Arthur Monroe Free (January 15, 1879 – April 1, 1953) was an American lawyer and politician who served six terms as a

United States representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

from 1921 to 1933.

Biography

He was born in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially the City of San José ( ; ), is a cultural, commercial, and political center within Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area. With a city population of 997,368 and a metropolitan area population of 1.95 million, it is ...

and graduated from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1901 and from its law department in 1903. That same year, he was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in San Jose. He moved to Mountain View and was a city attorney from 1904 to 1910. He was the

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...

Santa Clara County Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the ...

from 1907 to 1919. He voluntarily retired and resumed the practice of law in San Jose. Free was a delegate to the Republican state conventions in 1914 and from 1920 to 1936.

Congress

He was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1921 – March 3, 1933). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932 to the

Seventy-third Congress The 73rd United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1933, ...

. In Congress he served on several committees, notably the House Merchant and Marine Fisheries Committee, and the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee. He was known for successfully introducing and championing the federal statue that created

Moffett Federal Airfield Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November ...

. In 1929, Free wrote a short book about

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...

Later career and death

Arthur's son

Lloyd A. Free Lloyd A. Free (29 September 1908 — 11 November 1996) was a pollster who worked with Hadley Cantril and the Institute for International Social Research (IISR). Lloyd was born in San Jose, California, son of Arthur M. Free, a six-term Congressm ...

was a founder of the Institute for International Social Research.

Legacy

The Arthur Monroe Free House is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. The cottage in Mountain View that Free purchased in 1894 is now the home of the Michelin Star Restaurant, Chez TJ.

Electoral history

References

Citations Sources 1879 births 1953 deaths 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century California politicians Burials at Oak Hill Memorial Park District attorneys in California Lawyers from San Jose, California People from Mountain View, California Politicians from San Jose, California Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from California Stanford Law School alumni University of the Pacific (United States) alumni 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives {{California-Representative-stub