Audio
Senator George W. Norris
Transcript
Welcome to Homestead National Monument of America. I'm gonna be talking today obviously about the life and work of Senator George Norris.
My name is Todd Arrington. I’m the National Park Service Historian here at Homestead. I've been here going on 9 years now. So, I've been here awhile now, and this is the first time we've ever done a program on George Norris. But I think it's timely certainly for many reasons.
Norris was someone who was very important to the history of Nebraska, to the history of the country really but especially to the history of Nebraska and even to this to this area of Nebraska. He was very important to the creation of this park, Homestead National Monument of America.
Obviously when all of us get up in the morning and turn the lights on, he was very important in that respect as well. Because he was very deeply involved in creating the Rural Electrification Act. And we're gonna to talk a little bit about that. This is really just kind of an overview of Norris’ life, who he was and the kind of work he did primarily as a member of Congress.
Probably take 30-35 minutes or so to go through. And then at the end I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you have. So please just relax and enjoy the program. And again, if you do think of questions please try to remember those in your head and I'll be happy to try to answer those at the end of the program. And I'll turn the lights back on at the end too.
Norris was not native to Nebraska. He was actually born in Ohio in the 1861 and he was the 11th child to his parents. And I can't imagine- just can't imagine having a family that large.
As I was doing the research for the program, one of the references I found on Norris said that he “was the 11th child of uneducated, unchurched parents.” So, I don't- I guess that means they weren't overly religious people but anyway they still managed to have a very large family obviously.
This is an early picture of Norris with his mother [points at presentation] and it's actually a pretty good quality photo considering the age of the photo. And as you can see Norris’ father did die when Norris was just four.
Norris‘ uncle, who would have been his father's brother, was actually killed in the Civil War. And then the father, Norris’ father died just four years after George was born. So, he would have died in 1865. So that family obviously had its share of tragedy all there- really kind of, very close together.
Norris was a college graduate. He went to a school called Baldwin University. It's now called Baldwin Wallace College [University] and it's in Berea, Ohio. And he was a lawyer as well. He had a law degree from Valparaiso which is located in Indiana.
While he was going to law school he worked as a teacher. So, he was obviously very sensitive to the needs of educators and education. He worked as a teacher to support himself, also to pay his way through law school. Because he had uneducated, unchurched parents, I guess they didn't have enough money to send him to law school which is certainly understandable.
This is a great photo of Norris while he was a student Valparaiso. [points at presentation] And it's hard to see and I’m not very tall so I- it’s kind of hard for me to point to. But Norris is this guy who is kind of looking off to his left. They kind of have illuminated him a little bit in the photo there. And he looks like he's kind of- maybe looking at a pretty girl or something walking by, I don’t know.
But old photos are a lot of fun. And I mean you can just- looking at an old photo like this really can kind of tell you a lot about what was going on at the time. The clothes that people had on, what the fashions were. The fact that there are a lot of women in this photo. A lot of women apparently going to law school at this particular university is impressive. And the guy up here has a beard and this guy has kind of a big, sort of, almost handlebar mustache. It's really a lot of fun to look at old photos.
If you haven't been through this building yet, when you go downstairs, we do have an exhibit called Reading Photographs that talks about how much you can learn from old photos. And it's really neat. It's an interactive exhibit where you can actually- we've got some photos on there. And you can drag a big magnifying glass across and bring some things out in the photo that you might not normally see. They’re photos of homesteaders, obviously not of George Norris. But anyway, the point is that old photos are really a lot of fun and you can learn quite a bit from them.
As far as family life, he was married twice. His first wife who, he married in 1889, died in 1901. They had three daughters. And then he remarried another lady- another woman named Ellie Leonard in 1903. This is an old picture of Norris [points at presentation] not great quality here. I apologize for that, but this is with his daughter Hazel. And Hazel is the daughter that he seems to have been the closest to. A lot of letters between them survive. And they seem to have had a very close and very affectionate relationship.
He came to Nebraska in 1885 to a town called Beaver City which is in Furnas County out in the western part of the state. And this is where he first got interested in politics. He was he the county- served as the county attorney. And then in 1900 went McCook where he is- the town which he’s most famously associated with and that's where he really became active in politics.
