Styles Bridges

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Henry Styles Bridges


In office
January 3, 1937 – November 26, 1961
Preceded by Henry W. Keyes
Succeeded by Maurice J. Murphy, Jr.

Chairman of the
Senate Republican Policy Committee
In office
January 3, 1955 – November 26, 1961
Preceded by Homer S. Ferguson
Succeeded by Bourke B. Hickenlooper

President Pro Tempore of
the United States Senate
In office
January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955
Preceded by Kenneth McKellar
Succeeded by Walter F. George

Leader of the Senate Republican Conference
In office
January 3, 1949 – November 29, 1951
Preceded by Kenneth S. Wherry
Succeeded by Robert A. Taft

Chairman of the
Senate Appropriations Committee
In office
January 3, 1947 – January 3, 1949
Preceded by Kenneth McKellar
Succeeded by Kenneth McKellar

In office
January 8, 1952 – January 3, 1953
Preceded by Kenneth S. Wherry
Succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson

In office
January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937
Preceded by John Gilbert Winant
Succeeded by Francis P. Murphy

Born September 9, 1898
West Pembroke, Maine, USA
Died November 26, 1961
(aged 63)
East Concord, New Hampshire
Resting place Pine Grove Cemetery in East Concord
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Sally Clement Bridges (married 1928–1938, her death)

(2) Doloris Thauwald Bridges (married 1944–1961, his death)

Alma mater University of Maine
at Orono (BA)

Military Service
Allegiance United States
Service/branch United States Army Reserve Corps
Years of service 1925–1937
Rank Lieutenant

Henry Styles Bridges, known as Styles Bridges (September 9, 1898 – November 26, 1961), was a Republican governor of New Hampshire from 1935 to 1937 and a United States Senator from 1937 until his death in office.

Background

Bridges was born in West Pembroke in Washington County in southeastern Maine, the son of the former Alina Roxanna Fisher and Earle Leopold Bridges. He attended public schools in Maine and attended until 1918 the University of Maine at Orono. Afterwards, he held a variety of jobs, including teaching, newspaper editing, business, and government. For a year, he was an instructor at Sanderson Academy in Ashfield, Massachusetts. He was a member of the extension staff of the University of New Hampshire at Durham from 1921 until 1922. He was the secretary of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation from 1922 until 1923, and he edited the Granite Monthly magazine from 1924 until 1926. Meanwhile, he worked in the financial services industry from 1924 until 1929 and served on the New Hampshire Public Service Commission from 1930 until 1934.[1]

Political career

In 1934, Bridges was elected as the nation's youngest governor at that time and served a single two-year term prior to entering the U.S. Senate. In 1937, he retired from the United States Army Reserve Corps, in which he had served as a lieutenant since 1925. In 1940, he attempted to win the Republican presidential nomination, which instead went on the sixth ballot by Moderate Republican Wendell Willkie. After losing the presidential nod, he obtained two delegates for the Republican vice-presidential nomination, which eventually went to another Moderate Republican, Charles Linza McNary (1874–1944) of Oregon, who ran opposite Senator Harry Truman. Bridges broke his hip on December 31, 1941, and missed several months of the next Senate session.

Bridges was reelected in 1942, 1948, 1954, and 1960, but he served less than a year of his final term because of his death from a heart attack. He became the highest-ranking Republican senator, serving as chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation when the Republicans had control of the upper chamber. For a year, he was the Senate Minority Leader. In 1954, he was one of twenty-senators, all Republicans, who voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who exposed communist infiltration of the U.S. government.[2]

He voted present on the Civil Rights Act of 1957[3] but supported the 1960 version of the law.[4]Both measures were signed into law by then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1954, Bridges and his allies, Joseph McCarthy and Herman Welker of Idaho, were implicated along with McCarty and Senator Herman Welker of Idaho in the blackmail of Democratic colleague Lester C. Hunt of Wyoming, who like Bridges was a former governor of his state. Bridges threatened to expose Hunt's son as a homosexual who was found guilty of having solicited an undercover police officer. Following the threats of Bridges and Welker, Hunt resigned from the Senate but subsequently committed suicide in his Capitol office on June 19, 1954. Bridges' involvement in the blackmail much later caused The Boston Globe to reconsider the honors afforded to Bridges, including Interstate 93 from Concord to the Vermont is named in his honor. Along that highway was the "Old Man of the Mountain," which many in the Granite State equated to Bridges.[5]

Bridges is interred along with his wives at Pine Grove Cemetery in East Concord, New Hampshire.[1]

Referemces

  1. 1.0 1.1 Henry Styles Bridges. findagrave.com. Retrieved on March 3, 2021.
  2. U.S. Senate Congressional Record, roll call vote on Senate Resolution 301, December 2, 1954.
  3. HR. 6127: The Civil Rights Act of 1957. govtrack (August 7, 1957). Retrieved on March 3, 2021.
  4. HR 8601: Passage of amended bill. govtrack (April 8, 1960). Retrieved on March 3, 2021.
  5. N.H. should reassess legacy of Senator Styles Bridges. The Boston Globe (December 29, 2012). Retrieved on March 3, 2021.

External links

  • Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
  • Profile at Britannica