Robert Rice Reynolds (June 18, 1884 – February 13, 1963) was an American politician who served as a
Democratic US senator from
North Carolina
North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...
from 1932 to 1945. Almost from the outset of his Senate career, "Our Bob," as he was known among his local supporters, acquired distinction as a passionate
isolationist and increasing notoriety as an apologist for
Nazi
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
aggression in Europe. Even after America's entry into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, according to a contemporary study of subversive elements in America, he "publicly endorsed the propaganda efforts of
Gerald L. K. Smith," whose scurrilous publication ''
The Cross and the Flag'' "violently assailed the United States war effort and America's allies." One of the nation's most influential
fascist
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...
s, Smith likewise collaborated with Reynolds on ''The Defender'', an
antisemitic newspaper that was partly owned by Reynolds.
Reynolds occasionally turned over his Senate office facilities to subversive propagandists and allowed them to use his
franking to mail their literature postage-free.
Early life
He was born on June 18, 1884, in
Asheville, North Carolina, at his family's estate, the
Reynolds House. He was the son of William Taswell Reynolds (1850–1892) and Mamie Elizabeth Spears (1862–1939).
He was descended from a family of Revolutionary War heroes and pioneers, politicians, and property owners,
including his maternal great-grandfather, Colonel
Daniel Smith, a
Revolutionary War hero of the
Battle of Kings Mountain.
His siblings included
George Spears Reynolds (1881–1924) and
Jane Reynolds Wood (1888–1927).
Reynolds attended public and private schools, including
Weaver College, a preparatory school,
before entering the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...
. While at UNC, he played football, ran track, and was the editor of the sports section of ''
The Daily Tar Heel''. He left UNC without a degree but was still accepted at the
University of North Carolina School of Law. He did not officially enroll but attended lectures and was eventually admitted to the Bar in North Carolina in 1908.
Early career
After passing the
bar exam
A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction.
Australia
Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...
, Reynolds began practicing in Asheville with his brother. He was elected
prosecuting attorney, serving from 1910 to 1914, and during
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, registered for military service. He was never drafted but briefly served in the
National Guard
National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
...
. In 1924, he ran for
Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, losing to
J. Elmer Long in the Democratic
primary.
In
1926, Reynolds first ran for the US Senate, but was unsuccessful and lost the primary to
Lee Overman. He ran again in
1932
Events January
* January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel.
* January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...
and defeated former Governor and interim Senator
Cameron Morrison in the Democratic primary
runoff by nearly two-to-one after running a particularly nasty, populist campaign in which he accused Morrison of being a
Communist sympathizer.
During one campaign speech, he proclaimed, "Cam likes
fish eggs, and
Red Russian fish eggs at that. Don't you want a Senator who likes North Carolina hen eggs?"
U.S. Senate
In his first term, Reynolds was in favor of
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
's
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
and believed that it provided much-needed jobs for his North Carolinans. That allowed the
Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and National Scenic Byway, All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is the longest linear park in the U.S., runs for through 29 counties in Virginia and ...
and the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in the southeastern United States, southeast, with parts in North Carolina and Tennessee. The park straddles the ridgeline o ...
to be built. Reynolds favored
taxing the wealthy and imposing
regulations on the economy. In addition, he supported
Social Security
Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance ...
, the
Fair Labor Standards Act, the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; from 1935 to 1939, then known as the Work Projects Administration from 1939 to 1943) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to car ...
,
Tennessee Valley Authority, and the
Agricultural Adjustment Act
The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was a United States federal law of the New Deal era designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers Subsidy, subsidies not to plant ...
, which raised tobacco prices. Reynolds initially supported Roosevelt's
Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937 to pack the Supreme Court but later joined other Democrats in sending it back to the
Judiciary Committee, effectively killing the bill.
Reynolds was an advocate of "Fortress America" and supported a strong national defense, including an expansion of the
United States Armed Forces
The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. U.S. United States Code, federal law names six armed forces: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States Navy, Na ...
. However, he was also a leading
isolationist.
[Katznelson, Ira (2013). ''Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of our Time.'' New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation. . .] He vociferously opposed Roosevelt's efforts to revise the
Neutrality Acts. Reynolds and Senator
John Overton of Louisiana were the only senators from the South to vote against the repeal of the arms embargo. Therefore, during his 1938 re-election campaign, Roosevelt recruited Congressman
Franklin W. Hancock, Jr. to oppose Reynolds in the Democratic primary, but Reynolds won handily.
An advocate of immigration restriction, Reynolds spoke out against the
Wagner–Rogers Bill that aimed to accept 20,000 Jewish refugee children into the United States from Nazi Germany. He elicited the praise of the magazine ''
Social Justice'', organized by
demagogue and radio priest
Charles Coughlin.
