Dewey Short

Dewey Jackson Short
United States Representative for Missouri's 7th congressional district
In office January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1957
Succeeded by	Charles Harrison Brown
U.S. Representative for Missouri's 14th congressional district
In office March 4, 1929 – March 3, 1931
Preceded by	James F. Fulbrght
Succeeded by	James F. Fulbright
Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955
Preceded by	Carl Vinson
Succeeded by	Carl Vinson
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil-Military Affairs
In office March 15, 1957 – November 1958
President	Dwight D. Eisenhower
Preceded by	George H. Roderick
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Born	April 7, 1898 Galena, Stone County, Missouri
Died	November 19, 1979 (aged 81) Washington, D.C.
Resting place	Galena Cemetery
Nationality	United States
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Helen Gladys Hughes Short (married 1937-1979, his death)
Children	No children Parents: Jackson Grant and Permelia Cordelia Long Short
Residence	Springfield, Missouri Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	Baker University (Kansas) Boston University Heidelberg University Harvard University University of Berlin Oxford University
Occupation	Professor and pastor
Religion	Methodist-Episcopal
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Army Infantry
Battles/wars	World War I

Dewey Jackson Short (April 7, 1898 – November 19, 1979) was a Republican 12-term United States Representative for two districts in his native Missouri. He represented District 14 from 1929 to 1931 and District 7 from 1935 to 1957. A conservative known as the "Orator of the Ozarks," he was a staunch opponent of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. He was an unsuccessful contender for Vice President of the United States in 1940.^[1]

Background[edit]

Short was born in Galena in Stone County in southwestern Missouri to Jackson Grant Short (1864-1947) and the former Permelia Cordelia Long (1868-1924). After his graduation from Galena High School and Marionville College, he served in the infantry during World War I and graduated in 1919 from Baker University in Baldwin City in Douglas County in northeastern Kansas and in 1922 from Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. Short also attended Harvard University, Heidelberg University, the University of Berlin, both in Germany, and Oxford University in England, dates unavailable. In 1923, 1924, and 1926-1928, he was a professor of ethics, psychology, and political philosophy at Southwestern College in Winfield in Cowley County in southeastern Kansas. In 1927, he was a pastor of the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield in southwestern Missouri.^[2] Springfield is 225 miles west of Winfield; so it is unclear how he handled the distance between the two cities.

On April 20, 1937, at the age of thirty-nine, Short wed the former Helen Gladys Hughes (1901-1990, a native of Washington, D.C. The couple had no children.^[3]

Political career[edit]

Short was elected in 1928 in Missouri congressional district 14, since disbanded. However, he was defeated in 1930 and returned to Congress from District 7 in the election of 1934.^[2] He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1932, which renominated U.S. President Herbert Hoover. Short ran unsuccessfully that same year for the Republican nomination to the United States Senate^[1] for the seat held by the Democrat Joel Bennett "Champ" Clark (1890-1954), the son of a Democratic former House Speaker and a candidate for the 1912 presidential nomination. Short was elected again to Congress in 1934, this time from district 7 and held the seat for eleven terms. At the 1940 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Short received 108 delegate votes in second place for the party's vice-presidential nomination, which went instead to U.S. Senator Charles McNary of Oregon. Wendell Willkie led the party to its third consecutive national defeat.^[4]

Short was the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee., when his party held the majority from 1953 to 1955. On April 30, 1955, Representative Short was presented with an "Honorary Ozark Hillbilly Medallion" by the Chamber of Commerce in Springfield, Missouri, during a broadcast of the 1955-1961 ABC television series, Ozark Jubilee, starring Clyde Julian "Red" Foley (1910-1968) and popularizing Country music. The series was produced in om Springfield.

Short did not join his southern House colleagues in support of the 1956 Southern Manifesto,introduced by House Rules Committee chairman Howard W. Smith of Virginia, which sought to defend segregation, especially in public education.^[5]He had already left the House prior to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

In the 1956 House election, Short was unseated by the Democrat Charles Harrison Brown (1920-2003) even though President Dwight D. Eisenhower won a second presidential term but lost Missouri to Adlai Stevenson, which Eisenhower had carried in 1952. Short polled 89,926 votes; Brown, 90,986.

In 1945, Short served as a congressional delegate to inspect concentration camps in Germany. From 1957 to 1961, Short served as Assistant Secretary of the Army under President Eisenhower. He was later president-emeritus of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress.

Short died at the age of eighty-one in Washington, D.C. and is interred at Galena Cemetery. It is unclear if Mrs. Short is also buried there.^[3] In his book, In the Arena, Richard Nixon cited Short as perhaps the finest orator he had ever seen. In 1985, Robert S. Wiley published, Dewey Short: Orator of the Ozarks.^[6]

Short's rhetoric[edit]

On January 23, 1935, Short spoke to the House chamber. He claimed that the lawmakers had "degenerated into a supine, subservient, soporific, superfluous, supercilious, pusillanimous body of nitwits, the greatest ever gathered beneath the dome of our National Capitol, who cowardly abdicate their powers and, in violation of their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution against all of the Nation's enemies, both foreign and domestic, turn over these constitutional prerogatives, not only granted but imposed upon them, to a group of tax-eating, conceited autocratic bureaucrats, a bunch of theoretical, intellectual, professorial nincompoops out of Columbia University, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue who were never elected by the American people to any office and who are responsible to no constituency. These 'brain trusters' and 'new dealers' are the ones who wrote this resolution, instead of the Members of this House whose duty it is, and whose sole duty it is, to draft legislation."^[7]

The Dewey Short Visitors Center in the resort city of Branson on Table Rock Lake is named in his honor.

References[edit]