Jerry Voorhis

President Franklin Roosevelt

Voorhis was a candidate for the California State Assembly in 1934,[4] changing his registration from Socialist to Democrat, but was defeated by popular incumbent Herbert Evans despite receiving the backing of writer and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair.[19] Two years later, he challenged incumbent John Hoeppel for the 12th district Democratic nomination. Hoeppel was weakened by a recent conviction for attempting to sell a nomination to West Point and Voorhis won the Democratic nomination, with Hoeppel finishing in third place. Running as a "Progressive Roosevelt-Democrat", Voorhis easily defeated Republican nominee Frederick F. Houser in the general election.[20]

Voorhis was reelected to Congress four times and had one of Congress's most liberal voting records.[21] He supported New Deal initiatives, including Franklin Roosevelt's controversial court packing plan.[22]

In January 1937, Voorhis's first legislative initiative was to propose a dramatic increase in spending for the Works Progress Administration in order to increase employment.[23] While this effort was unsuccessful,[24] Congress, faced with an economic downturn the following year, increased WPA spending beyond the level which Voorhis had sought.[25] While the 75th Congress had in excess of 300 Democrats, many of them were conservative, and Voorhis emerged as a leader of a progressive caucus of some 50 representatives.[26] Voorhis advocated the purchase by the Federal Government of the stock in the Federal Reserve Banks, which was held by the member banks, as a way of financing government expenditures and briefly got President Roosevelt to support the measure until the President's advisers caused Roosevelt to change his mind.[27] Voorhis later allied with future House Banking Committee chairman Wright Patman to force Federal Reserve Banks to pay most of the interest they earned on federal securities to the U.S. Government, rather than to the bank stockholders.[28]

In the run-up to World War II, Voorhis urged neutrality. He proposed enactment of a law which would require a national referendum on whether to go to war. According to Voorhis, laws banning the sale of munitions to foreign nations and forbidding Americans from making loans to other nations for war preparations would keep the United States out of war.[29] In September 1939, when interviewed by The New York Times for his reaction to the President calling Congress into special session to consider amendments to the Neutrality Act, Voorhis stated that a special session should quickly increase relief to the working poor.[30] In early November 1939, however, Voorhis announced his support for repealing the arms embargo mandated by the Act, at the same time urging that the country remain neutral.[31] Voorhis also opposed a peacetime draft,[32] and supported "lend-lease" legislation.[33]

Once war was declared, Voorhis supported the internment of Japanese-Americans, though he suggested that the evacuations be done in as voluntary a manner as possible and that officials be appointed to administer their property to avoid forced sales at bargain prices.[34] During the war, Voorhis advocated more efficiently taxing higher incomes and war profits, planning against postwar unemployment, and planning for the nutritional needs of Americans. Voorhis also opposed dominance of big business in the war effort. Congress, for the most part, ignored Voorhis's pleas.[35]

Voorhis often opposed the petroleum industry, questioning the need for the oil depletion allowance. In 1943, he was told by a Pasadena attorney that the Navy Department was planning to grant Standard Oil exclusive free drilling rights in the vast Elk Hills naval reserve in central California, then thought to be the richest oil reserve outside the Arabian Peninsula. The congressman in a speech from the House floor in May 1943 exposed the deal, which was soon cancelled. The Washington Post hailed him as a hero, and House Naval Affairs Committee Chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia stated that Voorhis had performed "the greatest kind of service".[36] However, the Los Angeles Times suggested that Voorhis had harmed the war effort by depriving the people of California of gasoline.[37] In 1945, Voorhis fought a bill which would have given oil companies offshore drilling rights. The petroleum industry journal Second Issue blamed the defeat of the bill on Voorhis. Nixon biographer Roger Morris suggested that these stands led oil companies to give Nixon substantial, but surreptitious, financial assistance during the 1946 campaign against Voorhis.[38]

Voorhis's bill to transfer jurisdiction over rabbits

Voorhis "temperamentally and philosophically loathed" Communism.[39] He sponsored the Voorhis Act of 1940, which required political organizations which were controlled by a foreign power or which engaged in military activities to subvert the American government to register with the Justice Department. Voorhis also served as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee[22] (HUAC) though Time magazine stated he could be "counted upon ... to temper rightist blasts for leftist lambs".[39]

Voorhis was generally highly regarded by his colleagues and others in Washington. Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois considered Voorhis "a political saint",[40] and said of Voorhis, "Driven by conscience, he had a compulsion to master every subject that came before the House, and having mastered it, he spoke his mind."[39] Voorhis would make five-minute speeches in the House of Representatives at any opportunity, on matters ranging from local concerns in his district to international monetary issues.[41] The press nicknamed him "Kid Atlas", seeming to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.[41] The press corps also voted him the most honest congressman, and the fifth most intelligent.[42] However, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes described Voorhis's 1943 resignation from HUAC as the representative being "[w]obbly as usual".[43]

Voorhis's 12th district leaned Republican, the more so after Voorhis survived an attempt, in 1941, to gerrymander him out of office by removing strong Democratic precincts from the 12th during the decennial redistricting. Nevertheless, Voorhis was re-elected by 13,000 votes in 1942, and by a similar margin two years later.[44] Despite the Republican leanings of his district, Voorhis had not faced any strong opposition prior to 1946. Elected as part of the Roosevelt landslide of 1936, in 1938 he faced an opponent so shy that Voorhis had to introduce him to the crowd at a joint appearance. In 1940, he faced a military school principal, and his 1942 opponent, radio preacher and former Prohibition Party gubernatorial candidate Robert P. Shuler, "even embarrassed GOP regulars".[19] In 1944, the 12th district Republicans were bitterly divided, and Voorhis easily triumphed.[19]

