 3, 1951
| term_end3=December 15, 1954
| preceded3=Stephen M. Young
| succeeded3=William Edwin Minshall, Jr.
| birth_date=September 29, 1896
| birth_place=[[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]], Ohio]]
| death_date=June 18, 1961 (aged 64)
| death_place=Chagrin Falls, Cuyahoga County, Ohio
| resting_place=Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights in Cuyahoga County
| spouse=Clara Edna Eckhardt Bender (married 1920-1961, his death)
| children=Barbara B. Stevenson<br>
Virginia B. Bartlett
| religion=[[Methodist]
|alma_mater=West Commerce High School in Cleveland]}}
'''George Harrison Bender''' (September 29, 1896 – June 18, 1961) was a [[Republican Party|Republican]] [[politician]] from his native [[Cleveland, Ohio|Cleveland]], [[Ohio]]. He served in the [[United States House of Representatives]] from 1939 to 1949 and 1951 to 1954, the last term in the former District 23. He was a [[United States Senator]] from 1954 to 1957 but lost the 1956 [[general election]] to maverick [[Democratic Party|Democrat]] [[Frank Lausche]]<ref name=findagrave>George Harrison Bender (1896-1961) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref><ref name=gtrack>George Bender, former Senator for Ohio - GovTrack.us, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref>
==Background==
Of [[Czech]] descent, Bender was the son of Joseph Bender, an employee of [[General Electric]], and the former Anna Šírová (1866-1933). He graduated in 1914 from West Commerce High School in Cleveland.<ref>Encyclopedia of Bohemian and Czech-American Biography, Volume 1
by Miloslav Rechcigl Jr.</ref>
As a fifteen-year-old, he developed political awareness and collected in 1912 ten thousand signatures on a petition urging former president [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to seek a third term as president; this was several decades prior to adoption of the [[Twenty-Second Amendment]] to the [[United States Constitution]], which bars a president for more than two elected terms but permits another two years of a nonelected term. Bender personally presented the petition to Roosevelt, who replied in kind with news that he would indeed challenge an Ohioan, incumbent [[William Howard Taft]], who was seeking a second term. Taft won the nomination despite losing all six of the then presidential [[primary|primaries]]. In the general election, Roosevelt and Taft both lost the general election to [[Woodrow Wilson]], but had they been united, they would have defeated Wilson, then the [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[governor]] of [[New Jersey]]. Though he was briefly a member of the Progressive Party, Bender began to campaign for Republicans thereafter.
In 1920, he wed the former Clara Edna Eckhardt; they had two daughters, Barbara B. Stevenson (1923-2005), the wife of Ernest B. Stevenson (1922-2004), and Virginia B. Bartlet, the widow of Brigadier General Dorsey Joseph "Joe" Bartlett.<ref>Gen Dorsey Joseph “Joe” Bartlett (1926-2013) - Find A Grave Memorial, accessed July 20, 2021.</ref> Though his passion was politics, he worked at various jobs in the private sector, including a stint as the manager of the Cleveland Stadium.<ref name=findagrave/>
==Political career==
In 1920, as a Republican, he became the youngest person to win a seat in the Ohio State Senate up until that time. He held the seat for ten years. He pushed unsuccessfully for the introduction of teacher tenure. Initially a strong supporter of [[Prohibition]], he quickly changed his mind after police based on an anonymous tip raided his Cleveland home in search of unfound illegal liquor. Bender advocated for the [[21st Amendment]] to the Constitution, which ended national prohibition in 1933, but it permits individual states to decide the issue for themselves. In 1934, he founded and edited ''The National Republican'' and ''The Ohio Republican'' [[magazine]]s, which he edited and published.<ref name=findagrave/>
On his fifth attempt, Bender was elected in 1938, a year somewhat favorable to Republicans, to the U.S. House. He was reelected until 1948, a Democrat electoral year coinciding with President [[Harry Truman]]'s victory in Ohio. In 1950, he regained the seat in 1950 and held it for four more years. Representative Bender opposed President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in both foreign and domestic policies but did support a few [[New Deal]] programs, such as the [[Works Progress Administration]], a temporary humanitarian act from his perspective. In the early years of the [[Cold War]], he opposed President [[Harry Truman]]'s [[Marshall Plan]] and [[Truman Doctrine]]. He also opposed direct American aid to [[Greece]] and [[Turkey]], a plan designed to rescue both countries from potential [[communist]] takeover. In 1953, Representative Bender introduced the legislation to grant retroactively statehood for Ohio. Because of a legislative oversight, Ohio's admission in 1803 had not been properly completed.<ref>The Admission of Ohio as a State | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives, accessed July 21, 2021.</ref>}
Bender played a major role in the campaigns to nominate Senator [[Robert A. Taft]],<ref>GEORGE H. BENDER EX-SENATOR, DEAD; Ohio Republican Served 2 Years -- Supporter of Taft - The New York Times (nytimes.com), accessed July 21, 2021.</ref> the son of the man whom the youthful Bender had opposed for renomination in 1912. Taft, however, lost his intraparty campaigns in 1948 and 1952, respectively, to [[Moderate Republican]]s [[Thomas E. Dewey]], the governor of [[New York], and General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]. Bender was assigned to provide musical entertainment and flamboyant demonstrations on Taft's behalf. Some mocked him as the "Clown Prince." In a 1952 newsreel, Bender addressed more than ten thousand supporters in the Cleveland Auditorium after vice-presidential nominee, Senator [[Richard M. Nixon]] of [[California]], delivered the long-remembered "Checkers speech," which disclaimed that Nixon had used campaign funds for private use. The speech was broadcast on the then new innovation of [[television]].
After Taft's death in 1953, Bender narrowly won the [[special election]] for the vacant Senate seat and served the remaining two years left in the term. After Taft's loss of the nomination, Bender became an avowed supporter of President Eisenhower. He steered away from his earlier isolationist views and supported more direct American involvement abroad, including aid to countries of the former British Empire. In the first eighteen, he missed 13 percent of roll call votes, double the average senator.<ref name=gtrack/>
In 1956, he lost his Senate seat after only two years to Governor Lausche, a popular Cleveland Democrat who carried the backing of many ethnic groups. Bender then worked as a special assistant to the [[United States Secretary of the Interior]], in which capacity he lobbied for the 1959 admission of [[Alaska]] as the 49th state.
In 1958, former Senator Bender was invited by [[Teamsters]] president [[Jimmy Hoffa]] to chair a commission investigating [[racketeering]] in the union. Bender reported that he had found no evidence of racketeering or "gangster" collusion. His two commission colleagues, however, disclaimed any responsibility for that finding. Bender was accused of blocking a 1956 investigation into the Teamsters, but the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management recommended no action against Bender.<ref name=findagrave/>
Bender subsequently lost his bid to be a delegate to the 1960 Republican National Convention, which met in [[Chicago]] to nominate the ticket of Vice President Nixon and former U.S. Senator [[Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.], of [[Massachusetts]]. In 1961, not long before his death at the age of fifty-four, Bender lost a bid for the position of Republican precinct committeeman. He died in Chagrin Falls, a Cleveland [[suburb]]. He is interred at Knollwood Cemetery in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.<ref name=findagrave/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bender, George}}
[[Category:Ohio]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Publishers]]
[[Category:Former United States Senators]]
[[Category:Former United States Representatives]]
[[Category:State Senators]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Methodists]]