Guy Gillette (Politician)

Guy Mark Gillette​
United States Senator for Iowa​
In office November 4, 1936​ – January 3, 1945​
Preceded by	Richard L. Murphy​
Succeeded by	Bourke Hickenlooper​
In office January 3, 1949​ – January 3, 1955​
Preceded by	George Allison Wilson
Succeeded by	Thomas Ellsworth Martin
U.S. Representative for Iowa's former 9th Congressional District​
In office March 4, 1933​ – November 3, 1936​
Preceded by	Charles Edward Swanson​
Succeeded by	Vincent F. Harrington​
Iowa State Senator
In office 1912–1916
Born	February 3, 1879}​ Cherokee, Cherokee County, Iowa​
Died	March 3, 1973 (aged 94)​ Cherokee, Iowa​
Resting place	Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee
Political party	Democrat​
Spouse(s)	Rose Freeman Gillette
Children	Mark Freeman Gillette Parents: Mark Daniel and Mary Hull Gillette
Alma mater	Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa
Occupation	Attorney; Farmer
Religion	Presbyterian
Military Service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Rank	Sergeant

For the American photographer, see Guy Gillette (photographer).

Guy Mark Gillette (February 3, 1879 – March 3, 1973) was a Democrat U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Iowa known particularly for his disagreements with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.^[1] ​

Background[edit]

A native of Cherokee in Cherokee County in northwestern Iowa, he was one of at least four children of Mark Daniel Gillette (1853–1936) and the former Mary Hull (1854–1932). He was married to the former Rose Freeman (1880–1956), and the couple had a son, Mark Freeman Gillette (1929–2013).^[1]

In 1900, Gillette graduated from the law school at Drake University in the capital city of Des Moines.^[2]

Political career[edit]

Upon his return from non-combat service in the United States Army during the five-month Spanish–American War, Gillette engaged in farming and for a year was the city attorney for Cherokee and then for two years the Cherokee County prosecuting attorney. He was a state senator from 1912 to 1916. In 1932, Gillette was elected to Iowa's since disbanded 9th congressional district in a heavily Republican area. In 1934, he won reelection in another strongly Democratic year but resigned before the expiration of his House term upon his victory in a special election to the U.S. Senate.^[1]

U.S. Senate[edit]

Though he had initially voted for much of the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt marked Gillette for defeat when the Iowan opposed some programs^[3] and joined a bipartisan Senate majority in opposition to Roosevelt's failed court packing scheme, a plan to add new as many as six new liberal justices on the United States Supreme Court.^[4] Roosevelt, however, was rebuffed as Gillette defeated Otha D. Wearlin,^[5] the president's primary preference. During his first full term beginning in 1937, Senator Gillette's differences with Roosevelt became more apparent. He opposed third and fourth terms for FDR, as had Roosevelt's first Vice President John Nance Garner of Texas.^[6]

Gillette opposed efforts by the majority of Senate Democrats (both Northern and Southern) in 1937 to kill the anti-lynching rider amendments that year introduced by his conservative Democrat colleague Royal S. Copeland.^[7][8]

Gillette's brother, Captain Claude Sexton Gillette (1886–1959), was in charge of the naval yard at the time of the Japanese attack in 1941 on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After the attack, Gillette became less isolationist in his foreign policy views.^[2] In 1943, Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997), a British man of letters, wrote a confidential analysis for the British Foreign Office of the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on which Gillette served. Berlin described Gillette as a typical midwestern senator:^[9]​

Gillette was an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment before the effort gained increased traction several decades later. He lost his bid for a second full Senate term in 1944 to the Republican Governor Bourke Hickenlooper.^[10][11] Despite their differences, President Roosevelt nominated Gillette to be the chairman of the Surplus Property Board, but Gillette soon left the post the month after Roosevelt's death. He proceeded to join the American League for a Free Palestine.

He returned to the U.S. Senate for a third full term in January 1949, having unseated George A. Wilson (1884–1953), a Republican former governor and U.S. Senator.^[12]

In 1951, Gillette chaired a subcommittee which investigated campaign practices of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who exposed communist subversion of the United States State Department and the U.S. Army.^[2] Along with the majority of Democrats in addition to half of the Republicans, he voted in favor of the Senate censure against McCarthy.^[13] Gillette was again unseated, unexpectedly, in 1954 by the Republican U.S. representative Thomas E. Martin (1893–1971) of Iowa City.^[14][15] With Gillette's defeat, every Iowa seat in Congress was in Republican hands, a feat that the GOP has yet to match.​

Later years[edit]

After leaving the Senate, Gillette served as counsel with the Senate Post Office and Civil Service Committee (1955–1956) and the Senate Judiciary Committee (1956–1961).^[2]

Gillette spent his later years back in Cherokee, where he died in 1973 at the age of ninety-four.^[16] He, his wife Rose, and their son are interred at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cherokee.^[1] Gillette's parents are interrred at Riverside Cemetery in Crete in Saline County, Nebraska.^[17] His brother Claude is interred at Maple Grove Cemetery in Bath, Maine, the hometown of his second wife.^[18]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Biography at The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa