Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana

Regular price €44.99
Title
A01=J. Leonard Bates
American political scandals
Author_J. Leonard Bates
biographies of US senators
biography of Thomas J. Walsh
biography of US political figure
Category=DNBH
Elinor McClements Walsh
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Montana history
Montana political figures
naval disarmament
Progressive political figures
Progressivism
Public Lands Committee
Teapot Dome scandal
the St. Lawrence Seaway
the World Court
US senators
Western political figures

Product details

  • ISBN 9780252024702
  • Weight: 680g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 27 Jul 1999
  • Publisher: University of Illinois Press
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
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This is the first comprehensive biography of Thomas J. Walsh, the Democratic senator from Montana from 1913 to 1933 who was best known for his role in uncovering the Teapot Dome scandal. J. Leonard Bates places Walsh in his colorful and tumultuous times, illuminating Montana history and politics as well as national movements including Progressivism, internationalism, Prohibition, war, and so-called normalcy.
 
Walsh fought throughout his long career against corruption and monopoly power. During his early years as a lawyer-politician in Helena, he was often in conflict with the "Copper Kings" and other powerful figures. As a senator, he became an internationalist, working throughout the 1920s for naval disarmament, the World Court, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact for the "outlawry" of war.
 
In his most celebrated coup, breaking open the Teapot Dome scandal of 1923-24, Walsh revealed that the secretary of the interior had accepted "loans" from oil men in return for leases of U.S. naval oil reserves. Working through the Public Lands Committee of the Senate, Walsh enjoyed support for his investigation from members of both parties, and the Supreme Court endorsed his interpretation of the scandal in 1927. Shortly before his death, he presided over the Democratic National Convention that nominated Franklin Roosevelt and served for a brief time as a key figure in the new leader's circle.
 
Drawing on archival sources of unprecedented depth, including personal letters between Walsh and his first wife, Elinor McClements Walsh, Bates's expansive study paints a richly detailed portrait of an influential and principled figure whose political career spanned world war, depression, and the administrations of six presidents.
 
J. Leonard Bates was professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of The Origins of Teapot Dome, Tom Walsh in Dakota Territory, and The United States, 1898–1928.