Voorhis was a conscientious congressman towards his constituents, careful to remember births, anniversaries, and in-district events.[44] In fact, after the birth of Tricia Nixon near the start of the 1946 campaign, Voorhis's office sent the Nixon family a copy of a government publication called Infant Care, of which congressmen received 150 a month. On April 1, 1946, Richard Nixon sent Voorhis a thank you letter for the pamphlet.[45]

Aside from the act named for him, Voorhis succeeded in enacting few new laws, a fact Nixon used against him in 1946 when he argued that Voorhis's legislation had only "transferred jurisdiction over the raising of rabbits from one government department to another."[46] The New York Times wrote of him in 1947, "He was ineffectual in terms of practical results."[41]

License plate attachment promoting Voorhis's candidacy

As Voorhis served his fifth term in the House, local Republicans searched for a candidate capable of defeating him. Richard Nixon answered the call.[21] Nixon, who was still in the Navy when approached, wrote of Voorhis, "His 'conservative' reputation must be blasted. But my main efforts are being directed toward building up a positive, progressive group of speeches that tell what we want to do, not what the Democrats have failed to do ... I'm really hopped up over this deal, and I believe we can win."[44] However, "wheelhorse" Republicans deemed Nixon's campaign hopeless.[47]

As was usual in California at the time, both Nixon and Voorhis cross-filed in the other party's primary, a practice Voorhis had long adopted. Winning both primaries virtually assured election. Each candidate won his own party's primary, with Voorhis garnering a considerable number of votes in the Republican primary, and outpolling Nixon by 7,000 votes overall. Nixon gained momentum, however, when the newspapers pointed out that Voorhis's total percentage of the vote had decreased from 60% in 1944 to 53.5%.[44]

Voorhis had the advantage of incumbency, but this was balanced by other factors favoring Nixon. Due to the press of Congressional business, Voorhis was able to devote only two months to the campaign, while Nixon campaigned in the district for ten months.[48] Voorhis's time was further limited when, while en route to California from Washington D.C. in August, he was forced to have surgery for hemorrhoids in Ogden, Utah.[40] He spent two weeks in an Ogden hotel recuperating from the operation.[49]

Nixon alleged that a vote against Voorhis was "a vote against the P.A.C. Political Action Committee, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), its Communist principles, and its gigantic slush fund."[50] The Nixon campaign distributed 25,000 thimbles[47] labeled "Nixon for Congress/Put the needle in the P.A.C."[51]

South Pasadena Middle School (formerly South Pasadena Junior High School)

Voorhis's supposed involvement with and endorsement by the CIO-PAC, which was believed to be a Communist front organization, was a major issue in the campaign. Nixon's campaign manager claimed to have proof of Voorhis's involvement with the group. On September 13, the two candidates met at a debate at South Pasadena Junior High School.[52] When Nixon was challenged to produce proof of the allegation, Nixon took from his pocket a local bulletin of the National Citizens Political Action Committee that contained an endorsement of Voorhis. That was a different group, also affiliated with the CIO. While Voorhis's staff was aware of the endorsement, no one had told the representative. Voorhis, confronted with the bulletin, noted that they were two different groups. Nixon responded by reading the names of the boards of directors of the two groups, with many names in common.[52] After the debate, Voorhis asked Congressman Chester E. Holifield for his view of how it had gone, and Holifield responded, "Jerry, he cut you to pieces."[53] Voorhis had been successfully linked with "the PAC", though he had refused to accept the endorsement of any PAC unless it renounced Communist influence.[54] Nixon defeated Voorhis by over 15,000 votes, and Time magazine praised the future president for "politely avoid[ing] personal attacks on his opponent".[47]

The day after the election, Voorhis issued a concession statement, "I have given the best years of my life to serving this district in Congress. By the will of the people, that work is ended. I have no regrets about the record I have written."[55] In his 1947 book, Confessions of a Congressman, Voorhis attributed his defeat to tremendous amounts of money supposedly spent by the Nixon forces. When Nixon read the book, he commented, "What I am wondering is where all the money went that we were supposed to have had!"[56]

Nixon's defeat of Voorhis has been cited as the start of a number of red-baiting campaigns by the future president that later elevated him to the Senate and the Vice-Presidency, and eventually put him in position to run for president.[57] Voorhis later deemed himself "the first victim of the Nixon-Chotiner formula for political success."[58] In 1958, Voorhis alleged that voters had received anonymous phone calls alleging that he was a Communist, that newspapers had stated that he was a fellow traveler, and that when Nixon got angry, he would "do anything."[59]

In spite of any hard feelings, Voorhis sent Nixon a letter of congratulations in early December 1946. The two men met for an hour at Voorhis's office and parted as friends, according to Voorhis. Voorhis's final letter as a congressman, on December 31, was to his father, who had been his political adviser throughout his congressional career, "It has been primarily due to your help, your confidence, your advice ... above all to a feeling I have always had that your hand was on my shoulder. Thanks ... God bless you."[56]