Henry Schricker

Henry Frederick Schricker (born August 20, 1883 in North Judson , Starke County , Indiana ; † December 28, 1966 in Knox , Indiana) was an American politician and between 1941 and 1945 the 36th and between 1949 and 1953 the 38th.  Governor of the state of Indiana.

Early years and political advancement

Henry Schricker attended local schools in his hometown of North Judson. He then owned and edited the Starke County Democrat newspaper for eleven years. He then went into banking. Henry Schricker was a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the Indiana Senate for a term in 1932 . An earlier attempt to be elected to this body had failed in 1924. In 1936 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Indiana. So he was between 1937 and 1941 the deputy of the incumbent Governor Maurice C. Townsend . In 1940 he won the gubernatorial election with 49.9 percent of the vote against the Republican Glenn R. Hillis, who was only 400 votes short of victory.

Governor and Senate candidate

Schricker took up his new office on January 13, 1941. During his four-year tenure, the reform of the government apparatus undertaken in 1933 under Governor Paul McNutt was reversed. Back then, in 1933, 169 posts were reduced to just eight. This had not proven itself in practice and has now been corrected. Since December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the United States had been at war with Japan and shortly afterwards with Germany. That also meant a change for Indiana. Industrial production had to be converted to armaments. At the same time soldiers had to be drafted and recruited for the war effort.

In 1944 Schricker applied unsuccessfully for a seat in the US Senate: He achieved a share of the vote of 48.9 percent and was thus defeated by the Republican Homer E. Capehart . President Franklin D. Roosevelt allegedly offered him the vice presidency in 1944. Schricker, who knew the president's poor health, turned it down. He said that a man should know his limits. In fact, after Roosevelt's death in April 1945 , he would have become US President in place of Harry S. Truman if he had accepted the offer. Schricker then temporarily devoted himself to his private interests. So he was vice president of an investment firm until 1948. That year he again managed to win the gubernatorial election. This time he prevailed quite clearly against the Republican Hobart Creighton with 53.6 percent of the vote. This made him the first Indiana governor to serve two non-contiguous four-year terms. Isaac P. Gray also had two non-contiguous terms of office in the 1880s, the first of which only lasted a few months.

Schricker's second term began on January 10, 1949 and ended on January 12, 1953; it passed without significant events. He was extremely popular in Indiana during his reign. In 1952 he again ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the US Senate; this time he lost to incumbent William E. Jenner . A re-election as governor was not possible for constitutional reasons.

Another résumé

At the 1952 Democratic National Convention in Chicago , he gave the nomination speech for Adlai Stevenson , who was the Democratic Party's presidential candidate that year but lost to Dwight D. Eisenhower in the November election . Schricker became president of an insurance company after the end of his governorship. In 1960 he moved to Knox, where he died in 1966. Henry Schricker was married to Maude L. Brown, with whom he had three children.

Web links

• Henry Schricker in the National Governors Association (English)
• Indiana Historical Bureau (English)
• Henry Schricker in the database of Find a Grave (English)