Arthur Capper

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For the housing project in Washington, D.C., see Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg.

Arthur Capper
Henry Allen
Personal details
Born(1865-07-14)July 14, 1865
Garnett, Kansas, U.S.
DiedDecember 19, 1951(1951-12-19) (aged 86)
Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
SpouseFlorence Crawford

Arthur Capper (July 14, 1865 – December 19, 1951) was an American politician from

Topeka Daily Capital.[1]

Life and career

Capper was born in

public schools and learned the art of printing. He became a newspaper publisher, eventually owning several newspapers and two radio stations. The best-known of his publications, Capper's Weekly, had an enormous readership among farm families and served as the base of his political support in Kansas. Capper's continues today as a bimonthly glossy magazine that focuses on rural living.[citation needed
]

Capper first entered politics in 1912 when he became the Republican candidate for governor of Kansas. In addition to a reputation built from his newspapers, he was also the son-in-law of former governor Samuel J. Crawford. He was defeated by Democrat George H. Hodges. However, Capper was elected governor in the next election in 1914 and served as governor of Kansas from 1915 until 1919, winning re-election in 1916. He was the first native Kansan to serve as the state's governor.

Postcard for 1912 campaign for governor

Having served two full terms as governor, Capper was not permitted to run for a third term by the

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
's administration. He did not seek reelection in 1948.

Capper was particularly interested in issues relating to agriculture. Before his time as governor, he served as president of the Board of Regents of

anti-miscegenation provision outlawing mixed-race marriages, but struck out the passage after protest from African-American organizations and stated it was an unnecessary troublemaker. The withdrawal of this section by the Senator was made easier because he himself did not write the bill. It was drawn by the attorney of the American Federation of Women's Clubs.[3]

In April 1943 a confidential analysis by British scholar

Foreign Office
described Capper as:

a solid, stolid, 78-year-old reactionary from the corn belt, who is the very voice of Mid-Western "grass root" isolationism. A newspaper proprietor who was once described as contriving to sit on the fence and keep both ears on the ground at the same time. Like Johnson and Nye, an unwavering opponent of all the Administration's foreign policies, including reciprocal trade.[4]

Capper became chairman of the Senate's Agriculture Committee in 1946; by that point, at the age of 81, he was nearly deaf and his speech was difficult to understand.[5] He joined the Congressional Flying Club in 1947 at the age of 82 and took up flying lessons, as the oldest member of Congress, from Pearle Robinson, part owner of the Hybla Valley Airport just outside of Washington, D.C.[6][7]

After retiring from the Senate, Capper returned to his home in Topeka, Kansas, where he continued in the newspaper publishing business until his death. He was buried in Topeka Cemetery in a plot adjacent to Governor Crawford.

Capper publications

Arthur Capper was the owner of the Capper Building in Topeka, Kansas, and the Capper publications, which over time included the Daily Capital (Topeka, Kansas), the North Topeka Mail, the Kansas Breeze (which later merged with the Mail to form Farmers Mail and Breeze), Missouri Valley Farmer, Capper’s Weekly, Nebraska Farm Journal, Missouri Ruralist, Oklahoma Farmer, and The Household Magazine.[8]

A collection of his correspondences includes two letters of complaint from inmates at Parsons State Hospital.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Arthur Capper of Kansas Dies; Senator 30 Years." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 20, 1951, p. 18.
  2. ^ Paige, Jerome S.; Reuss, Margaret M. (May 1982). Safe, Decent and Affordable: Citizen Struggles to Improve Housing in the District of Columbia, 1890-1982 (Studies in D.C. History and Public Policy, Paper No. 6). Washington, D.C.: University of the District of Columbia, D.C. History and Public Policy Project. p. 5.
  3. ^ "Miscegenation", Time, July 23, 1923
  4. JSTOR 4634869. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on October 21, 2013.
  5. ^ Dirk Johnson and David Herszenhorn, "In South Dakota Race, Gauging the Impact of a Senator's Health", The New York Times, October 23, 2008, page A16.
  6. Newspapers.com Open access icon
    .
  7. Newspapers.com Open access icon
    .
  8. ^ Connelley, William Elsey (2017). History of Kansas newspapers. William Elsey Connelley. p. 44.
  9. ^ "Parsons State Hospital Inmates Complain".

Further reading

  • Socolofsky, Homer. Arthur Capper: Publisher, Politician, and Philanthropist (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press), 1962.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arthur Capper.
Party political offices
Preceded by
Governor of Kansas
1912, 1914, 1916
 Succeeded by
Henry Allen
Class 2)
1918, 1924, 1930, 1936, 1942
 Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by
Governor of Kansas

1915–1919 		Succeeded by
Henry Allen
Preceded by Chair of the National Governors Association
1916–1918 		Succeeded by
U.S. Senate
Preceded by
William Thompson
Henry Allen, George McGill, Clyde M. Reed
 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Chair of the
Senate Agriculture Committee

1947–1949 		Succeeded by
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