Crusading Liberal: Paul H. Douglas of Illinois

Abstract

Crusading Liberal: Paul H. Douglas of Illinois. By Roger Biles (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002. Pp. 258. Notes, bibliographical essay, index. Cloth, $35.00). Paul H. Douglas, Democratic senator from Illinois from 1949 to 1967, was that rara avis among politicians, one whose positions on great issues of his day were governed more by deeply felt conviction than by party dictates or considerations of career advancement. Now, preceded only by Douglas's own somewhat discursive 1971 memoir, In Fullness of Time, Roger Biles has given us carefully-researched and exceptionally well-written account of career of man Martin Luther King, Jr. called the greatest of all senators. Notwithstanding title of Biles's work, no conventional political label entirely fits Douglas. He was indeed consistent liberal on domestic matters, but he was also an uncompromising cold warrior and anti-communist who, to dismay of his liberal allies, was believer in domino theory and firm supporter of United States military effort in Vietnam. Douglas grew up in backwoods of central Maine where, he remembered, a person could travel 150 miles north to Canadian border without seeing another person or other sign of human life. As youngster he knew primitive living conditions, hard work, and near-poverty. An early voracious reader, he was gripped by muckrakers' exposes of robber barons of 1890s and early 1900s and developed lasting identification with and sympathy for working man, first exemplified for future crusading senator by lumbermen and railroad section hands of rural Maine; they were victims, as he saw it, of conscienceless exploitation by lumber companies and railroads. Financed in part by his older brother, small inheritance, and an array of odd jobs, Douglas attended Bowdoin College and graduate school at Columbia University, emerging with master's degree in economics and particular interest in labor relations, wages, and other aspects of employer-worker relationship. After briefly pursuing doctorate at Harvard, he served in series of teaching positions, was labor disputes adjuster for government during World War I, and finally settled at The University of Chicago where he found an academic home and where he became deeply-committed political activist. He supported Socialist candidate Norman Thomas in 1928 and 1932 presidential elections and favored formation of progressive third party to oppose Roosevelt and Landon in 1936. Yet he was staunchly anti-communist and battled repeatedly against communist involvement in progressive movement. In 1939, when no other willing candidate could be found, Douglas was persuaded to run as an independent Democratic candidate for election to Chicago City Council. Surprisingly, regular Democratic organization agreed to support him and reform-minded academician served for next few years as member of what he later described as the cunningest body of legislative bastards to be found in all of western world. In 1942, following an unsuccessful primary run as an independent seeking Democratic senatorial nomination, fifty-year-old Douglas enlisted in Marines (after waiver by Secretary of Navy of normal age, eyesight, and dental requirements) and went through basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. A member of platoon of recruits whose average age was nineteen, he was justifiably proud of making it through this ordeal. …