Bertrand Snell
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2023) |
Bertrand Snell | |
---|---|
In office November 2, 1915 – January 3, 1939 | |
Preceded by | Edwin A. Merritt |
Succeeded by | Wallace E. Pierce |
Personal details | |
Born | Bertrand Hollis Snell December 9, 1870 Colton, New York, U.S. |
Died | February 2, 1958 Potsdam, New York, U.S. | (aged 87)
Political party | Republican |
Alma mater | Amherst College |
Bertrand Hollis Snell (December 9, 1870 – February 2, 1958) was an American politician who represented upstate New York in the United States House of Representatives.
U.S. Congressman
Elected in 1915 to the House of Representatives from upstate New York's Thirty-first district, Snell, a
House Committee Chairman
In 1923 Snell became chairman of the important
When Longworth became Speaker in 1925, the Old Guard reestablished its dominance in the lower chamber. In this, the regular Republicans were aided by Snell's Rules Committee in restricting Democrats and insurgent Republicans from interfering with President Calvin Coolidge's program of spending cuts and tax reduction. To Democrats' complaints that Snell was too restrictive with the rules, the New Yorker responded that the opposition would undoubtedly do the same if and when they came back to power in the House—which they did. During these years Snell also played a role as a go-between for Congress and his college friend from Amherst, President Coolidge. This was not always a popular job, especially when differences arose between the president and Congress.
Snell backed Herbert Hoover for the 1928 GOP presidential nomination, albeit somewhat unenthusiastically. He would have preferred for President Calvin Coolidge to run for another term. Snell's relations with the engineer president soured slightly when Hoover tried unsuccessfully to seize the initiative in New York patronage. Snell's dream of eventually becoming Speaker was dashed with the onset of the Great Depression. In the wake of the 1930 midterm elections, the Republicans lost control of the House. After Longworth died in April 1931, Tilson and Snell tussled for the job of minority leader. Despite being favored by the president, Tilson lost the race to Snell, who appealed to both the Old Guard and to the insurgents. Tilson was too closely associated with the increasingly unpopular Hoover, and Snell had made some concessions to the progressive Republicans.
Later career
With Hoover's landslide defeat and the advent of the New Deal, Snell spent the rest of his days in Congress fighting the liberal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
His initial reaction to the New Deal was one of cautious but critical cooperation. Snell, in the midst of the economic crisis, supported some early measures of the New Deal, such as the 1933
During the Court-packing battle of 1937, Snell agreed with Senate GOP leaders to allow the overwhelming Democratic majority to fight amongst themselves, which they did, sinking the plan. The so-called Roosevelt recession of 1937 also encouraged Snell and other conservatives to step up their resistance to the New Deal. In late 1937, Snell introduced legislation for a tax cut, and during the special session of Congress in the same year, Republicans and southern Democrats combined to recommit Roosevelt's Fair Labor Standards Bill, although it was enacted in the next session.
In 1938 Snell and the GOP minority successfully opposed Roosevelt's original executive branch reorganization plan, and the
After his retirement in 1939, he became publisher of the Potsdam Courier-Freeman, which he had bought five years earlier, and in 1941 became owner and manager of the New York State Oil Company, of Kansas. After his death in Potsdam, New York, in 1958, he was interred in Bayside Cemetery.
Bertrand H. Snell Hall at Clarkson University is named in his honor.
Further reading
- Barone, Louis A. "The Fighting Lumberjack: Bertrand H. Snell of New York and the New Deal, 1933-1939," in Milton Plesur, ed., American Historian: Essays to Honor Selig Adler (1980), pp 159–66.
Sources
- United States Congress. "Bertrand Snell (id: S000652)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
External links
- Media related to Bertrand Snell at Wikimedia Commons