Ingram M. Stainback

Ingram M. Stainback

Ingram Macklin Stainback (born May 12, 1883 in Somerville , Fayette County , Tennessee , † April 12, 1961 in Honolulu , Hawaii ) was an American politician and the ninth governor of the Territory of Hawaii , who was in office from 1942 to 1951 . He was a member of the Democratic Party .

Career

Ingram Stainback was born in Somerville on May 12, 1883. He attended Princeton University and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago . Shortly after graduation, Stainback moved to Hawaii, where he was appointed Territorial Attorney General in 1914 by Democratic Governor Lucius E. Pinkham . He resigned from this post in 1917 and entered the US Army , where he rose to the rank of major . After the end of the First World War , he returned to Hawaii, where he started working as a lawyer in his practice.

Stainback served first as a federal attorney and then as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Territory of Hawaii. Later he was appointed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the office of Territorial Governor of Hawaii. It is likely that his ties with then Secretary of State Cordell Hull and US Senator Kenneth McKellar , both from Tennessee, played a role in his appointment. However, Stainback was de facto powerless for the first two years of his tenure, ever since Governor Joseph Boyd Poindexter allowed the military to take over government on December 7, 1941. During the subsequent period Hawaii was ruled by Army Generals Walter C. Short , Delos Carleton Emmons and Robert C. Richardson .

Stainback, a Conservative Democrat, did not regain full powers until April 13, 1944. He then played a major role in the repeal of martial law during wartime Hawaii. He believed in a communist conspiracy to take over the Hawaiian Islands. He also supported the emergence of Hawaii's Democratic Revolution of 1954 by discrediting Hawaii’s land monopoly and calling for land reform. When Stainback left office on May 8, 1951, he had served eight years, eight months and six days, the longest term of governor to date.

On September 26, 1951, he was appointed by US President Harry S. Truman as an associate judge ( Associate Judge ) to the Hawaii Supreme Court. Stainback argued in favor of Commonwealth status , as already possessed by Puerto Rico , instead of statehood, arguing that Hawaii would benefit from state tax exemption. He died on April 12, 1961 in Honolulu and was buried in Oahu Cemetery .

Honors

Ingram Macklin Stainback was commemorated on the Big Island by the Stainback Highway, an 18-mile-long country road with little traffic that leads to Kulani Honor Camp, a medium security prison.

Web links

• The Political Graveyard (English)
• Ingram M. Stainback in the database of Find a Grave (English)