As I was doing the research for this, I did see one reference, only one, to him having lived in Beatrice [Nebraska] at one point. So, I don't know if that is the case or not. Then there was a gentleman here when I did the talk at one o'clock who was from Cortland. And he had found a reference to a G. W. Norris owning a plot of land up in Cortland in 1885 and having been a schoolteacher there. So, I mean it's very possible that this is the same George Norris. I'm not sure about that. We may have to get the Gage County Historical Society on the case for us on that one, but it's very possible that he was, at least for a while, here in Gage County.
But Beaver City is where he first went. He became a county attorney and then in 1900 went to McCook and that's where he really got interested in political activity.
And 1902 as a Republican, he's elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Very good, old photo of Norris there [points at presentation] looking relat- rather young and dashing as he's about to make his way to Washington D.C. and change the world. So, he was a Republican and [clears throat] excuse me. He had been elected in 1902 to the House with a lot of support from railroad companies.
And of course, in 1902 railroading was still a HUGE business. Was still vastly important to the economy here in Nebraska and still very, very influential. As well railroads were-- had a lot of, a lot of pull in political activity. So, he then was supported by most of the railroad companies when he was elected in 1902.
But in 1906, he kind of broke with the railroads to support Theodore Roosevelt’s plan to regulate railroads. Roosevelt felt like railroads needed to be regulated to make sure shipping rates were fair. And that the railroads didn't acquire too much power in local and national- on the national scene. And so, Norris supported Roosevelt’s idea to regulate the railroads and you can imagine what that did to his support among- with the railroad companies. Pretty much dried up.
So, he also sort of made a name for himself in 1910 when he led something of a revolt against Joseph Cannon, who was the Speaker of the House. Cannon was from Illinois and up until very recently was the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in American history. And Cannon seems to have had a very kind of heavy-handed sort of autocratic approach to being Speaker. He sort of- liked to- kind of a bully, is one way he was described on one of the things I was looking at. And he also, of course, controlled as the Speaker how leadership positions in the House of Representatives were given out. And basically, his people that he was the closest to and that were his supporters were the ones that got the leadership roles.
And Norris and a lot of the other Republicans felt like leadership roles should be given out based somewhat at least on seniority, who had been there the longest, who had the most experience. And so, Norris kind of became the leader of this group that sort of revolted against Cannon’s leadership. And did in fact, were able to change how House leadership positions were distributed.
They are to this day somewhat at least based on seniority, although obviously Speakers and majority leaders and people like that still have a lot of power with who gets in what position. But there is- seniority is something that still has to be considered when leadership positions in Congress are being distributed and part of that at least is thanks to George Norris.
In 1911, Norris cofounded what was known as the National Progressive Republican League. And was the vice president of that organization. In 1912, he actually supported Theodore Roosevelt for president and if you didn't know Roosevelt of course became president in 1901. McKinley was assassinated. Roosevelt- McKinley when he was shot was at the very beginning of his second term, so Roosevelt served almost all of McKinley second term and then was elected in his own right in 1904. And then in 1908 really could have run again.
At this point there was no constitutional amendment about serving more than one term and since his first term had really been McKinley’s term, he really could have- he could have run as many times as he wanted to really. But of course, Roosevelt in 1908 had had enough and decided he was gonna- he was not gonna run for reelection. William Howard Taft was his sort of handpicked successor to the presidency. And so, Taft ran as the Republican candidate in 1908, was elected. And Theodore Roosevelt went off to Africa to go on safari and do all kinds of other things that were a lot more fun than being president.
By 1911 and ‘12 Roosevelt was pretty disgusted with Taft and felt like Taft had kind of gone away from the Republican policies that Roosevelt had put in place. And so, Roosevelt actually ran for president again as a third party candidate. He ran on the ticket of the Progressive Party which was more commonly known as the Bull Moose Party, in this election at least, because the saying was that Roosevelt was as stubborn as a bull moose and twice as tough and all this kind of stuff.
So, it's kind of a kind of a great old name for a party. Imagine somebody running today as a Bull Moose, that would be a lot of fun. So, Roosevelt comes back and runs is the progressive candidate and Norris supports Roosevelt. He does not support Taft who's the more conservative Republican. He supports Roosevelt who is the progressive candidate. And of course, what ends up happening is the- all the Republican votes are split between Roosevelt and Taft. Roosevelt actually did better than Taft in this election. Taft came in last, but those two Republican factions split the Republican vote and allowed Woodrow Wilson to be elected.
