Smith W. Brookhart
Smith Wildman Brookhart | |
---|---|
Richard L. Murphy | |
Personal details | |
Born | Arbela, Missouri | February 2, 1869
Died | November 15, 1944 Prescott, Arizona | (aged 75)
Political party | Republican |
Smith Wildman Brookhart (February 2, 1869 – November 15, 1944), was twice elected as a
Brookhart's absence from the Senate was brief, as he took the first opportunity to return by challenging and defeating the state's senior Republican senator. He was also a strong supporter of Prohibition and its enforcement, so as public support for prohibition waned, the same occurred to his political career.
Early life
Brookhart was born in a
On June 22, 1897, he married Jennie Hearne. They had four sons and two daughters: Charles Edward Brookhart, John Roberts Brookhart, Samuel Colar Brookhart, Smith W. Brookhart Jr., Florence Hearne Brookhart Yount, and Edith A. Brookhart Millard.[1][2]
He served in the
First run for Senate
In early 1920 Brookhart announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held since 1908 by the Republican Albert B. Cummins, who was a progressive senator but was from an earlier generation and distrusted both corporate interests and unions. Brookhart attempted to build his campaign around his criticism of railroad regulatory legislation Cummins had co-authored, the Esch–Cummins Act, which Brookhart claimed to do too little to wrest ownership and control of railroads away from Wall Street interests.[3] Brookhart attempted to lure rank-and-file blue-collar workers to register as Republicans so that they could vote for him in the primary,[3] which prompted Cummins to associate Brookhart with radical workers movements such as "the Socialists, reds and Industrial Workers of the World."[4] Cummins was sidelined by illness in the weeks leading up to the primary[4] but defeated Brookhart.[5]
Senate service
1922–1926
On his second attempt, Brookhart was elected to the Senate in 1922.
Senator Brookhart was soon noted in the national press for his refusal to dress the part of a US Senator. Time quoted him in their inaugural March 3, 1923 issue as saying, "If I am asked to the White House, or to attend any other state occasion, I shall go as I am, with cowhide shoes and the clothes I wear on the farm. If my constituents wish me to do so, I shall go the extreme of donning overalls."[8]
Brookhart held the seat only until April 12, 1926, when the Senate voted by a margin of 45–41 to replace him with Steck, who then served out the remainder of the term. Because the Senate was then firmly in Republican control, his ouster was possible only because over a dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to unseat Brookhart.[11] On other occasions, the Senate has settled election disputes before a senator took office, but that was the only time that the results were overturned after the senator had been seated. The biographer George William McDaniel concludes:
- between 1924 and 1926, those in charge of the established political machinery united to defeat Brookhart. In part they acted out of fear of his program; some really believed that it would lead to socialism or worse. In part they feared that he intended to remake the Republican party in his own image, a charge he repeatedly denied and one that most thoughtful politicians knew to be unfounded since he never
bothered to build the kind of county-by-county organizations necessary for such a move. In addition, party leaders were upset that he won without them and thus showed that the political party was not necessary as the vehicle for election. Brookhart aided their efforts by his intemperate speech at Emmetsburg, giving them an excuse to read him out of the party.[12]
1927–1933
Immediately upon his ouster from the Senate in April 1926, Brookhart ran for Iowa's other Senate seat, which was still held by Cummins. In the Republican primary, Brookhart stunned his former colleagues and the Iowa Republican establishment by decisively defeating Cummins. As Idaho Republican
In the general election, Brookhart defeated the conservative Democrat
Brookhart was a harsh critic of the Federal Reserve: "A more sinister or evil device could not be arranged for using the people's savings to their own injury and the destruction of their property values."[15]
He served a full six-year term. However, in the 1932 Republican primary, he was defeated by Henry Field, a Shenandoah, Iowa, nurseryman. Field had attacked Brookhart's absences from the Senate on speaking tours, as well as the number of relatives holding federal positions.[16] Brookhart ran in the 1932 general election as a "progressive" candidate but received fewer than 33,000 votes out of over 890,000 cast.
