Henry Styles Bridges (September 9, 1898November 26, 1961) was an American teacher, editor, and
Republican Party
Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party.
Republican Party may also refer to:
Africa
* Republican Party (Liberia)
*Republican Party ...
politician from
Concord, New Hampshire
Concord () is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2020 census the population was 43,976, making it the third largest city in New Hampshire behind Manchester and Nashua.
The village ...
. He served one term as the 63rd
governor of New Hampshire
The governor of New Hampshire is the head of government of New Hampshire.
The governor is elected during the biennial state general election in November of even-numbered years. New Hampshire is one of only two states, along with bordering ...
before a twenty-four-year career in the
United States Senate.
Early life and career
Bridges was born in
West Pembroke, Maine, the son of Alina Roxanna (Fisher) and Earle Leopold Bridges. He attended the
public schools in
Maine. Bridges attended the
University of Maine
The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a public land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System. It is classifie ...
at
Orono until 1918. From 1918 he held a variety of jobs, including teaching, newspaper editing, business and state government. He was an instructor at Sanderson Academy,
Ashfield, Massachusetts
Ashfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,695 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area.
History
Ashfield was first settled in 1743 and was offi ...
from 1918 to 1919. He was a member of the extension staff of the
University of New Hampshire at
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
* County Durham, an English county
*Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
from 1921 until 1922. He was the secretary of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation from 1922 until 1923, and the editor of the ''Granite Monthly''
Magazine from 1924 until 1926. Meanwhile, He was the director and secretary of the New Hampshire Investment Corporation from 1924 until 1929. He was then a member of the New Hampshire Public Service Commission from 1930 until 1934.
Political career
Bridges ran for
governor of New Hampshire in 1934, and won, becoming the nation's youngest governor at the time, according to
John Gunther's ''
Inside U.S.A.''
Republican presidential nominee
Alf Landon
Alfred Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887October 12, 1987) was an American oilman and politician who served as the 26th governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. A member of the Republican Party, he was the party's nominee in the 1936 presidential e ...
considered Bridges as his running mate for the
1936 United States presidential election
The 1936 United States presidential election was the 38th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Gove ...
, but aides pointed out that Democrats could use "
Landon Bridges falling down" as a campaign slogan.
Bridges was elected to the
United States Senate in 1936, and would serve until his death in 1961. In 1937 he retired from the Army Reserve Corps, in which he had served as a lieutenant since 1925. In 1940 he attempted to win the
Republican nomination
Presidential primaries have been held in the United States since 1912 to nominate the Republican presidential candidate.
1912
This was the first time that candidates were chosen through primaries. President William Taft ran to become the nomin ...
for
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
; the nomination was eventually won by
Wendell Willkie. That same year, Bridges also received two delegates for the Republican
vice presidential nomination, which eventually went to
Charles L. McNary
Charles Linza McNary (June 12, 1874February 25, 1944) was an American Republican politician from Oregon. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1917 to 1944 and was Senate Minority Leader from 1933 to 1944. In the Senate, McNary helped to pass le ...
. Bridges broke his hip on
New Year's Eve
In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the December 31, last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly ...
1941, and missed several months of the next Senate session.
Bridges was reelected to four subsequent terms in 1942, 1948, 1954, and 1960, but he did not complete his final term due to his death. He became the highest-ranking Republican senator, serving as chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation when the Republicans had control of the Senate from 1947 until 1949,
Senate Minority Leader from 1952 until 1953,
President pro tempore of the United States Senate when the Republicans had control of it from 1953 until 1955, chairman of the Joint Committee on Inaugural Arrangements for both of the inaugurations of President
Dwight Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
,
Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations when the Republicans had control of the Senate from 1947 to 1949 and 1953–1955, and
Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee from 1954 until his death.
In 1946, Bridges was part of a five-member committee which investigated racist, violent voter suppression in
Mississippi incited by the state's demagogic senator
Theodore G. Bilbo
Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (October 13, 1877 – August 21, 1947) was an American politician who twice served as governor of Mississippi (1916–1920, 1928–1932) and later was elected a U.S. Senator (1935–1947). A lifelong Democrat, he was a fi ...
. The committee, being composed of three Democrats and two Republicans, voted to exonerate Bilbo along party lines. Bridges and his fellow conservative colleague on the committee,
Bourke Hickenlooper
Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper (July 21, 1896 – September 4, 1971), was an American politician and member of the Republican Party, first elected to statewide office in Iowa as lieutenant governor, serving from 1939 to 1943 and then as the 29 ...
of
Iowa, dissented from the decision on the grounds that Bilbo's actions violated federal laws and abused the First Amendment.
In the Senate, John Gunther wrote, Bridges was "an aggressive reactionary on most issues...and he is pertinaciously engaged in a continual running fight with the
CIO, the
Roosevelt family
The Roosevelt family is an American political family from New York whose members have included two United States presidents, a First Lady, and various merchants, bankers, politicians, inventors, clergymen, artists, and socialites. The progeny ...
and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." Bridges voted present on the
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwig ...
and voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Act of 1960
The Civil Rights Act of 1960 () is a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration polls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote. It dealt primarily ...