Wilson is the rather serious looking guy on the far right there [points at presentation]. And then we have two pictures here of Roosevelt: one of him speaking to a crowd there and then that one in the middle is just- it looks like somebody just told him a good joke or something. He looks pretty- like a pretty gregarious guy.
So, something else neat about Roosevelt is that he, I think, is the first president or one of the very first to have his voice recorded. So, you can actually- there are if you go online, I think you could probably find, you can actually hear Roosevelt’s voice. It's not great quality, but you can actually hear what he sounded like. And that's, for historians at least, that kind of stuff is really exciting. I mean imagine if we knew what Lincoln sounded like or George Washington or you know some of those folks.
But anyway, so Norris kind of angers the Republican mainstream by supporting Roosevelt in 1912 and not supporting Taft. And again, Wilson slides in very easily. It's kind of a gospel in politics that you can’t split your party in an election. All it does is guarantee that you're gonna lose. Just like in 1860, the northern Democrats and the southern Democrats split all the Democratic votes and allowed Abraham Lincoln to be elected. The same thing happened here in 1912.
As far as some of the issues that concerned Norris and that he was particularly passionate about, he supported the direct election of senators which eventually became the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. At this time, in the Constitution as it was originally written by the founding fathers, senators were not elected by the people. They were elected by the state legislatures. So- and a lot of people of course felt that that was undemocratic. And Norris was one of those people. And he fought very, very hard to get the 17th Amendment passed and ratified so that the people would directly elect their own senators. And so, that was that was an issue that was important for him.
Also, in 1912 he left the House of Representatives because he'd been elected to the U.S. Senate. So now he became one of two senators representing Nebraska in the U.S. Senate. And he also got on a rather serious crusade to make all 50 states, or not all 50 at this time. However many states there were around this time, 48 I think. To have unicameral legislatures and so Norris was actually very interested in unicamerals. He felt like that they reduced in fighting, they were much more effective, and of course you know how many states have a unicameral now. Right [laughs], just this one [Nebraska].
But obviously it works well for Nebraska and it's very unique to Nebraska as well. And so we have a nice shot of our capital there [on the presentation]. But it wasn't actually started in Nebraska until the 1930s. But Norris is the one that really was kind of pushing this idea, not only for Nebraska but for the rest of the country as well. He really thought this would be something that would be effective all over the country.
Gosh it must have been 1999 or 2000, I don't know. I moved here in ‘99 so I can't remember when exactly this was, but you guys remember- everybody remember Jesse “The Body” Ventura. You know he was the wrestler that became the Governor of Minnesota. I remember very distinctly not long after I moved here, he made a trip to Lincoln and was interested in the possibility of a unicameral in Minnesota. Nothing ever came of it I don't think because he didn't run for another term as governor up there, but the idea is still somewhat pervasive.
Other political issues, as World War One approached Norris was a pretty staunch isolationist. He didn't want to see the United States get involved in a European conflict. And he sort of felt like bankers and big business and industrialists were kind of angling to get the U.S. in the war. Because of course it would be profitable for them. And then in 1917 he was one of only six U.S. senators that voted against the U.S. going into World War One.
Woodrow Wilson of course was still present at this time. He's- I showed you his picture a minute ago. And Wilson actually for a while was sort of an isolationist too. He didn't want the U.S. to get involved in the war. In fact, he was reelected in 1916 on the campaign slogan “He Kept Us Out of the War.” So, he's reelected in 1916. He's inaugurated for a second term March 4th, 1917.
April 2nd, 1917, he goes to Congress and asks for a declaration of war against Germany. So, he didn’t keep us out of the war for very long in his second term. And of course, he had many reasons for thinking it was time for the U.S. to get involved. But- and there was immense pressure on all members of Congress to vote for the resolution for the U.S. to get into the war. And so, it took I think a lot of political courage whether it was wrong or right. It took a lot of courage to not bow to that pressure and Norris was one of just six senators that didn’t bow to that pressure.