Support for Prohibition
Brookhart was what was known as a "
Brookhart favored dramatically increasing Prohibition enforcement appropriations by $240 million. That was a very unpopular position because of widespread unemployment and underemployment during the Great Depression. Those favoring repeal argued that legalizing alcoholic beverages would stimulate the economy and provide desperately-needed tax revenue.
It was said that Brookhart's opinions regarding alcohol came from his role as a rifle instructor for the Iowa National Guard in whichever concluded that alcohol and guns were incompatible. He went as far as to quantify the accuracy harms associated with mild beer by claiming it lowered accuracy by 7%. With that information, he convinced the Governor of Iowa to make the rifle range "bone dry."[17]
Later life
After his 1932 defeat, Brookhart was a special advisor to the
Upon his return to Iowa, Brookhart made a final attempt to return to the Senate. He joined an already-crowded field of candidates for the Republican nomination for Senate in 1936 but finished a distant second to the incumbent,
After the 1936 election, Brookhart opened a
One of his sons, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Smith W. Brookhart Jr., served as an assistant
See also
- Smith Wildman and Jennie (Hearne) Brookhart House in Washington, Iowa is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[21]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g "Ex-Sen. Brookhart Dies in Arizona; Iowa Rites Planned," Mason City Globe-Gazette, 1944-11-16, at 1.
- ^ a b c d Burrell, Howard A. (1909). History of Washington County, Iowa from the First White Settlements to 1908. Vol. II. Chicago, Ill.: S J Clarke Publishing Co.
- ^ a b "Cummins May Campaign Iowa Before Primary," Waterloo Evening Courier, March 23, 1920 at 7.
- ^ Waterloo Evening Courier, June 4, 1920 at 1.
- ^ "Cummins' Lead over Brookhart is Over 20,000," Waterloo Evening Courier, June 9, 1920, p. 1.
- ^ "Brookhart Sworn as Junior Senator," Waterloo Evening Courier, 1922-12-02, at p. 3.
- ^ a b "Brookhart Given 41.1 Percent on All Primary Ballots," Waterloo Evening Courier, June 7, 1922 at 1.
- ^ "Political Notes". Time Magazine. March 3, 1923. p. 6. Retrieved January 20, 2023.
- ^ a b "Again, Brookhart," Time, April 20, 1936.
- ^ "Official Count Indicates Steck is Winner," Cedar Rapids Republican, February 4, 1926 at 4.
- ^ "Brookhart says he is glad it is all over," Oelwein Daily Register, April 13, 1926 at 1.
- ^ McDaniel (1987) p 433
- Waterloo Evening Courier, June 8, 1926 at 2.
- ^ George William McDaniel, "The Republican Party in Iowa and the Defeat of Smith Wildman Brookhart, 1924-1926." The Annals of Iowa 48.7 (1987): 413-434. online
- ^ July 4, 1927, Bakersfield Californian
- ^ "Senate Met While Brookhart was on Chautauqua," Boyden Reporter, May 19, 1932 at 6.
- ^ Plummer, Herbert (October 10, 1929). "A Day Book of Washington". The Evening Tribune, Providence. Retrieved October 10, 2013.
- Waterloo Daily Courier, June 2, 1936 at 1.
- Mason City Globe-Gazette, August 17, 1936.
- ISBN 0-415-31872-6.
- ^ Molly Myers Naumann. "Smith Wildman and Jennie (Hearne) Brookhart House" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
United States Congress. "BROOKHART, Smith Wildman (id: B000873)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Sources
- McDaniel, George William. "The Republican Party in Iowa and the Defeat of Smith Wildman Brookhart, 1924-1926." The Annals of Iowa 48.7 (1987): 413–434. online
- McDaniel, George William (1995). Smith Wildman Brookhart: Iowa's Renegade Republican (1st ed.). Ames, Iowa: Iowa State Press. ISBN 0-8138-2107-X.
- Editorial Cartoons of J.N. 'Ding' Darling (Iowa Digital Library: University of Iowa Libraries) - Cartoons referencing or depicting Smith W. Brookhart.
External links
- Media related to Smith W. Brookhart at Wikimedia Commons