Ernest Gruening

Ernest Henry Gruening

Ernest Henry Gruening (born February 6, 1887 in New York City , †  June 26, 1974 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician ( Democratic Party ) and governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 to 1953 and from 1959 to 1969 US -Senator for the State of Alaska .

Early years

Gruening graduated from Harvard University in 1907 and from Harvard Medical School in 1912 . He then turned away from medicine and devoted himself to journalism . He initially worked as a reporter for the Boston American in 1912 , then moved to the editorial office and later worked as a rewrite man for the Boston Evening Herald , where he was an editorial writer from 1912 to 1913 . In the following four years Gruening worked as managing editor, first with the Boston Evening Traveler and then with the New York Tribune . After the First World War , Gruening was editor of The Nation from 1920 to 1923 and the New York Post from 1932 to 1933 .

Political career

Fascinated by the New Deal politics, Gruening decided to embark on a political career. He was appointed US delegate to the 7th Inter-American Conference in 1933, was then director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions of the Department of the Interior from 1934 to 1939 , and administrator of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction from 1935 to 1937 . He then moved to the Alaska International Highway Commission , where he worked from 1938 to 1942. In 1939 he was appointed governor of the Alaska Territory, an office he held for the next 14 years. He was also a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1952, 1956 and 1960.

Before Alaska was accepted into the Union as the 49th state on January 3, 1959, Gruening was elected to the US Senate in 1958, where he remained for the next ten years. Gruening's most notable act as senator was to vote against the Tonkin resolution that ushered in the Vietnam War . He and Wayne Morse of Oregon were the only senators who did this. He was also responsible for introducing the major congressional resolution to establish the nationwide 911 emergency number.

Gruening was beaten by Mike Gravel when he ran again in 1968 for re-election to the Senate . Gravel defeated Gruening in the democratic primaries, after which Gruening ran as an independent in the parliamentary elections and took third place. He remained politically active, was the president of an investment firm and worked as a legal advisor.

Honors

The Ernest Gruening Building, a school building on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, was named after him. In 1977 Alaska donated a statue of Ernest Gruening to the United States Capitol 's National Statuary Hall Collection . The Ernest Gruening Middle School in Eagle River , Alaska was named after him. The Gruening Glacier in Antarctica has been named after him since 1947 .

literature

• Ernest Gruening: Many Battles: The Autobiography of Ernest Gruening . Liveright, 1973, ISBN 0871405652 .
• Robert David Johnson: Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition . Harvard University Press, 1998, ISBN 978-0-674-26060-3 .
• Robert David Johnson, "Anti-Imperialism And The Good Neighbor Policy: Ernest Gruening and Puerto Rican Affairs, 1934-1939". In Journal of Latin American Studies . 29, No. 1, 1997, pp. 89-110 (Argues Gruening tried to implement the anti-imperialist principles he had outlined in the 1920s. He failed because he lacked local support.)
• Claus-M Naske: Ernest Gruening: Alaska's Greatest Governor . University of Alaska Press, 2004, ISBN 1-889963-35-6 .

Web links

• Ernest Gruening in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Ernest Gruening in the database of Find a Grave (English)