On the House side, one- another person who voted against the resolution in the House of Representatives, was a lady named Jeanette Rankin from Montana. And she was the first woman ever elected to Congress. And she was from Montana. In fact, her parents were homesteaders in Montana, and we have, in the spring and summer, when we have our big homestead legacies banners up down at the Education Center building. She's on one of our banners and she was in Congress. She voted against the resolution to enter World War One. She was then, because of that- her vote, was defeated for reelection. So, she went back to Montana became well known for many other things.
Later in life, in the late 1930s went back into politics, got elected Congress again. This is Jeanette Rankin now. Went back to Congress, went back to the House and then was in Congress when World War Two started and when the vote came for America to go into World War Two, she voted against that. So, she's the only person that was in Congress and voted against entering both World War One and World War Two. So that has nothing to do with Norris. It’s just kind of an interesting story about someone else, but anyway she was famous for many other things as well.
And here we just see [points at presentation ] a World War- some- a tank and some troops in World War One and that's an old U.S. Navy World War One recruiting poster there “It's a Wonderful Opportunity.” Now “It's Not Just a Job It's an Adventure” then it was a wonderful opportunity.
After the war ended and of course, the allies were victorious, Woodrow Wilson had proposed something called the “Fourteen Points” which were basically 14 sort of planks for peace after the war that he wanted to see written into any treaty that ended the war. And Germany agreed to surrender based on the idea that the fourteen points were going to be the basis for the treaty.
And that treaty was the treaty of Versailles because it was hammered out and signed at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris which was originally built for Louis the 14th back in the 16- early 1700s. But the treaty negotiations kind of came to be dominated by what they called the big four and that's those four guys there in the photo [in the presentation] David Lloyd George of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and then Wilson- Woodrow Wilson of U.S. there on the far right.
And there was a lot of opposition to this treaty in the United States because it- primarily because it created what they called the League of Nations. It was kind of the forerunner of what we now call the United Nations which was created after World War Two. But Wilson create- came up with this idea of a League of Nations. Basically, is an organization that as many countries as possible could join.
And would be- it was kind of like a- sort of like a compact between all these nations that they would help each other. They would defend one another, and they would come to another’s aid if they were attacked, anything like that. And there were a lot of people in Congress and the public that didn't like this idea. They didn't like the idea of the United States sort of being bound to get involved in any of these conflicts that might have nothing to do with the United States. And so, a lot of members of Congress, a lot of Republicans, not all Republicans, but a lot of Republicans didn't like the Treaty of Versailles at all.
Some of them were willing to vote for it if changes were made. Others were known as irreconcilables including George Norris. Which basically were people that were not going to vote for the treaty no matter how many- how much they changed it. They were not gonna ratify that treaty.
And in fact, the United States never actually ratified the Treaty of Versailles and never actually joined the League of Nations. So, and the League of Nations existed up until the late ‘30s. And then it was based in Europe and it was just one more thing that sort of crumbled as Europe started to disintegrate into World War Two. But Norris was one of the irreconcilables that was violently opposed to the Treaty of Versailles.
In the ‘20s as Norris began to gain some seniority in the Senate, he chaired some very important Senate committees including: Committees on Agriculture, Forestry, and the Judiciary. Chairman of the Judiciary Committee is a very, very powerful and important post. The Judiciary Committee is the committee that for example holds hearings on potential Supreme Court justices, reviews nominations for judges to appellate courts, and federal district courts. It's a very, very important and very powerful job so he was obviously a respected and important member of the Senate.
He advocated for labor rights. The issues between labor and management were very prevalent at this time. And so, he did advocate for labor rights which the Republican Party at that time did not always agree with.
He proposed abolishing the Electoral College. Boy where have we heard this one before? Anybody remember 2000? [chuckles] I remember that conversation quite a bit in 2000 and early 2001 regardless of who you voted for that was a very popular conversation. Of course, everybody knows we don't directly elect the president. We actually vote for electors who go and then the Electoral College is the body that actually chooses the president based on the Constitution.
