Arthur Vivian Watkins (December 18, 1886September 1, 1973) was a Republican
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
from
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, serving two terms from 1947 to 1959. He was influential as a proponent of terminating
federal recognition
This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...
of
American Indian tribes
The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflic ...
, in the belief that they should be assimilated and all treaty rights abrogated. In 1954 he chaired the Watkins Committee, which led to the censure of Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
, who had made extensive allegations of communist infiltration of government and art groups. Watkins voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwigh ...
.
Biography
Watkins was born in
Midway, Wasatch County, Utah to Arthur Watkins (1864–1959) and Emily Adelia Gerber (1864–1947). He was the eldest of 6 siblings.
He attended
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
(BYU) from 1903 to 1906, and
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
(NYU) from 1909 to 1910. He graduated from
Columbia University Law School
Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Columbia University, a Private university, private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestig ...
in 1912, and returned to Utah. There he was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in
Vernal, Utah
Vernal, the county seat and largest city in Uintah County is in northeastern Utah, approximately east of Salt Lake City and west of the Colorado border. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 9,089. The population has since grown to ...
.
He founded and edited a weekly newspaper in
Utah County
Utah County is the second-most populous county in the U.S. state of Utah. The county seat and largest city is Provo, which is the state's third-largest city, and the largest outside of Salt Lake County. As of the 2020 United States Census, the ...
in 1914 called ''The Voice of Sharon,'' which eventually became the ''Orem-Geneva Times.'' In the same year, Watkins was appointed assistant county attorney of
Salt Lake County
Salt Lake County is located in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 1,185,238, making it the most populous county in Utah. Its county seat and largest city is Salt Lake City, the state capital. The coun ...
. From 1919 to 1925, he ran a 600-acre (2.4 km
2)
ranch
A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most often ...
near
Lehi
Lehi (; he, לח"י – לוחמי חרות ישראל ''Lohamei Herut Israel – Lehi'', "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel – Lehi"), often known pejoratively as the Stern Gang,"This group was known to its friends as LEHI and to its enemie ...
.
Watkins served as district judge of the Fourth Judicial District of Utah 1928–1933, losing his position in the
Roosevelt
Roosevelt may refer to:
*Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th U.S. president
*Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), 32nd U.S. president
Businesses and organisations
* Roosevelt Hotel (disambiguation)
* Roosevelt & Son, a merchant bank
* Roosevel ...
Democratic landslide in 1932.
In the early 1930s, he served as the director of the Provo River Water Users Association and director of the Orem Chamber of Commerce.
An unsuccessful candidate for the
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
nomination to the Seventy-fifth Congress in 1936, Watkins was elected as a Republican to the
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and pow ...
in 1946, and reelected in 1952. He served from January 3, 1947, to January 3, 1959.
Personal life
Watkins was a lifelong member of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
(LDS Church) and took up his missionary call in 1907, going to missions in New York and New Jersey.
In 1929, he moved to the Wasatch Front Community near Orem, and was selected to serve as the president upon the creation of Utah's Sharon Stake by the LDS Church. Watkins held that position until he left to move to Washington, DC as a Senator in 1946.
His orthodoxy and faith blurred the lines between civic and religious duties, as can be seen in correspondence to the church general authorities written on April 13, 1954:
While serving as a missionary in New York, Watkins met Andrea Rich. They married in Salt Lake City on June 18, 1913 and had six children. After his first wife's death, on March 1, 1972, Watkins married Dorothy Eva Watkins in Salt Lake City. After their marriage, they relocated to Orem.
Senate
Weber Basin Project
Planning for the Weber Basin Project began in 1942, but was suspended during the war years. After Watkins' election to the Senate in 1946, with increasing demand for municipal water and the need for irrigation of farmland, he began pushing for a reintroduction of legislation supporting the development plan. Investigations were made in January 1948, leading to a report issued in July 1949 recommending creation of a reservoir to store surplus water from the Ogden and Weber rivers that could later be accessed for use on farmland.
On August 29, 1949 Congress authorized the project (63 Stat. 677)
which empowered the
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natural ...
, through the
Bureau of Reclamation
The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...
"to construct, operate, and maintain reservoirs, irrigation and drainage works, power plants, and transmission lines in the area." It authorized that a conservancy organization within the State of Utah could be developed to collect taxes and make the project self-supporting.
On July 9, 1952, the first appropriation of construction funds was made.
In 1969, to honor Watkins for making the project come to life, the Willard Dam was renamed the
Arthur V. Watkins Dam.
