Gerald Nye
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Gerald Prentice Nye (December 19, 1892–July 17, 1971) was a United States politician, representing North Dakota in the U.S. Senate from 1925 to 1945. He was a progressive Republican and anti-war activist.
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[edit] Early Life
Nye was born to Irwin Raymond Nye and Phoebe Ella (Prentice) Nye in Hortonville, Outagamie County, Wisconsin in 1892. He moved to North Dakota in 1915. His father was a country editor and supporter of Progressive Robert M. La Follette. On August 16, 1916, he married Anna Margaret Munch. Over the next few years the couple had children: Marjorie, Robert and James. He divorced Anna in March 1940 and in December 1940 married schoolteacher Marguerite Johnson, who he met when he stopped to help her change a flat tire.
Nye served as first editor and later owner of several newspapers, purchasing the Fryburg Pioneer in Billings County in May 1916. He was an editorial supporter of the agrarian reform movement.
[edit] Political Career
Nye unsuccessfully sought election as a progressive Republican to the U.S. House in 1924. When Senator Edwin F. Ladd died on June 22, 1925, Nye was appointed to fill the vacancy and was elected to fill the Senate seat in 1926. Nye supported the political positions of Robert M. La Follette. Nye supported legislation for agricultural price supports.
[edit] Teapot Dome Scandal
Nye uncovered that Warren G. Harding's interior secretary Albert B. Fall had uncompetitively leased a government oil field to Mammoth Oil Company, in return for contributions to the Republican National Committee. This is now know as the Teapot Dome Scandal and gave Nye the reputation as "Gerald the Giant-Killer."
[edit] Nye Committee
In 1934 Senator Nye headed an investigation of the munitions industry. He created headlines by drawing connections between the wartime profits of the banking and munitions industries to America's involvement in World War I. Many Americans felt betrayed: perhaps the war hadn't been an epic battle between the forces of good (democracy) and evil (autocracy). This investigation of these "merchants of death" helped to bolster sentiments for isolationism.1 A leading member of the Nye Committee staff was Alger Hiss.
[edit] Antiwar Movement
Nye was instrumental in the development and adoption of the Neutrality Acts passed between 1935 and 1937. To mobilize antiwar sentiments, he helped establish the America First Committee.
Nye was a Freemason and attended Grace Lutheran Church in Washington, DC. He gained further prominence in 1941 when he accused Hollywood of attempting to “drug the reason of the American people,“ and “rouse war fever.“ He was particularly hostile to Warner Brothers. [1]
Upon the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the evening of December 7, 1941, Nye addressed an America First meeting in Pittsburgh, and was quoted as saying, "this was just what Britain had planned for us" and that "we have been maneuvered into this by the President." However, the next day Nye joined the rest of the Senate in voting for a unanimous declaration of war.[2]
[edit] Defeat, post Senate and Death
He was defeated for re-election by a Democrat, John Moses, in 1944. He later worked for the Federal Housing Administration from 1960 to 1964, and on the staff of the Senate Committee on Aging from 1964 to 1968. He died in 1971 and is interred in Fort Lincoln Cemetery, Brentwood, Maryland.
[edit] Notes
NYE, Gerald Prentice - Biographical Information. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
| Preceded by Edwin F. Ladd |
United States Senator (Class 3) from North Dakota 1925 – 1945 Served alongside: Lynn Frazier, William Langer |
Succeeded by John Moses |
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