And a lot of people today and a lot of people then felt that that was undemocratic. Just like it wasn't democratic they thought for the people not to directly elect their own senators. They didn't feel like it was Democratic for people to not directly elect their own president. And so, Norris was one voice that spoke out about abolishing the Electoral College. And again, that's a conversation that is still being had today. Though he was a Republican, he very often was at odds with Republican presidents during this time. Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and then Herbert Hoover, [points at presentation] there on the far end, were three Republican presidents in a row that Norris was- kind of ruffled their feathers quite a bit. Because he very often was opposed to their policies and to some of the bills that they sent to the Congress.
There's a great story about Calvin Coolidge which is completely unrelated to Norris. But it's such a funny story I just want to tell it. That Coolidge was very- was from Vermont and he was kind of seen at this very stern, quiet sort of, you know, Yankee. And he was; he was very quiet. He never said- he hardly said a word. Imagine a president now that that was that didn't have much to say. Of course, this is before massive television and no Internet and all this kind of stuff. But so, Coolidge was- had this reputation of being very, very quiet and never saying anything.
And there's this great story about him at a dinner party in Washington [D.C.]. And there's this young lady sitting next to him. And she starts talking to him and she says that she's bet her friend that she can get him to say three words to her in conversation. And Coolidge says, doesn't even look up from his plate and says, “you lose.” [chuckles and audience laughs] So, anyway I- again it has nothing to do with Norris. I just think it's a funny story. [chuckles]
So, but and then Hoover there on the end [of the presentation]. I almost kind of have to feel bad for Hoover, he was by far one of the most qualified people ever to be president. He'd been Secretary of Commerce and he'd been a member of Congress and he'd been an ambassador. He had just done so many different things. And he of course came into office right as the stock market was starting to crash and the Great Depression was coming. And he gets the blame for a lot of that and unfortunately that's- it wasn't all his fault. But anyway, Hoover was- Hoover is- these are three Republican presidents that Norris really had a lot of conflicts with.
In 1928 and ‘32 he broke, Norris broke with the Republican Party and supported Democrats for the presidency. Alfred Smith right here [pointing at presentation] with his- holding up his hat. And then of course in ‘32 Franklin Roosevelt. Smith is- has the distinction of having been the first Roman Catholic to be nominated by a major party for the presidency. Of course, he didn't win in 1928. That’s the year that Hoover was elected. [coughs] Excuse me. And then of course in ’32, 1932 Franklin Roosevelt ran as the Democratic candidate and obviously won. And served the next 12- served for 12- over 12 years.
And Norris at this time is like I said, ruffling a lot of feathers with Republican politicians. With the Republican mainstream there. And a lot of them now start to call him a son of a wild jack***. [chuckles] So, and probably a lot of things that are not appropriate for me to say [chuckles] with a nice family crowd like this. But that was the nicest one I could find that they said about Norris. [chuckles and audience laughs]
But anyway, he obviously was very much at odds with the mainstream of the Republican Party at that time. And you hear things like this today as well. About people that don't vote the party line, or they go outside the party line, or they crossed the aisle and work with people of the other party. They sometimes have some horrible things said about them as well.
So of course, when FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] comes into office, he starts to implement the- starts to send bills to Congress to implement the New Deal. And the New Deal of course is his massive array of programs designed to really spur the economy, put people back to work, try to bring the country out of the Great Depression.
And one of the New Deal programs was the Tennessee Valley Authority Act which was sponsored by none other than our friend George Norris. The Tennessee Valley, which is most of Tennessee, parts of Alabama, Mississippi, even up into a little bit of Georgia, up into even a little bit of the Carolinas, I think. Was an area that was- it was rural and had really, really been hit hard by the Great Depression. And so, by creating the Tennessee Valley Authority and damming these rivers, the idea was that it would create economic growth. It would create electricity. It would allow people to navigate the river which would be good for commerce.
And Norris was the sponsor for the Tennessee Valley Authority Act [TVA]. The picture on the left here [points at presentation] is Roosevelt, President Roosevelt signing the TVA act. And then we can- [clears throat] it’s not a great picture, but this is Norris right here [points at presentation] standing right behind the president's left shoulder there. And then Norris always kind of has that same kind of look on his face like he's- if he's- I don't know if he's trying to pose for the picture or if he's just surprised. I’m not sure, but he always has a very distinct look on his face and in these photos. And then to the right is the first dam that was built under the TVA act. And that is known as Norris Dam, so it was named for George Norris.
