Wright Patman

Patman was the son of John N. and Emma (Spurlin) Patman, was born near Hughes Springs in Cass County, Texas, on August 6, 1893. After graduating from Hughes Springs High School in 1912, he enrolled in Cumberland University Law School in Lebanon, Tennessee. Receiving his law degree in 1916 he was admitted to the Texas bar the same year.[3] During World War I Patman enlisted in the United States Army as a private. He later received a commission as a first lieutenant and machine gun officer in the Texas Army National Guard's 144th Infantry Regiment, a unit of the 36th Division. He remained in the National Guard for several years after the war.[4]

Patman was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1920. He left the House in 1924 when he was appointed district attorney of the fifth judicial district of Texas.

Early Congressional career

Patman as depicted in the Pictorial Directory of the 74th Congress

In 1928, Patman was elected to the House of Representatives from Texas's 1st congressional district. In 1932, Patman introduced a bill that would have mandated the immediate payment of the bonus to World War I veterans.[5] It was during the consideration of this bill that the Bonus Army came to Washington. Patman was a supporter of the New Deal.[6]

In January 1932, Patman spearheaded a movement to impeach Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon,[7] which forced the latter's resignation the following month.[8]

In 1935, Patman took on the cause of independent retailers, who were engaged in a nationwide battle to stop the growth of chain retailing by taxing chains and restricting their business practices.[9] Patman in the House and Joseph Taylor Robinson in the United States Senate were the sponsors of the 1936 Robinson-Patman Act, an effort to preserve independent wholesalers and retail outlets ("Mom and Pop stores") by preventing manufacturers or large retailers from becoming involved in wholesaling.[10]

Patman was one of four members of the Texas congressional delegation to originally sign the "Southern Manifesto," (Martin Dies Jr. signed subsequently) a resolution in protest of the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education.[11]

Watergate inquiry

Main article: Watergate scandal

Wright Patman's eponymous committee played an important role in the early days of the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down President Richard Nixon.

Texas Representative Wright Patman talk on his pension bill in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 3, 1939 with Robert L. Doughton, Chairman of the House Ways and Means

The Patman Committee investigated the hundred dollar bills found on the Watergate "plumbers" upon their arrest, suspecting they could directly link them to CREEP, the president's re-election committee. The Patman Committee's 1972 investigation was stymied by pressure from the White House, in part aided by Congressman Gerald R. Ford.[12] Despite these efforts to stop Patman, his investigative course ultimately proved to be Nixon's undoing in the sense that the money trail, as reported on in the Washington Post, helped lead to the establishment of the Ervin Senate Select Committee on Watergate in April 1973.

Patman died of pneumonia in Bethesda, Maryland on March 7, 1976.[16] He was buried at Hillcrest Cemetery in Texarkana.[17]

In the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, the Wright Patman Congressional Federal Credit Union is named after him. This credit union serves the banking needs of elected and former members of the House and their staff.[18] In addition, Wright Patman Lake and Wright Patman Dam in Northeast Texas are also named for him.[19]

In 2011 Rick Perry condemned the monetary policies of Ben Bernanke in populist-like language, earning him criticism from some mainstream Republicans, including Karl Rove. One observer, Alexander Cockburn, recalled that it used to be Texas Democrats like Patman who were regarded as the populists. According to Cockburn, Patman, sitting as chair of the House Banking Committee in the early 1970s, "snarl[ed] at then Fed chairman Arthur Burns, before him to give testimony, 'Can you give me any reason why you should not be in the penitentiary?'"[20]

• Tax Exempt Foundations and Charitable Trusts: Their Impact on Our Economy (December 1962) 87th Congress, 2nd Session
• Commercial Banks and Their Trust Activities: Emerging Influence on the American Economy (Washington DC 1968) 90th Congress, 2nd Session, volumes I and II

• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–99)

• Levinson, Marc (2019), The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America, 2nd ed., ISBN 978-0-578-56210-0
• Owens, John E. (1985), "Extreme Advocacy Committee Leadership in the Pre-Reform House: Wright Patman and the House Banking and Currency Committee", British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, 15 (2): 149–168, doi:10.1017/s0007123400004154, ISSN 0007-1234, JSTOR 193800
• Stoller, Matt (2019), Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 978-1501183089
• Young, Nancy Beck (2000), Wright Patman: Populism, Liberalism, and the American Dream, Southern Methodist University Press, ISBN 0870744534

• United States Congress. "Wright Patman (id: P000103)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Wright Patman from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Texas A&M University Press: Wright Patman: Populism, Liberalism, and the American Dream by Nancy Beck Young
• A film clip "Longines Chronoscope with Wright Patman" is available at the Internet Archive