Indian affairs
Watkins was appointed chair of the
Senate Interior Committee Subcommittee on Indian Affairs in 1947, shortly after he was elected to the Senate. Though his Mormon beliefs concerning Native Americans (see
Lamanite
The Lamanites () are one of the four ancient peoples (along with the Jaredites, the Mulekites, and the Nephites) described as having settled in the ancient Americas in the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement. The Lamani ...
) have been cited by many as a basis for the
Indian termination policy
Indian termination is a phrase describing United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream ...
Watkins pursued,
he was also influenced by not only his childhood growing up in the west on the fringe of the
Uintah and Ouray Reservation
The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation (, ) is located in northeastern Utah, United States. It is the homeland of the Ute Indian Tribe (Ute dialect: Núuchi-u), and is the largest of three Indian reservations inhabited by members of the Ute Tribe ...
,
but also by various cultural movements at the time. The "Culture of Conformity" –endless pressure to be stable and normal, and to fear the "godless Communist menace" – which characterized 1950s America, pushed society as a whole to relish the American sense of freedom, as well as responsibility.
These values can clearly be seen in what Watkins called his policy, "the freeing of the Indian from wardship status," equating it with the
Emancipation Proclamation
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War. The Proclamation changed the legal sta ...
, which freed slaves during the Civil War.
Watkins was the driving force behind termination. His position as chairman of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Indian Affairs gave him tremendous leverage to determine the direction of federal Indian policy and he consolidated his influence through other western legislators.
While partisanship may have played a role, geographic location may have been a much stronger motivator than party affiliation. The largest concentration of Native populations and federal lands were located in western states, as were national parks and dam projects.
He initially met with Wyoming Republican Congressman
William H. Harrison
William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773April 4, 1841) was an American military officer and politician who served as the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest pres ...
and Orme Lewis, Arizona Republican and Assistant Secretary of the
Interior
Interior may refer to:
Arts and media
* ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas
* ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck
* ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See
* Interior de ...
, to map out a strategy on February 27, 1953. Subsequent talks were held with South Dakota Republican Congressman
E.Y. Berry, Nevada Democratic Senator
Patrick McCarran
Patrick Anthony McCarran (August 8, 1876 – September 28, 1954) was an American farmer, attorney, judge, and Democratic politician who represented Nevada in the United States Senate from 1933 until 1954. McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, atte ...
,
South Dakota Republican Senator
Karl E. Mundt
Karl Earl Mundt (June 3, 1900August 16, 1974) was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives (1939–48) and in the United States Senate (19 ...
, North Dakota Republican Senator
William Langer
William "Wild Bill" Langer (September 30, 1886November 8, 1959) was a prominent American lawyer and politician from North Dakota, where he was an infamous character, bouncing back from a scandal that forced him out of the governor's office and ...
, and Washington Democratic Senator
Henry M. Jackson
Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 – September 1, 1983) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. representative (1941–1953) and U.S. senator (1953–1983) from the state of Washington. A Cold War liberal and anti- ...
.
After a series of consultations, the policy Watkins envisioned was set out with four fundamental tenets:
*1. To eliminate laws that treated Native Americans as different from other Americans;
*2. To dismantle the BIA, giving responsibility for their affairs to the tribes themselves, or if necessary transferring some of its duties to other federal and state agencies;
*3. To end federal supervision of individual Indians; and
*4. To cease federal guardianship responsibilities for Indian tribes and their resources.
In early June, 1953, Senator Jackson introduced the termination bill in the Senate and Representative Harrison introduced it in the House. The defining moment for Watkins' legislation came on August 1, 1953, with passage of
House Concurrent Resolution 108
House concurrent resolution 108 (HCR-108), passed August 1, 1953, declared it to be the sense of Congress that it should be policy of the United States to abolish federal supervision over American Indian tribes as soon as possible and to subjec ...
, which made termination the federal government's ongoing policy and established the first thirteen tribes to be targeted. Passage of the resolution did not, in itself, terminate any tribes, but it established that on a tribe by tribe basis, legislation would be enacted for those deemed sufficiently able to sustain themselves.
Watkins and his fellow legislators acted out of a belief that they needed to "fix the Indian problem" once and for all, and they believed that assimilation of the tribes into mainstream culture was their best hope for survival. It was a pressing problem, costing the government money at a time of huge war debt, and the means seemed to justify the wanted end.
