Frederick Hale (U.S. senator)

Frederick Hale (October 7, 1874  September 28, 1963) was the United States Senator from Maine from 1917 to 1941. He was the son of Eugene Hale, the grandson of Zachariah Chandler, both also U.S. Senators. He was the brother of diplomat Chandler Hale, and the cousin of U.S. Representative Robert Hale.

Frederick Hale
United States Senator
from Maine
In office
March 4, 1917  January 3, 1941
Preceded byCharles Johnson
Succeeded byOwen Brewster
Personal details
Born
Frederick Hale

(1874-10-07)October 7, 1874
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
DiedSeptember 28, 1963(1963-09-28) (aged 88)
Portland, Maine, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
ParentsEugene Hale
RelativesChandler Hale (Brother)
Zachariah Chandler (Grandfather)
Robert Hale (Cousin)
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Columbia University

Biography

Hale was born on October 7, 1874 in Detroit, Michigan to Eugene Hale. He attended the Lawrenceville School, and graduated from Groton School in 1892. He graduated from Harvard University in 1896 and attended Columbia Law School in New York City from 1896 to 1897. He was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Portland, Maine in 1899.

Hale was a Republican member of the Maine House of Representatives, 1905–1906; and a member of the Republican National Committee, 1912-1918. In 1916, he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, defeating incumbent Democrat Charles Fletcher Johnson to reclaim the Senate seat that had been held by his father Eugene Hale.

He was reelected in 1922, 1928, and again in 1934, serving from March 4, 1917 to January 3, 1941.

In the 1928 Republican primary, Hale defeated incumbent governor Owen Brewster for their party's nomination which signaled the end of the Ku Klux Klan in Maine as an important political factor.

He was not a candidate for renomination in 1940. He served as chairman, Committee on Canadian Relations in the Sixty-sixth Congress, and served on the Committee on Naval Affairs in the Sixty-eighth through Seventy-second Congresses, and the Committee on Appropriations in the Seventy-second Congress.

A fierce opponent of the Ku Klux Klan faction of the Republican Party in Maine, Hale was one of a handful of senators who voted against the elevation of Hugo Black to the Supreme Court in 1937 based on his alleged Klan membership.[1]

He retired to private life and died in Portland, Maine on September 28, 1963. He is interred in Woodbine Cemetery in Ellsworth, Maine. At the time of his death, Hale was the last living Senator who was serving at the time of the United States' declaration of war against the German Empire, which precipitated the United States' participation in World War I.

  • United States Congress. "Frederick Hale (id: H000031)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
  • "The Political Graveyard". Retrieved September 24, 2010.

References

  1. "Dons Robe of Supreme Court Justice in October", Nashua Telegraph, Aug. 18, 1937, p. 6
Party political offices
First Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maine
(Class 1)

1916, 1922, 1928, 1934
Succeeded by
Owen Brewster
Preceded by
James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr.
Secretary of the Senate Republican Conference
1927–1941
Succeeded by
Wallace H. White Jr.
U.S. Senate
Preceded by
Charles Johnson
U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Maine
1917–1941
Served alongside: Bert Fernald, Arthur Gould, Wallace White
Succeeded by
Owen Brewster
Preceded by
John B. Kendrick
Chair of the Senate Canadian Relations Committee
1919–1921
Position abolished
Preceded by
Carroll S. Page
Chair of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee
1923–1933
Succeeded by
Park Trammell
Preceded by
Wesley Livsey Jones
Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee
1932–1933
Succeeded by
Carter Glass
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