Henry M. Jackson

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Henry M. Jackson

Henry M. Jackson (1912-1983) was a member of the US House of Representatives from 1941 and of the Senate from 1952 until his death in 1983. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 and 1976.[1]

Early Life

Jackson joined the League for Industrial Democracy while at the University of Washington in the early 1930s. According to biographer Robert G. Kaufman, he was never a socialist, although he argued for Norman Thomas to be allowed to speak on the campus.[2]

World War Two

On entering Congress in 1941, Jackson was initially inclined to isolationism, voting against lend-lease support for Britain. By October that year, his position had changed and he voted for massive economic and military aid.[3]

The war saw a major economic boost to Jackson's homestate of Washington, as ALCOA relocated aluminium manufacturing to take advantage of the federal hydroelectric projects that Jackson had supported in the 1930s. This in turn enabled the expansion of Seattle-based Boeing whose aircraft were the mainstay of the US bomber fleet.[4]

Jackson was an "enthusiast" for the internment of Japanese-Americans, saying in 1943[5]:

The principles of Bushido, by insidious and indirect means inserted themselves in a great many organizations in much the same fashion as the Nazis have utilized their front organizations. In our great Pacific coast cities, they controlled much of the hotel and restaurant business although there was always a white manager who would front for them with the general public. They lowered the prices to their own countrymen in the fresh produce and vegetable field, forcing out their white competition, only to raise prices as soon as they had monopolized that sphere of business. Always they had prominent civic leaders as their attorneys, paying them on a retainer basis. Whenever a situation came up in which they were interested, they only had to contact these individuals with their specious reasons to have them immediately come forward in their interest.[6]

Jackson enlisted in the Army in 1943, serving for three months before President Roosevelt ordered all Congressmen out of the military.[7] in April 1945 he was one of seven Congressmen who visited Buchenwald at the invitation of General Eisenhower.[8]

Post-War

In 1945, Jackson declined a request from House speaker Sam Rayburn that he head the House Un-American Activities Committee because he believed that previous chairman Martin Dies had used the Committee for an irresponsible witch-hunt.[9]

In November 1945, Jackson returned to Europe after being chosen by President Truman to represent the US at the International Labor Organization meeting in Copenhagen.[10]

In 1946, Jackson chaired the Seattle International Maritime Conference, in which the main mover was the strongly anticommunist International Maritime Union.[11]

Jackson was comfortably re-elected in 1948, having swept aside a primary challenge from supporters of Henry Wallace with support from Americans for Democratic Action.[12]

US Senate

At the start of his Senate career, Jackson was assigned by Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson to Joseph McCarthy's investigative subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operations.[13]

Jackson's liberal rivals were critical of his cautious approach to McCarthy:

"Liberal republicans started the move against Joe McCarthy", according to Eugene McCarthy. "Then the Southern Democrats came in, because he was not a gentleman in the Southern tradition. Then liberal Democrats such as Henry came in only when it was safe."[14]

Jackson resigned from the subcommittee along with other Democrats on 10 July 1953, after McCarthy aide J.B. Matthews claimed that "the largest single group supporting the Communists is the Protestant clergy".[15] The Democrats returned in January 1954, following procedural concessions which included the appointment, on Jackson's recommendation, of Bobby Kennedy as minority counsel.[16] Jackson stepped up his opposition to McCarthy during the latter's hearings on the U.S. Army in 1954, attaining national prominence in the process.[17]

Views

Health

Jackson became a lifelong supporter of public healthcare after his life was saved by the Norwegian health service during a trip to Norway in 1945.[18]

In 1949, Jackson became a member of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. According to Robert Kaufman, "the enormous Hanford nuclear complex in central Washinton gave him an enormous political incentive for advocating expansion of America's nuclear program, which his boundless enthusiasm for the peaceful use of atomic energy inclined him to support anyway."[19] During the autumn of 1949, he supported proposals that the US should build a hydrogen bomb , siding with Ernest O. Lawrence and Edward Teller against Robert Oppenheimer in the sub-committee which examined the issue.[20]

Affiliations

Conferences

Connections

Staff

Scholarly Contacts


Resources

Notes

  1. ↑ JACKSON, Henry Martin (Scoop), (1912 - 1983), Biiographical Directory of the United States Congress, accessed 6 February 2012.
  2. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.19.
  3. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.34.
  4. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.41.
  5. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.36.
  6. ↑ Quoted in Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.36.
  7. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.38.
  8. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, pp.38=39.
  9. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.42.
  10. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.39.
  11. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.49.
  12. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.50.
  13. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.72.
  14. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, pp.74-75.
  15. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.76.
  16. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.77.
  17. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.80.
  18. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.40.
  19. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.53.
  20. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.54.
  21. ↑ Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson, A Life in Politics, University of Washington Press, 2000, p.19.
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