At the time, many Indian tribes reacted against this proposed policy; in the afterword of her novel, ''The Night Watchman'', Louise Erdrich quotes from the letters of her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, who served as the chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band Chippewa Advisory Committee. At the nadir of Indians' power, the delegation by this committee pushed back, Erdrich writes, being the first Indian band to "mount a fierce defense and prevail." The Menominee, led by
Ada Deer
Ada Deer (born 1935) is a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate, scholar and civil servant. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s following the bills led by Arthur ...
regained Federal recognition, details described in her memoir, ''Making a Difference: My fight for Native Rights and Social Justice''.
By 1954, the policy was also being questioned at a conference of social scientists, primarily anthropologists, who concluded that the thought that "assimilation of the American Indian into the normal stream of American life is inevitable, that Indian tribes and communities will disappear" is completely unwarranted.
Though the legislation was supposed to give tribes input and obtain their consent, many tribes felt pressure to agree. For example, the
Menominee
The Menominee (; mez, omǣqnomenēwak meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recog ...
received an appropriation of $8.5 million in 1951 to settle a claim of BIA mismanagement, but in order to receive the payment, were told to come up with a plan for termination. When speaking with the
Klamath Tribes
The Klamath Tribes, formerly the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, are a federally recognized Native American Nation consisting of three Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited Southern Oregon and Northern California in the United St ...
, Watkins invoked God's blessing upon termination
and if that wasn't enough motivation, the three options proposed were clearly aimed at terminating the tribal relationships with the government: 1) Withdraw from the tribe and accept a cash settlement for any share they were due of tribal assets; 2) Remain in the tribe and help form a tribal association to manage the trust responsibilities instead of the federal government; or 3) Refuse a cash settlement and the government would appoint a guardian to manage the remaining assets of the tribe. Even the
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation ( ) ( Osage: 𐓁𐒻 𐓂𐒼𐒰𐓇𐒼𐒰͘ ('), "People of the Middle Waters") is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC along ...
of Oklahoma was told by Commissioner of Indian Affairs,
Dillon S. Myer
Dillon Seymour Myer (September 4, 1891 – October 21, 1982) was a United States government official who served as Director of the War Relocation Authority during World War II, Director of the Federal Public Housing Authority, and Commissioner ...
, to prepare for termination and paying taxes because "'the best country in the world' needed financial support from all citizens to fight communists in North Korea".
When Watkins proposed termination of the
Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah
The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah is a federally recognized tribe of Southern Paiute and Ute Indians in southwestern Utah.
Reservation
The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah (PITU) has a reservation composed of ten separate parcels of land, located in ...
, despite the fact that they did not meet the established "readiness" benchmarks of policy, it contained no protections for the tribe's mineral rights. Only public outcry over loss of the mineral rights forced addition of protections for their oil into their termination bill. It was widely believed that Alaskan natives' rights to the
Tongass National Forest
The Tongass National Forest () in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at . Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which i ...
had been forsaken in favor of corporate timber interests.
The western Oregon terminations of the Siletz and Grand Ronde tribes were seen by settlers and state politicians as a means of releasing tribal natural resources as a no-cost means of improving local economies.
Even before Watkins lost his re-election bid, the policies he had pursued were proving to have disastrous effects on Native peoples, as anticipated. Tribes were cut off from services for education, health care, housing, sanitation and utility sources, and related resources. Termination directly caused decay within the tribe including poverty, alcoholism, high suicide rates, low educational achievement, disintegration of the family, poor housing, high dropout rates from school, trafficking of Indian women for prostitution, disproportionate numbers in penal institutions, increased infant mortality, decreased life expectancy, and loss of identity.
In addition, the era of conformity was moving into the
Sixties
File:1960s montage.png, Clockwise from top left: U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War; the Beatles led the British Invasion of the U.S. music market; a half-a-million people participate in the 1969 Woodstock Festival; Neil Armstrong and Buzz A ...
and its calls for social change and a growing sensitivity to minority rights and the status of women.
Refugee Act of 1953
Immigration was an important issue in the run up to the election in 1952. The
McCarran-Walter Act
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (), also known as the McCarran–Walter Act, codified under Title 8 of the United States Code (), governs immigration to and citizenship in the United States. It came into effect on June 27, 1952. Before ...
, which President
Harry Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
's administration had just passed, was criticized not only internally, but throughout Europe as a policy which maintained systematic racial and religious discrimination and was hampering immigration based on hostility and distrust of outsiders, rampant fear of
Communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, and unfounded security claims. With the election of
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
, rather than attempt to revise the McCarran Act, a decision was made to provide an emergency relief bill, which would be seen as a temporary program.