In 1936, Norris co-sponsored the Rural Electrification Act [REA], which is very, very important to rural America. Which- much of which was- had no electric service and no possibilities for electric service without this law. And there were some folks here in the one o'clock program that had very, very distinct memories of the first time that mom and dad flipped on the lights. And so, the Rural Electrification Act was very, very important to this area and to areas all over the rural West.
On the left here [points at presentation] is of course Roosevelt sitting and Norris with that same look on his face on the right. On the left here is John Rankin who was the co-sponsor of that bill. He was from Mississippi and so that's the three of them when Roosevelt actually signed the REA. On the right there of course is just a sort of an example of some of the work that the REA was doing, bringing electricity to rural America. And then in the middle there of course is the Norris Public Power building here in Beatrice, so, which of course is named for George Norris.
And Norris Public Power is a great partner to Homestead National Monument. They're- have been very deeply involved in a lot of the projects we do here. And they made a very, very large donation to our new film which is coming out in just a couple of weeks. And you're all invited to the public premier of that on April 5th at the Hevelone Center in Beatrice at the high school. So, Norris Public Power is really nice and an important partner for Homestead National Monument.
Here we just- [points at presentation] this is just a great photo of Norris about to flip the switch to start up a new hydro plant. And that's- I just like the photo. There's- I just thought it was a good picture of Norris. And since he's not looking directly at the camera, he's kind of- doesn't have that same look on his face like he always does and some of these photos. So, I like this photo; I think it's a good one.
Norris was also critical to the creation of this park, Homestead National Monument of America. Even before Daniel Freeman, who's the guy that homesteaded on this property, even before Freeman died, there was a lot of talk about. Because Freeman is considered to have been the very first person to get land under the Homestead Act. There was a lot of talk locally about some sort of monument or some sort of park being on this location to commemorate the Homestead Act. And especially after Freeman died 1908, the idea really sort of took hold.
And there was a lot of local and state interest in putting something on this site, but you know these things kind of ebb and flow. And after a while and it didn't happen, people kind of lost interest and moved on to other things. And then in the ‘30s, the early ‘30s the idea kind of got revived. And there was a lot of interest again locally in getting some kind of park or monument here and again it didn't go anywhere, it kind of stalled out until George Norris got involved. And Norris of course had the authority and had the power to kind of make sure that it happened.
And this is a photo [pointing at presentation] of Norris with President Roosevelt when- as Roosevelt is signing the act creating Homestead National Monument of America. And the guy to Norris’ left there is Henry Luckey. He was the Nebraska First Congressional District Representative at that time in the House of Representatives. So, he and Norris are there as Roosevelt is signing the bill creating this park. And that's actually a great photo for us to have. A lot of- I don't know any- too many other national parks that have pictures of presidents actually creating the park. That's kind of a unique thing for us to have.
In 1936, Norris finally decided it was time to leave the Republican Party. And he did so and was actually reelected to the Senate as an Independent. He did have a lot of support from Democrats because he often times voted with Democrats, he had supported Democrats for high office including the presidency. And he did get a lot of support from Democrats when he went back to the Senate as an Independent.
He did, as World War Two started to approach and even as it started in 1939. A lot of people think it started in 1941, it actually started in Europe in 1939. And some people even place it back earlier than that, to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which was 1936, I think. But at any rate it didn't- the U.S. didn’t get into it until 1941. And he was an isolationist again, up until the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. And then after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor there weren't very many isolationists left. And Norris like many others got on board and voted for the United States to go into World War Two.
By 1942, he had sort of lost him support in the state. Obviously, Republicans didn't support him anymore. And so, even some of his Democratic support had dried up. And in 1942 he ran for reelection again as an Independent and this time he lost. He did not win reelection in 1942. So, his political career at that point was over.
And he went back to McCook and he looks much more relaxed there [points at picture in presentation] in his parlor in McCook than he did any of those other photos that we showed. Got his foot up on the radiator and everything. So- and he wrote an autobiography called “Fighting Liberal.” And he lived in McCook the rest of his life until 1944 when he died. And he's, I believe buried there in McCook and his house in McCook is now a state historic site. So, you can if you go to McCook you can actually visit the George Norris house.
