Robert Hale (Maine)
Encyclopedia
Robert S. Hale was a U.S. Representative
from Maine
, and first cousin of U.S. Senator Frederick Hale
, also of Maine.
Born in Portland, Maine
to Clarence Hale (U.S.District Judge, Maine) and Margret Jordan Rollins, Hale attended the public schools.
He was graduated from Portland High School in 1906, from Bowdoin College
, Brunswick, Maine
, in 1910, and from Oxford University, where he was a 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.
1923-1930, and was elected as Speaker in 1929-1930. In 1923 and 1925 he was instrumental in defeating the Barwise Bill
, a measure supported by the majority of his party, which would have changed the Maine Constitution to outlaw all state aid to parochial schools. The bill (introduced and defeated twice) was strongly opposed by Maine's Catholic population, and just as strongly favored by the Ku Klux Klan
whose state headquarters and center of support was in Hale's home city of Portland. The measure split the Maine Republican Party
and embroiled state politics for three years. It was favored by Governor Owen Brewster
but opposed by a faction that included Hale and his cousin, U.S. Senator Frederick Hale
, whose Senate seat Brewster would eventually (but unsuccessfully) contest.
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". In his 1925 speech against a new version of the same bill, Hale cited examples of recent intolerance in American political life, including the rejection of German language teaching during World War I and Tennessee's law against the teaching of evolution. Referring again to the Ku Klux Klan of Maine, who had demonstrated their strength during a recent Maine State Senate debate on the same bill, Hale said that only the defeat of the Barwise measure would "appease this hysteria". Hale was a convincing champion of the Anti-Barwise forces because he was a Protestant Republican from Portland, a Klan hotbed. The bill was defeated, but Hale's opposition to it likely defeated his own initial bid to become 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.
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 Congessman James C. Oliver
, who was a pre-war isolationist, in the Republican primary. 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
. Brann went so far as to claim that a Hale victory would "please Hitler". 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.
During the early Cold War
Hale supported the formation and role of the United Nations
but was otherwise on the right wing of the Republican Party during the Truman administration. In 1950 he said of Sen. Joseph McCarthy
that "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
, and early critic of McCarthyism. He also defended Gen. Douglas MacArthur
when he was fired by Truman, claiming MacArthur "has always been right" about the "Far Eastern situation", and introduced a resolution to impeach Truman after the president nationalized steel mills in 1952. 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".
Hale's last election victory, in 1956, saw him winning by only 29 votes out of over 100,000 cast. His Democractic 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.
, where he died November 30, 1976.
He was interred in Evergreen Cemetery
, Portland, Maine
.
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
from Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
, and first cousin of U.S. Senator Frederick Hale
Frederick Hale
Frederick Hale was a politician from the U.S. state of Maine, representing the state in the United States Senate from 1917 to 1941. He was the son of Eugene Hale, the grandson of Zachariah Chandler, both also U.S. Senators, brother of diplomat Chandler Hale, and the cousin of U.S...
, also of Maine.
Born in Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
to Clarence Hale (U.S.District Judge, Maine) and Margret Jordan Rollins, Hale attended the public schools.
He was graduated from Portland High School in 1906, from Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
, Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick, Maine
Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...
, in 1910, and from Oxford University, where he was a 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
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
from 1917 to 1942.
During the First World War served in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
in grades up to second lieutenant, with overseas service from 1917 to 1919.
In the Maine House: Opposition to the Barwise Bill and the Ku Klux Klan
Hale served in the Maine House of RepresentativesMaine House of Representatives
The Maine House of Representatives is the lower house of the Maine Legislature. The House consists of 151 members representing an equal amount of districts across the state. Each voting member of the House represents around 8,450 citizens of the state...
1923-1930, and was elected as Speaker in 1929-1930. In 1923 and 1925 he was instrumental in defeating the Barwise Bill
Mark Alton Barwise
Mark Alton Barwise was the only publicly practicing member of the Spiritualist religion known to have been elected to a state office in the United States. Born in Chester, Maine of a medianistic mother, Barwise became an attorney and nationally-prominent member of the National Spiritualist...
