Margaret Chase Smith

Senator

  • Born: December 14, 1897
  • Birthplace: Skowhegan, Maine
  • Died: May 29, 1995
  • Place of death: Skowhegan, Maine

American representative (1940-1949) and senator (1949-1973)

As the first leading American stateswoman to be elected in her own right to both houses of the U.S. Congress, Smith focused her attention on improving the status of women, military preparedness, and defense of free speech and democratic values.

Areas of achievement Government and politics, diplomacy, military affairs, women’s rights

Early Life

Margaret Chase Smith was born in a mill-and-factory town in west-central Maine that provided a small-town atmosphere in which her parents George Emery and Carrie Murray Chase reared their six children. Margaret was the eldest of the four who survived. Her father, a barber from Irish and English background, was a hardworking family man whose own father had fought in the Civil War before taking his position as a Methodist minister in Skowhegan. Her mother took jobs occasionally to supplement the family income while instilling in her children the importance of family life and independence.

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While pursuing a commercial course of study in high school Smith worked as a clerk in the local five-and-dime store, was employed as a telephone operator, and was hired to record tax payments in the town books during her senior year. She shook hands with President Woodrow Wilson on her senior class trip to Washington, D.C. After her graduation from Skowhegan High School in 1916, Smith taught in the one-room Pitts School outside Skowhegan. Seven months later she returned to Skowhegan to accept a full-time telephone operator’s job for Maine Telephone and Telegraph Company.

In 1919, she began an eight-year job at the town’s weekly newspaper, the Independent Reporter, which Clyde Smith (her future husband) co-owned. Rising to circulation manager, she continued to meet influential people and cultivate her skills in public relations. She drew on these skills in 1922, when she organized the Skowhegan chapter of the Business and Professional Women’s Club. Smith was named president of the Maine Federation of the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs the following year. In 1928, she served as Office Manager for the Daniel E. Cummings Company, a Skowhegan woolen mill. Her early working experiences not only taught her how to get along with people but also instilled in her a respect for working people that influenced her subsequent prolabor record in the United States Congress.

In 1930, Smith married Clyde H. Smith, a respected and experienced Maine politician who was twenty-two years her senior. From 1930 to 1936, she supported his energetic public career while learning the basic skills for campaigning and public service. During this period, she also served as a member of the Maine Republican State Committee. Clyde Smith was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1936. Margaret Smith served as his secretary in Washington, D.C., until his death in April, 1940.

Life’s Work

Smith won a special election in the spring of 1940 to fill her husband’s vacated seat in the House of Representatives. As a candidate for the succeeding full term in office, Smith scored an impressive electoral victory in the September general election. Her eight years as the congresswoman from Maine’s Second Congressional District were highlighted by her interest in military affairs. In her first term she broke with the Republican Party and voted for the Selective Training and Service Act to draft men for the upcoming war. She was the only member of the Maine delegation to vote for Lend Lease in 1941 and she broke with her party to support a bill to arm American merchant ships. In 1943 she was appointed to the House Naval Affairs Committee, which was later merged into the Armed Services Committee.

Many of Smith’s concerns focused on the status of women in the civilian workforce and in the military. In 1944, she was appointed by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins to serve as technical adviser to the International Labor Organization, which explored the role of women in employment planning after World War II. Smith worked to improve the status of women in the military by introducing the Army-Navy Permanent Nurse Corps Bill to grant women permanent status in the military. This bill was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in April of 1947. Smith toured the South Pacific naval bases and sponsored legislation that would permit women to serve overseas during war. She gained passage for the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948, which gave women equal pay, rank, and privileges. Her desire to see the United States exert leadership in world affairs enabled her to support U.S. membership in the United Nations and the European Recovery Plan.

Senator Smith favored domestic legislation to improve the conditions of the working class and women. She helped to defeat the Tabor Amendment, which had proposed to halve the funds designated for community service programs such as child care. In 1945 and 1949 she cosponsored a proposed Equal Rights Amendment, which did not get the necessary two-thirds majority votes in Congress to be submitted to the states for ratification. She voted with the Democrats against the Smith-Connally Anti-Strike bill. In economic matters she opposed a bill to freeze the social security tax and voted for federal pay raises. In 1947 she voted against a Republican proposal to cut President Truman’s budget. That same year she voted with her party in supporting the Taft-Hartley Act, which placed specific limits on labor. She had been named chair of the Maine State Republican Convention in 1944 to prepare her to chair the national Republican Party conference in 1967.

Smith ran for election to the U.S. Senate in 1948, winning by a record plurality. Though her opponents charged her with being a party maverick by calling attention to the votes that she cast contrary to her party, she produced a House voting record that aligned with her party 95 percent of the time. Her election to the United States Senate in 1948 made her the first woman in United States history to be elected in her own right without prior service by appointment to serve in the U.S. Senate and the first woman to be elected to both houses of Congress. Her four terms in the Senate from 1948 to 1972 acquainted her with six presidents, among whom were Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.

In 1949, Senator Smith began a daily newspaper column, Washington and You, which was syndicated nationally for five years. She was named to the prestigious Senate Republican Policy Committee. She won the Associated Press award for Woman of the Year in politics in 1948, 1949, 1950, and 1957. She delivered her famous Declaration of Conscience speech on June 1, 1950, as a response to the abuses of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s inquisitions into communism in the United States. She courageously opposed McCarthy’s negativism and demeaning of Americans at a time when most Republicans in the Senate were either too afraid to oppose him or somewhat supportive of his extremist anticommunist activities. Her Declaration of Conscience speech still has appeal as a defense of American values and the importance of free speech to the maintenance of American democratic processes.