In 1939, less than three months before the beginning of World War II, Reynolds, described by the leftist newspaper
PM as "the Senate's No. 1 alien-baiter," called for a 10-year ban on all immigration to the United States and said that "the time has come for changing the tradition that the U.S.A. is an asylum for the oppressed." He also demanded that newly-arrived immigrants, "millions of foreigners who are about to begin the rape of this country," should be deported or detained in concentration camps.
Unusually for a major American politician, Reynolds openly praised
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
and worked with
fascist
Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...
intellectuals such as
Gerald L. K. Smith and
George Sylvester Viereck.
In 1941, Reynolds became chairman of the
Senate Committee on Military Affairs. After the
Pearl Harbor attack and the
German declaration of war against the United States in December 1941, he partially reversed his pro-German and pro-fascist opinions and introduced a bill to extend the
Selective Training and Service Act sponsored by the
U.S. War Department.
Nevertheless, a confidential 1943 analysis of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee by
Isaiah Berlin for the British
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* United ...
stated that Reynolds
[ The scholar who, in 1973, edited and analyzed Berlin's report described his allegations regarding Reynolds' sympathy to fascism as "both intemperate and gratuitous."]
By 1944, the Democratic Party chose former Governor
Clyde R. Hoey to seek Reynolds's seat in the primary. As a result, Reynolds did not seek reelection. Hoey won the primary and went on to win the general election in a landslide victory over a Republican opponent. Reynolds sought to return to the Senate in 1950,
but he was by then hopelessly discredited and won only 10% in the Democratic primary, behind
Frank Porter Graham and
Willis Smith.
Later life
After leaving public life, Reynolds practiced law and real estate until his death, in Asheville. He wrote the book ''Gypsy Trails, Around the World in an Automobile''; Asheville, NC: Advocate Publishing Company (presumed date 1923).
Personal life
Reynolds married five times throughout his life and had four children. His first marriage was in 1910 to Frances Jackson (1889–1913). Before her death from
typhoid fever in 1913, they had two children together:
* Frances Jackson Reynolds (1910–1955)
* Robert Rice Reynolds, Jr. (1913–1950)
In 1914, he married 17-year-old Mary Bland (b. 1897). Less than a year after their marriage, he left his new wife and their child. Before their divorce in 1917 and her three subsequent marriages, they had one daughter together:
* Mary Bland Reynolds, who died of
Hodgkin's disease.
In 1921, he married, for the third time, Denise D'Arcy, a French woman he met in New York.
Reynolds met D'Arcy while he was traveling around the country in his truck and accidentally struck her as she crossed the street. Within five days, he had announced that they had fallen in love and were going to get married. The marriage dissolved after one year, and D'Arcy obtained a legal separation from Reynolds in 1922 and moved back to France. The divorce was ultimately finalized in 1929.
On February 27, 1931, he married for the fourth time to Eva Brady (1898–1934), a former
Ziegfeld Follies dancer from Chicago,
who came to Asheville looking for a cure for
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
. Eva died on December 13, 1934.
On October 9, 1941, 57-year-old Reynolds married for the fifth and final time to 19-year-old Evalyn Washington McLean (1921–1946), daughter of
Edward B. McLean, the former publisher and owner of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'', and
Evalyn Walsh McLean, owner of the
Hope Diamond. Together, they had one daughter:
* Mamie Spears Reynolds (1942–2014), an owner and driver for the Reynolds Racing Team of Asheville, the first woman to qualify for the
Daytona 500, and co-owner of the
ABA Kentucky Colonels professional basketball team.
In 1963, she married Luigi "Coco" Chinetti Jr., son of Italian racecar driver and
Ferrari
Ferrari S.p.A. (; ) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello. Founded in 1939 by Enzo Ferrari (1898–1988), the company built Auto Avio Costruzioni 815, its first car in 1940, adopted its current name in 1945, and be ...
agent
Luigi Chinetti, and divorced two years later.
On September 20, 1946, his wife, Evalyn, died of an accidental overdose of
sleeping pills,
which some believe is a result of the
Hope Diamond curse..
Death
Reynolds died of cancer on February 13, 1963, at
Reynolds House, in Asheville.
References
Bibliography
*
External links
*
*
Rob Christensen: From Buncombe Bob to 'the Tar Heel Fuhrer'
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reynolds, Robert R.
1884 births
1963 deaths
American anti–World War II activists
Politicians from Asheville, North Carolina
North Carolina Democrats
North Carolina lawyers
American Nazis
American prosecutors
American real estate brokers
Antisemitism in North Carolina
1928 United States presidential electors
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni
Democratic Party United States senators from North Carolina
History of United States isolationism
Deaths from cancer in North Carolina
20th-century American lawyers
Fascist politicians
20th-century American far-right politicians
20th-century United States senators