Ernest S. Griffith: A Renaissance Man, a Pioneering Public Administrator

Abstract

Abstract In the 1940s and 1950s, Ernest Stacey Griffith was well known on Capitol Hill and frequently featured in major newspaper and magazine articles about the work of Congress. He was also recognized as an influential scholar. Today, few members of Congress and only a handful of the thousands employed by the legislative branch have ever heard of him. Even at the Congressional Research Service—Congress's think tank—which he headed for 18 years, Griffith is mostly an unfamiliar name. During his century‐long life, this Rhodes Scholar left an indelible legacy in several arenas. Griffith was not only a pioneering advisor to the nation's legislators and an astute observer of American democracy, he also achieved acclaim as a public administrator, an innovative teacher and educator, an early supporter of the conservation movement, a prominent community and religious leader, and a record‐setting mountain climber.