Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Chase Smith (born December 14, 1897 in Skowhegan , Maine , † May 29, 1995 ibid) was an American politician who represented the state of Maine in both chambers of Congress .

Life

Childhood and youth

Margaret Madeline Chase, as her maiden name was, was born to George Emery Chase and his wife Carrie Murray. She attended compulsory schools in her hometown of Skowhegan and initially worked from 1916 to 1917 as an assistant teacher at a so-called dwarf school . She later worked in a switchboard, then for the weekly newspaper Independent Reporter and finally as a secretary in a textile factory. First public appearances followed in the 1920s when she campaigned for equal rights for women.

Political career

In 1930 she married the 21-year-old Republican politician Clyde Smith , who was a member of the House of Representatives from Maine from January 1937 . Margaret Chase Smith began to gain her first political experience as a consultant and assistant to her husband. After the untimely death of her husband in April 1940, Chase Smith moved into the US Parliament's first chamber in June 1940 as his successor. She was considered an emancipated woman who was interested in matters of the US Army during the Second World War and herself sat on the Naval Affairs Committee .

After eight years in the House of Representatives, Chase Smith successfully ran for a seat in the United States Senate in 1948 and made history by joining Horace Hildreth , incumbent governor of Maine, and Sumner Sewall , former governor, in the primary Maines, thrown out of the running. When Chase Smith entered the Senate in January 1949, she was the first woman in congressional history to be elected to both houses. Her opposition to the politics of Senator Joseph McCarthy ( McCarthy era ) caused a sensation . In her declaration Declaration of Conscience , which she made in April 1950, she advocated the right to independent thought and the right to freedom of expression. The central sentence of her statement was "The nation desperately needs a Republican victory in the upcoming election, but I don't want to see the spectacle of the Republican Party using the four apocalyptic horsemen of character assassination - fear, ignorance, and bigotry." Defamation - reached the goal ("The nation sorely needs a Republican victory, but I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to victory on the four horsemen of calumny - fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear"). 1952 she was in Elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences McCarthy's efforts to prevent Senator Chase Smith from being re-elected in 1954 were not welcomed by Maine voters, so she was elected for a second term.

Chase Smith visited 23 states around the world during her tenure as senator and met with heads of state and government such as Winston Churchill , Konrad Adenauer , Vyacheslav Molotov and Charles de Gaulle . In 1960 she ran successfully against the Democrat Lucia Cormier , member of the House of Representatives from Maine , for the seat in the Senate. It was the first election meeting between two women in the history of the Senate. She was considered an opponent of John F. Kennedy's policies and even planned to run against him for President of the United States in 1964. She ran in the 1964 primary election, but got only fifth and last place in votes at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco . In the actual election campaign, she campaigned for her party colleague Barry Goldwater . She was last seen as an advocate of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon's policies , although she also voted against his candidates Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell , whom Nixon wanted to appoint as a judge at the United States Supreme Court . Margaret Chase Smith was re-elected three times, served in the Senate for 24 years, and served until January 3, 1973. During her tenure in the Senate, she had cast her vote on 2,941 bills.

Next life

After leaving the Senate and politics, she was visiting professor at numerous US universities for three years. She has received no fewer than 95 honorary degrees, including a doctorate in law from Rutgers University . In July 1989, US President George Bush presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

She didn't have any children. Although she never married after her husband's death, there are speculations that she was cohabiting with Major General William C. Lewis, her Senate chief of staff.

She died after a brief illness in May 1995 at the age of 97.

Web links

Commons : Margaret Chase Smith  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Margaret Chase Smith  - Quotes

Wikisource: Margaret Chase Smith  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Margaret Chase Smith in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)