, a measure supported by the majority of his party, which would have changed the Maine Constitution to outlaw all state aid to parochial schools. The bill (introduced and defeated twice) was strongly opposed by Maine's Catholic population, and just as strongly favored by the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan in Maine
Although the Ku Klux Klan is popularly associated with white supremacy, the revived Klan of the 1920s was also anti-Catholic. In the State of Maine, with a negligible African-American population but a burgeoning number of French-Canadian and Irish immigrants, the Klan revival of the 1920s was...
whose state headquarters and center of support was in Hale's home city of Portland. The measure split the Maine Republican Party
Maine Republican Party
The Maine Republican Party is the affiliate of the United States Republican Party in Maine. It was founded in Strong, Maine on August 7, 1854. The state Chairman is Charles M. Webster....
and embroiled state politics for three years. It was favored by Governor Owen Brewster
Owen Brewster
Ralph Owen Brewster was an American politician from Maine. Brewster, a Republican, was solidly conservative...
but opposed by a faction that included Hale and his cousin, U.S. Senator Frederick Hale
Frederick Hale
Frederick Hale was a politician from the U.S. state of Maine, representing the state in the United States Senate from 1917 to 1941. He was the son of Eugene Hale, the grandson of Zachariah Chandler, both also U.S. Senators, brother of diplomat Chandler Hale, and the cousin of U.S...
, whose Senate seat Brewster would eventually (but unsuccessfully) contest.
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". In his 1925 speech against a new version of the same bill, Hale cited examples of recent intolerance in American political life, including the rejection of German language teaching during World War I and Tennessee's law against the teaching of evolution. Referring again to the Ku Klux Klan of Maine, who had demonstrated their strength during a recent Maine State Senate debate on the same bill, Hale said that only the defeat of the Barwise measure would "appease this hysteria". Hale was a convincing champion of the Anti-Barwise forces because he was a Protestant Republican from Portland, a Klan hotbed. The bill was defeated, but Hale's opposition to it likely defeated his own initial bid to become Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives
Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives
The Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives is the speaker and presiding officer of the Maine House of Representatives, the lower house of the Maine Legislature.-List of speakers:...
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 RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
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 Congessman James C. Oliver
James C. Oliver
James Churchill Oliver was a U.S. Representative from Maine.Born in South Portland, Maine, Oliver attended the public schools.Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, A.B., 1917....
, who was a pre-war isolationist, in the Republican primary. In the general election, however, Hale was called a "disciple of hate" by his opponent, former Democratic Governor of Maine Louis J. Brann
Louis J. Brann
Louis Jefferson Brann was an American lawyer and political figure. He was the 56th Governor of Maine.- Early life :...
, because of an article he'd written for Harper's magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
in 1936 entitled "I Too Hate Roosevelt" and criticizing the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
. Brann went so far as to claim that a Hale victory would "please Hitler". 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.
During the early Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
Hale supported the formation and role of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
but was otherwise on the right wing of the Republican Party during the Truman administration. In 1950 he said of Sen. Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
that "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
Margaret Chase Smith
Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican Senator from Maine, and one of the most successful politicians in Maine history. She was the first woman to be elected to both the U.S. House and the Senate, and the first woman from Maine to serve in either. She was also the first woman to have her name...
, and early critic of McCarthyism. He also defended Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
when he was fired by Truman, claiming MacArthur "has always been right" about the "Far Eastern situation", and introduced a resolution to impeach Truman after the president nationalized steel mills in 1952. On the other hand, he advised against the use of atomic bombs in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
while his more liberal colleague Sen. Smith joined right-wing Maine Sen. Owen Brewster
Owen Brewster
Ralph Owen Brewster was an American politician from Maine. Brewster, a Republican, was solidly conservative...
in sanctioning their use against Communist China "if necessary".
Hale's last election victory, in 1956, saw him winning by only 29 votes out of over 100,000 cast. His Democractic Party opponent was James C. Oliver
James C. Oliver
James Churchill Oliver was a U.S. Representative from Maine.Born in South Portland, Maine, Oliver attended the public schools.Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, A.B., 1917....
, 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.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, where he died November 30, 1976.
He was interred in Evergreen Cemetery
Evergreen Cemetery (Portland, Maine)
Evergreen Cemetery is a garden style cemetery in Portland, Maine, United States. With of land, it is the second largest cemetery in the state. It was established in 1855 and became the city's main cemetery after the Western Cemetery. As of March 2011, only of the were used for cemetery-related...
, Portland, Maine
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
.