Legacies of George Norris, there are many. And these are just a few. Two constitutional amendments that Norris was really behind and kind of pushed for. The 17th Amendment we already talked about the direct election of senators. The 20th Amendment- [coughs] Excuse me. The 20th Amendment was what they kind of called the lame duck amendment which basically changed when the president is inaugurated and when new congresses has come into power.
The old inauguration day under the constitution was March 4th. So, you have a president elected in early November and they don't take office until March 4th. Norris was one of the people that felt like that time needed to be short. And also, the time that- it was used to also be much, much later when new congresses would come in and take their seats that they've been elected to as well. And so, the lame duck amendment, the 20th Amendment, shortened those periods. So now the inauguration of the president is now always on January 20th. So, we have a much shorter time between the election in the inauguration and then the time for congresses was moved up as well.
The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932 which had to do with labor unions. There were a lot of unions at this time, basically required that you would be a member of the union if you work somewhere. And the Norris-LaGuardia Act, even though Norris was a great supporter of unions and of labor, basically said that a union could not force you to join the union. And the LaGuardia in that act is Fiorello LaGuardia who was at one time a very, very famous mayor of New York City and so that was the Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932.
Of course, our unicameral legislature here in Nebraska is one of Norris’ legacies as well. Had Norris had his way, all fif- all of the states would have had unicamerals. But as it is, we have it here in Nebraska and it works very well for us.
Of course, this park Homestead National Monument of America is something that Norris was deeply involved in the creation of. And we're thankful for that. Or at least I know I am, 'cause I like to have a place to come to work every day.
The Tennessee Valley Authority was again- was the act that created- that agency was sponsored by Norris. And of course, probably one of the biggest, the Rural Electrification Act which was absolutely critical to all parts of rural America.
In 1956, of course Norris had died in 1944, but in 1956 John F Kennedy, who was a senator from Massachusetts, published his book “Profiles in Courage.” Which was a- profiles of eight U.S. senators who at one time or another in American history had taken some rather courageous, sometimes unpopular stands that- about things- about issues they felt strongly about. And Norris was actually one of the eight senators profiled by Kennedy in the book and he was noted for several things actually.
For taking on Speaker Cannon that we talked about earlier. For speaking against the arming of merchant ships during World War One. There was a lot of people that wanted to put cannons on merchant ships so they could defend themselves in World War One. And Norris was one of the few people who spoke out against that saying it was- basically it was going to create more problems than it was gonna solve.
And then of course for supporting Al Smith's presidential campaign in 1928 which was an unsuccessful campaign. But that was the first time Norris really, on a national level, kind of broke with the Republican Party and supported a candidate that he thought was better qualified than the Republican.
And in 1961 Norris was the very first person inducted into the Nati- or the Nebraska, rather, Hall of Fame. And here we just have sort of a collection of neat old photos and stuff. [points at presentation] This one up here is Norris at one of the TVA, earliest TVA dams. And that’s Norris right there [points at photo on presentation] standing there with this- all these guys in their shirts and ties that- at a construction site. That looks like fun.
The clipping on top here [points] is just related to the Norris’ push for the unicameral legislatures all over the country. This is another [points] sort of more relaxed photo of when President Roosevelt signed the Rural- or the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. Everybody- must be after he signed because everybody's kind of laughing and clapping and everything. So, everybody looks a little more relaxed there.
And then this is just a great old political cartoon [points at presentation]. This is regarding the lame duck amendment and you can see this guy here [points] with his fancy shoes and his hat. The feather on the hat says, “House Machine.” So, it’s kind of the old school machine, politics. And then this [points] of course would be the lame- [noise] Oops, would be the lame duck. And then here comes Norris with his shotgun to take out the lame duck. So, that’s kind of a- political cartoons are great, you can really actually learn quite a bit about some of the issues of the day from those.
So that is kind of the 38 minute version of the life and work of George Norris.
[end of recording]
Description
On March 16, 2008 Historian Todd Arrington gave a program about the life, political career, and accomplishments of Nebraska Senator George W. Norris. Norris represented Nebraska in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1903 to 1912 and in the U.S. Senate from 1913 to 1942.
Duration
36 minutes, 7 seconds
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