Robert Hale (Maine politician)

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Robert Hale
E. D. Merrill
Member of the Maine House of Representatives
In office
1926–1930
Personal details
Born(1889-11-29)November 29, 1889
Frederick Hale (cousin)
EducationBowdoin College
University of Oxford
Harvard University

Robert Hale (November 29, 1889 – November 30, 1976) was a

Frederick Hale, also of Maine. A conservative, internationalist,[1] and self-described reactionary,[2] he was known for his unwavering advocacy of civil rights and opposition against the Ku Klux Klan
.

Biography

Born in Portland, Maine, to Clarence Hale (U.S. District Judge, Maine) and Margret Jordan Rollins, Hale attended the public schools. He graduated from

Rhodes Scholar
, in 1912. He attended Harvard Law School in 1913 and 1914. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1914, the Maine bar in 1917, and the District of Columbia bar in 1959. Practiced in Portland, Maine, from 1917 to 1942. During the First World War served in the United States Army in grades up to second lieutenant, with overseas service from 1917 to 1919.[3]

In the Maine House: Opposition to the Barwise Bill and the Ku Klux Klan

Hale served in the

Frederick Hale, whose seat Brewster would eventually (but unsuccessfully) contest.[4]

In leading the 1923 debate against the Barwise Bill, Hale said it was "conceived in intolerance against the Roman Catholic Church" and related that he "knew of a person (n Europe). . . who was killed for the only reason that he was a Jew". He then read extracts from speeches by the King Kleagle of the Maine Ku Klux Klan, F. Eugene Farnsworth, calling him "an ignorant demagogue."

Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives
in 1926. Hale made a second successful bid for the House Speakership in 1929, by which time the Klan was a spent force in the Maine Republican Party.

U.S. Congress: The New Deal and Cold War Years

Hale was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-eighth and seven succeeding U.S. Congresses (January 3, 1943 – January 3, 1959).

In the war-time election of 1942, Hale used his support for Roosevelt's foreign policy to unseat Congressman James C. Oliver, who was a pre-war isolationist, in the Republican primary.[1] In the general election, however, Hale was called a "disciple of hate" by his opponent, former Democratic Governor of Maine Louis J. Brann, because of an article he'd written for Harper's Magazine in 1936 entitled "I Too Hate Roosevelt" and criticizing the New Deal.[7] Brann went so far as to claim that a Hale victory would "please Hitler."[8] Hale started his own congressional service with equally alarmist rhetoric, telling an audience in Oct. 1942 that they could expect Roosevelt to "abolish Congress" within the next four years.[9]

In April 1943, Hale criticized Wendell Willkie for "shooting off his face about India."[10]

During the early Cold War, Hale supported the formation and role of the United Nations, but was otherwise on the staunchly conservative wing of the Republican Party during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. In 1950, he said of Sen. Joseph McCarthy: "people should give him credit for what he is trying to do instead of carping on his methods," a position opposite to that of his Maine Republican colleague Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who was an early critic of McCarthyism.[11] He also defended Gen. Douglas MacArthur when he was fired by Truman, claiming MacArthur "has always been right" about the "Far Eastern situation,"[12] and introduced a resolution to impeach Truman[13] after the president nationalized steel mills in 1952.[14] On the other hand, he advised against the use of atomic bombs in the Korean War while his more liberal colleague Sen. Smith joined right-wing Maine Sen. Owen Brewster in sanctioning their use against Communist China "if necessary."[15] Hale voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.[16]

Hale's last election victory, in 1956, saw him winning by only 29 votes out of over 100,000 cast.[17] His Democratic Party opponent was James C. Oliver, who, as a Republican, Hale had unseated for the same congressional seat in 1942. Oliver ran against Hale again in 1958 and this time won back the seat he'd occupied 26 years before. Hale afterwards resumed the practice of law in Washington, D.C. He died on November 30, 1976, in Washington, D.C.,[13] and is interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, Maine.

References

  1. ^ a b Cooley, Francis Rexford (March 1, 1998). From Isolationism to Interventionism in Maine, 1939–1941. Maine History. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  2. ^ Guide to the Robert Hale Papers, 1876–1976, undated. Bowdoin College. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  3. New York Times
    . February 11, 1917. Retrieved 2015-04-27. Senator-elect Hale of Maine, who has been visiting the British front for the past few days, had a lively experience with German shell-fire yesterday.
  4. ^ Lewiston Daily Sun, Mar. 22, 1923; "Barwise Bill Defeated in House" Lewiston Evening Journal, Mar. 24, 1925, p. 4.
  5. ^ Lewiston Daily Sun, Mar. 22, 1923.
  6. ^ "Barwise Bill Defeated in House" Lewiston Evening Journal, Mar. 24, 1925, p. 4.
  7. ^ Lawrence Journal-World, Sep 15, 1942, p. 2.
  8. ^ The Lewiston Daily Sun, Sep 12, 1942, p. 1.
  9. ^ The Lewiston Daily Sun, Oct 23, 1942, p. 1.
  10. ^ April 25, 1943. Willkie Soored on India; Robert Hale Says He Does Not Understand the Situation. The New York Times. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  11. ^ Lewiston Daily Sun, April 8, 1950, p. 1.
  12. ^ Times News, April 14, 1951, p. 2.
  13. ^ a b December 2, 1976. Robert Hale Dead; Represented Maine In House, 1943‐59. The New York Times. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  14. ^ Portsmouth Times, April 22, 1952, p. 2.
  15. ^ Lewiston Evening Journal, Nov. 29, 1950, p. 1.
  16. ^ "HR 6127. Civil Rights of 1957". GovTrack.us.
  17. ^ Herald Journal, Oct 13, 1936, p. 1.

External links

U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Maine's 1st congressional district

1943-1959
Succeeded by