.
After WWII, when the U.S. government was
recruiting Nazi scientists, engineers, and doctors, and Jewish members of the U.S. State Department obstructed the
naturalization
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
and
political rehabilitation of those individuals, Bridges said on the floor of the Senate on July 18, 1950 that the
State Department needed a "first-class
cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a ...
fumigating job" to eliminate resistance to the program, part of an extended "house cleaning" metaphor referencing the common use of cyanide as a fumigant.
Association with Joseph McCarthy
Bridges was a staunch defender of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
of Wisconsin, and was one of only 22 senators, all Republicans, who voted against the censure of McCarthy for his
"red scare" communist investigations, and for his so-called "
lavender scare" tactics aimed at homosexuals in 1954.
Blackmail
Bridges was also a key collaborator, with fellow Republican senators McCarthy and
Herman Welker
Herman Orville Welker (December 11, 1906 – October 30, 1957) was an American politician from the state of Idaho. He was a member of the Idaho Republican Party and served one term in the United States Senate, from 1951 to 1957.
Early years
Bor ...
of Idaho in the blackmail of Democratic Wyoming senator
Lester C. Hunt
Lester Callaway Hunt, Sr. (July 8, 1892June 19, 1954), was an American Democratic politician from the state of Wyoming. Hunt was the first to be elected to two consecutive terms as Wyoming's governor, serving as its 19th Governor from January ...
, harassment that led to Senator Hunt's suicide in his Capitol office on June 19, 1954. Bridges threatened that if he did not immediately retire from the Senate and agree not to seek reelection, Bridges would see that Hunt's son, Lester Hunt, Jr., who had been arrested for soliciting an undercover policeman, was prosecuted and that his son's homosexuality would be widely publicized. Bridges also threatened Inspector
Roy Blick of the Morals Division of the Washington Police Department with the loss of his job for failing to prosecute Hunt Jr.
A Republican,
Edward D. Crippa
Edward David Crippa (April 8, 1899October 20, 1960) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from Wyoming.
Crippa was born in Rock Springs, Sweetwater County, Wyoming to an Austrian-born mother and an Italian-born father. He was ...
, was appointed by the Republican acting governor of Wyoming,
Clifford Joy Rogers
Clifford Joy "Doc" Rogers (December 20, 1897 – May 18, 1962) was an American politician who served as the 22nd governor of Wyoming from January 3, 1953 until January 3, 1955. He was a Republican
Rogers also served as State Treasurer of Wyom ...
, to fill the vacant seat.
Alex Ross
Nelson Alexander Ross (born January 22, 1970) is an American comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries '' Marvels'', on which he collaborated w ...
in ''The New Yorker'' wrote in 2012 of an event "loosely dramatized in the
novel and
film ''Advise & Consent'' n whichSenator Lester Hunt, of Wyoming, killed himself after ... Bridges ... threatened to expose Hunt's son as a homosexual".
Death and burial
Bridges died of a heart attack on November 26, 1961, in East Concord and, after a service attended by a thousand people at the State House in Concord, was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery.
He was one of the poorest men ever elected governor and still of modest means when elected to the Senate, yet his widow
Doloris told then Vice President
Lyndon Johnson that her husband had left her "a million dollars in cash". Bridges willed his East Concord home to the state to serve as a residence for New Hampshire's governors. The
New Hampshire Governor's Mansion is known as "Bridges House".
The "Styles Bridges Room" in the
U.S. Capitol
The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill at ...
was named in his memory on March 12, 1981.
Interstate 93
Interstate 93 (I-93) is an Interstate Highway in the New England states of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont in the United States. Spanning approximately along a north–south axis, it is one of three primary Interstate Highways ...
in New Hampshire, from
Concord
Concord may refer to:
Meaning "agreement"
* Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony)
* Harmony, in music
* Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...
north to the
Vermont state line, is named the Styles Bridges Highway. In December 2012, the ''
Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' called for the state to examine Bridges's role in Senator
Lester Hunt
Lester Callaway Hunt, Sr. (July 8, 1892June 19, 1954), was an American Democratic politician from the state of Wyoming. Hunt was the first to be elected to two consecutive terms as Wyoming's governor, serving as its 19th Governor from January ...
's death and reconsider whether the state should continue to honor Bridges, or rename the highway.
See also
*
References
Footnotes
Additional sources
* McDaniel, Rodger. ''Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt'' (WordsWorth, 2013),
External links
Biographic Sketch at U.S. Congress website*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridges, Styles
1898 births
1961 deaths
20th-century American politicians
Republican Party governors of New Hampshire
Old Right (United States)
People from Washington County, Maine
Politicians from Concord, New Hampshire
Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate
Republican Party United States senators from New Hampshire
Candidates in the 1940 United States presidential election
1940 United States vice-presidential candidates
University of Maine alumni
McCarthyism
People from Pembroke, Maine
American anti-communists