Howard Homan Buffett (August 13, 1903 – April 30, 1964) was an American businessman, investor, and politician. He was a four-term

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

United States Representative The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

for the state of

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

. He was the father of

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...

, the American billionaire businessman and investor.

Early life

Howard Buffett was born in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

to Henrietta Duvall Buffett and Ernest P. Buffett, owners of a grocery business. Ernest P. Buffett's parents were second cousins, both having mainly English descent. The Buffet surname (renamed to Buffett) originates in France with a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

weaver, named John Buffett, who became Buffett's first American Buffett ancestor when he immigrated to New York in the late-1600s. Howard Buffett attended public schools and graduated from the

University of Nebraska A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

Lincoln, Nebraska Lincoln is the capital city of the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster County. The city covers with a population of 292,657 in 2021. It is the second-most populous city in Nebraska and the 73rd-largest in the United Sta ...

in 1925. While a student, Buffett was a brother of the Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity. He married Leila Stahl on December 27, 1925. The Buffetts were active members of Dundee Presbyterian Church. After failing to secure a job in the family grocery business, he started a small stock brokerage firm.

Career

Entering the investment business, Buffett also served on the Omaha board of education from 1939 to 1942. In 1942 he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nebraska district in which Omaha was located. In that election, Buffett was seen as "a Republican sacrificial lamb in Nebraska's second district when FDR was a popular wartime leader."Klein, Philip (2011-09-20
Buffett's dad was the Ron Paul of his day
, ''

Washington Examiner The ''Washington Examiner'' is an American conservative news outlet which consists principally of an online/digital website with a weekly magazine, based in Washington, D.C. It is owned by MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is o ...

'' Nevertheless, he went on to win the Republican nomination in the primary and then the subsequent general election. He was reelected twice. In 1948 he again was the Republican nominee for another term, but was defeated for reelection; however, he was the Republican nominee for the office again in 1950 and won the office back. In 1952 Buffett decided against seeking another term and returned to his investment business in Omaha, Buffett-Falk & Co., in which he worked until shortly before his death. He also served as the campaign manager for conservative Senator

Robert A. Taft Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate Majority Leade ...

in Taft's 1952 presidential campaign. According to

biographer Roger Lowenstein:

Political philosophy

Howard Buffett is remembered for his highly libertarian Old Right stance, having maintained a friendship with

Murray Rothbard Murray Newton Rothbard (; March 2, 1926 – January 7, 1995) was an American economist of the Austrian School, economic historian, political theorist, and activist. Rothbard was a central figure in the 20th-century American libertarian ...

for a number of years. He "would invariably draw 'zero' ratings from the Americans for Democratic Action and other leftist groups."Rothbard, Murray
Life in the Old Right
''

LewRockwell.com Llewellyn Harrison Rockwell Jr. (born July 1, 1944) is an American author, editor, and political consultant. A libertarian and a self-professed anarcho-capitalist, he founded and is the chairman of the Mises Institute, a non-profit dedicated to ...

'', first published in ''

Chronicles Chronicles may refer to: * ''Books of Chronicles'', in the Bible * Chronicle, chronological histories * ''The Chronicles of Narnia'', a novel series by C. S. Lewis * ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', the collected works of Raphael Holinshed * '' The Idh ...

'', August 1994 Buffett was a vocal critic of the

Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is an American foreign policy that pledged American "support for democracies against authoritarian threats." The doctrine originated with the primary goal of containing Soviet geopolitical expansion during the Cold War. It wa ...

and the

Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...

. Of the Truman Doctrine, he said: "Our Christian ideals cannot be exported to other lands by dollars and guns." Buffett was also "one of the major voices in Congress opposed to the Korean adventure," and "was convinced that the United States was largely responsible for the eruption of conflict in Korea; for the rest of his life he tried unsuccessfully to get the

Senate Armed Services Committee The Committee on Armed Services (sometimes abbreviated SASC for ''Senate Armed Services Committee'') is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Def ...

to declassify the testimony of CIA head Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, which Buffett told othbardestablished American responsibility for the Korean outbreak." Rothbard, Murray N.br>Confessions of a Right-Wing Liberal
''

Ludwig von Mises Institute Ludwig von Mises Institute for Austrian Economics, or Mises Institute, is a libertarian nonprofit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Alabama, United States. It is named after the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973). It ...

'' The CIA failed to predict the Marxist invasion of the Republic of Korea in 1950, just as it had failed to predict the Soviet Atomic Bomb the previous year - 1949, it was these intelligence failures that Rear Admiral Hillenkoetter testified about. Speaking on the floor of Congress, he opposed

military interventionism Interventionism refers to a political practice of intervention, particularly to the practice of governments to interfere in political affairs of other countries, staging military or trade interventions. Economic interventionism refers to a diffe ...

: In the summer of 1962, he wrote "an impassioned plea... for the abolition of the

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

" in the ''New Individualist Review''. Dionne, E.J.
Why Americans Hate Politics
pg. 265 Buffett wrote: In addition to non-interventionism overseas, Howard Buffett strongly supported the

gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the l ...

because he believed it would limit the ability of government to inflate the money supply and spend beyond its means. His son

is not an advocate of the gold standard. North, Gary (2010-05-29
The Wall Street Journal's War On Gold
''

Personal life

Buffett married Leila Stahl Buffett (March 18, 1904 – August 30, 1996), who was of German and English descent; they had three children: *

(son): businessman,

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

, and philanthropist, Chairman & CEO of

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...

** Peter Buffett (grandson): musician, composer, and producer ** Howard Graham Buffett (grandson): Corporate board member of

*** Howard Warren Buffett (great-grandson): Public relations professor at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

** Susan Alice Buffett (granddaughter) *

Doris Buffett Doris Eleanor Buffett (February 12, 1928 – August 4, 2020) was an American philanthropist also known as the 'retail' philanthropist and the founder of ''The Sunshine Lady Foundation'', ''The Learning By Giving Foundation'', and ''The Letters ...

Bryant (daughter) * Roberta Buffett Bialek (daughter)

Publications

* Buffett, Howard Homan
Human Freedom Rests on Gold Redeemable Money
Financial Chronicle 5/6/48 * Buffett, Howard Homan. ''The Evil Men in the Kremlin Must Be Chortling as Militarism Runs Wild in America''. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952.Cf
Howard Homan Buffett
– entry at the NNDB

References

External links

*
Howard Homan Buffett: Old Rightist Extraordinaire
by Joseph R. Stromberg *
Howard Buffett: A Man of the Old Right
by Noah M. Clarke * , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Buffett, Howard 1903 births 1964 deaths 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American politicians 20th-century Presbyterians American chief executives of financial services companies American investors American libertarians American people of Scandinavian descent American Presbyterians American stockbrokers Howard Buffett Businesspeople from Omaha, Nebraska Christian libertarians John Birch Society members Monetary reformers Non-interventionism Old Right (United States) Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Nebraska School board members in Nebraska Stock and commodity market managers University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni