"New Hampshire Senator" Styles Bridges Signed TLS Dated 1960

Description

Up for auction
"New Hampshire Senator" Styles Bridges Signed TLS Dated 1961.
This item is certified authentic by
Todd Mueller Autographs
and comes with their Certificate of Authenticity.
ES-2793
Henry Styles Bridges
(September 9, 1898 – November 26, 1961) was an
American
teacher, editor, and
Republican Party
politician from
Concord, New Hampshire
. He served one term as the 63rd
Governor of New Hampshire
before a twenty-four-year career in the
United States Senate
. Bridges was born in
West Pembroke, Maine
, the son of Alina Roxanna (Fisher) and Earle Leopold Bridges.
[
He attended the
public schools
in
Maine
. Bridges attended the
University of Maine
at
Orono
until 1918. From 1918 he held a variety of jobs, including teaching, newspaper editing, business and state government. He was an instructor at
Sanderson Academy
,
Ashfield, Massachusetts
from 1918 to 1919. He was a member of the extension staff of the
University of New Hampshire
at
Durham
from 1921 until 1922. He was the secretary of the New Hampshire Farm Bureau Federation from 1922 until 1923, and the editor of the
Granite Monthly
Magazine
from 1924 until 1926. Meanwhile, He was the director and secretary of the New Hampshire Investment Corporation from 1924 until 1929. He was then a member of the New Hampshire Public Service Commission from 1930 until 1934. Bridges ran for
governor
of New Hampshire in 1934, and won, becoming the nation's youngest governor at the time, according to
John Gunther
's book,
Inside U.S.A.
He was elected to the
United States Senate
in 1936, and would serve until his death in 1961. In 1937 he retired from the Army Reserve Corps, in which he had served as a lieutenant since 1925. In 1940 he attempted to win the
Republican nomination
for
President
; the nomination was eventually won by
Wendell Willkie
. That same year, Bridges also received two delegates for the Republican
vice presidential
nomination, which eventually went to
Charles L. McNary
. Bridges broke his hip on
New Year's Eve
1941, and missed several months of the next Senate session. Bridges was reelected to four subsequent terms in 1942, 1948, 1954, and 1960, but he did not complete his final term due to his death. He became the highest-ranking Republican senator, serving as chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Cooperation when the Republicans had control of the Senate from 1947 until 1949,
Senate Minority Leader
from 1952 until 1953,
President pro tempore of the United States Senate
when the Republicans had control of it from 1953 until 1955, chairman of the Joint Committee on Inaugural Arrangements for both of the inaugurations of President
Dwight Eisenhower
,
Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations
when the Republicans had control of the Senate from 1947 to 1949 and 1953–1955, and
Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee
from 1954 until his death. In the Senate, John Gunther wrote, Bridges was "an aggressive reactionary on most issues...and he is pertinaciously engaged in a continual running fight with the
CIO
, the
Roosevelt family
and the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
."
[1]
Bridges voted present on the
Civil Rights Act of 1957
and voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Act of 1960
. Bridges was a staunch defender of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
of Wisconsin, and was one of only 22 senators, all Republicans, who voted against the censure of McCarthy for his
"red scare"
communist witch hunts, and for his so-called "
lavender scare
" tactics aimed at homosexuals in 1954.
[4]
After WWII, when the U.S. government was
expediting the immigration of Nazi scientists
and Jewish members of the U.S. State Department were questioning the rush, Bridges was quoted as saying the Department needed a "first-class cyanide fumigating job."