Smith traveled to Florence, Italy, in 1950 as U.S. delegate to the UNESCO conference. She was also appointed as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. After winning reelection to the Senate in 1954 she embarked on a twenty-three nation world tour to see how U.S. foreign aid money was being used. She interrupted her trip to return to the United States to cast her censure vote on McCarthy. In 1956, Senator Smith campaigned for Eisenhower, the Republican presidential candidate. She debated in his defense with Eleanor Roosevelt on CBS television’s Face the Nation. As someone who enjoyed new experiences, Smith had by this time been the first woman to ride on an American destroyer in wartime, spend a day on an aircraft carrier at sea, and in 1957 to fly as a passenger in a F-100 jet fighter that broke the sound barrier.

In 1960, Smith won a hotly contested election over another female candidate, the first time two women had run against each other for a Senate seat. That same year she won Newsweek magazine’s press poll rating as Most Valuable Senator. On resuming her duties in the Senate, she agonized over her vote on Kennedy’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Her concern for national security won out in her vote against both the treaty and most of her party. Her vote put her on the same side as Barry Goldwater, who became the Republican Party presidential nominee for 1964. Although Smith was touted as a potential candidate for vice president in 1964, she earned the distinction that year of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major U.S. political party.

She supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act using her influence in the Republican Conference to keep the provision barring sex discrimination in employment in Title VII intact. Smith won an unprecedented fourth term for a woman to the Senate in 1966. In 1967 she was elected chair of the Conference of Republican Senators. The next year she had to miss her first roll-call vote in her thirteen years in Congress because of hip surgery. She held the record for 2,941 consecutive roll-call votes. In the remaining two years of her tenure in the Senate, Smith cast important votes against President Richard M. Nixon’s nominations of Clement F. Haynesworth and G. Harold Carswell for the U.S. Supreme Court. Demonstrations protesting the Vietnam War, especially on college campuses, led her to make her second Declaration of Conscience speech on June 1, 1970.

In her final campaign for reelection to the Senate in 1972, Smith was defeated by her Democratic opponent, William D. Hathaway. During her Senate career she served on the powerful Armed Forces, Appropriations, Government Operations, and Rules Committees and showed strong support for the space program as a charter member of the Senate Aeronautical and Space Committee. She also sponsored legislation for government support of medical research. Senator Smith used her considerable influence to look out for the seafaring interests and industries of the state of Maine and to cast votes on issues critical to the well-being of the Republican Party and the future course in world politics for the United States. After she left public office, Smith focused on a second career as a visiting professor and lecturer with the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and at numerous college and university campuses.

Significance

In the course of her career, Smith received ninety-five honorary doctoral degrees and more than 270 other awards and honors. In 1989, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. The Northwood Institute, Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, Maine, was dedicated in 1982 to serve as a congressional research library and archives. This library houses the papers, political memorabilia, and documents that Smith accrued in her thirty-two years in Congress. In 1990 she was honored by the dedication of the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy at the University of Maine.

Smith’s long and distinguished public service career furthered the interests of national security, especially military affairs. She pioneered legislation to further the status of women in domestic issues, in the military, and internationally. She was a model of decorum and earned a reputation for integrity, honesty, and independence of judgment. As a servant of the people in Congress, she put first priority on her duties in office. She campaigned vigorously and did not accept campaign contributions.

Bibliography

Fleming, Alice. The Senator from Maine. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1969. This is a well-written book highlighting the life of Margaret Chase Smith from childhood through her work in Congress. Somewhat historically fictionalized, the book is suitable for grades six through eight.

Gould, Alberta. First Lady of the Senate: Life of Margaret Chase Smith. Mt. Desert, Maine: Windswept House, 1990. This work, written for younger readers, reviews the public career of Margaret Chase Smith. The author emphasizes Smith’s personal values, public integrity, independent judgment, and contributions to public life.

Graham, Frank, Jr. Margaret Chase Smith: Woman of Courage. New York: John Day, 1964. This readable biography describes Smith’s professional life in the Senate. The author emphasizes her accomplishments as a woman in national politics at that time, an arena dominated by men. Presents clear explanations of how the U.S. government works.

Meisler, Stanley. “Margaret Chase Smith: The Nation’s First Woman Senator Reflects Back over a Capitol Life.” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1991, p. M3. A brief interview with Smith in which she reminisces about her experiences as a politician in Washington, D.C. Places her accomplishments within the context of women’s efforts to gain greater political representation during the 1990’s.

Sherman, Janann. No Place for a Woman: A Life of Margaret Chase Smith. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000. Thoughtful, well-researched biography that examines the impact of Smith’s gender on her political career.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “’They Either Need These Women or They Do Not’: Margaret Chase Smith and the Fight for Regular Status for Women in the Military.” Journal of Military History 54 (January, 1990): 47-78. A scholarly analysis of Smith’s stance on the issue of equitable status and treatment for women in the military. Amplifies her views on a topic that continues to generate interest among U.S. military leaders and the general public.

Smith, Margaret Chase. Declaration of Conscience. Edited by William C. Lewis, Jr. New York: Doubleday, 1972. This book, composed by Smith with the assistance of her legislative aide, William C. Lewis, Jr., focuses on her three decades of public service. It contains important source material including the text of her famous speeches and other important legislative statements.

Witt, Linda, Karen M. Paget, and Glenna Matthews. Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics. New York: Free Press, 1993. A journalist, a political scientist, and a historian collaborated on this sweeping narrative of the experiences of female candidates in American politics. Written from the vantage point of the so-called Year of the Woman in 1992, the book contains various references to Smith’s trailblazing efforts in Congress and a telling assessment of public opinion regarding her chances of becoming president in 1964.

1941-1970: January 15, 1953-December 2, 1954: McCarthy Hearings.