On April 22, 1953, Eisenhower made a presentation to Congress outlining his main criteria for a refugee bill: sponsorship by a creditable citizen that the refugee had a job, housing, and would not become a ward of the state; proof that the refugee would be admitted back to his/her country of origin; complete background information for the last two years must be provided. Given this information, Eisenhower stressed that no discrimination based on race, religion or origin would prohibit visa issuance and that priority would be given to those refugees who had skills that were needed in the U.S. or who were family members of U.S. citizens.
On May 31, 1953,
Senator Watkins, as chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee
introduced a bill for the
Refugee Relief Act
On August 7, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Eisenhower signed the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, also known as the Emergency Migration Act, into law to provide relief for certain refugees, orphans, and other purposes. This act was mainly intend ...
, largely based on Eisenhower's proposal and recommendations.
The two crucial elements of the bill were that it made refugee quotas distinct from visa quotas and it defined the terms "refugee" (a person facing persecution residing a non-communist country), "escapee" (a person facing persecution who currently resided in a community, country, or area dominated by communists) and "expelee" (a refugee of German heritage who had been removed from a Soviet-controlled country or area). Congressional hearings on the bill included representatives from Catholic, Jewish and Protestant organizations, but there was no consensus among them on whether the bill should be approved, or rejected.
The bill passed on August 7, 1953;
was criticized for excluding many desirable refugees, excluding employers or associations from sponsoring refugees, excessive bureaucracy involved in obtaining security clearances, and an overall failure to bring in desperate refugees in anywhere near the authorized quotas;
and was allowed to expire on December 31, 1956.
The Watkins Committee
Early in 1950, when Republican Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...
of Wisconsin began his anti-communist purges, he found a lot of support from the public at large and his colleagues. By 1952 however, some of his attacks had helped lead to defeat of Democratic opponents and even resulted in criticism from some of his own party for debasing the decorum required of a public official. By 1953, with the Republican sweep in the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
and legislatures his attacks had become an assault on his own party.
On April 22, 1954, McCarthy opened hearings to investigate the security of the U.S. Army. Aired on national television, McCarthy badgered witnesses, ignored common courtesies, subverted parliamentary procedure,
and negatively turned public opinion against himself and the government.
On June 11, 1954, Republican Senator
Ralph Flanders
Ralph Edward Flanders (September 28, 1880 – February 19, 1970) was an American mechanical engineer, industrialist and politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Vermont. He grew up on subsistence farms in Vermont and R ...
of Vermont introduced a measure to strip McCarthy of all of his chairmanships. There were many in the Senate who believed that McCarthy should be curtailed, but there was no clear consensus on whether removing his chairmanships was warranted because of rules on seniority and proper protocol.
Convinced by colleagues that
censure
A censure is an expression of strong disapproval or harsh criticism. In parliamentary procedure, it is a debatable main motion that could be adopted by a majority vote. Among the forms that it can take are a stern rebuke by a legislature, a spir ...
would be easier to attain, on July 30, 1954, Flanders introduced a resolution calling for McCarthy's censure citing that McCarthy's behavior ran "contrary to senatorial traditions" and brought the whole body into disrepute.
"It was not his breaches of etiquette, or of rules or sometimes even of laws which is so disturbing," but rather his overall pattern of behavior. Ultimately a "bill of particulars" listing 46 charges was added to the censure resolution.
Before McCarthy, there had only been five cases of censure in the history of the Senate, but his conduct had become so outrageous that it was felt something must be done. Vice President Richard Nixon, appointed a bi-partisan committee, headed by Watkins to review and determine whether censure was warranted. On August 5, 1954, the names of the committee members were released: Arthur Watkins (Republican of Utah),
Frank Carlson
Frank Carlson (January 23, 1893May 30, 1987) was an American politician who served as the 30th governor of Kansas, Kansas State representative, United States representative, and United States senator from Kansas. Carlson is the only Kansan to ...
(Republican of Kansas),
Francis Case
Francis Higbee Case (December 9, 1896June 22, 1962) was an American journalist and politician who served for 25 years as a member of the United States Congress from South Dakota. He was a United States Republican Party, Republican.
Biography
Ca ...
(Republican of South Dakota),
Edwin C. Johnson
Edwin Carl Johnson (January 1, 1884 – May 30, 1970) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as both governor of and U.S. senator from the state of Colorado.
Background
Johnson was born in Scandia in Republic County in ...
(Democrat of Colorado),
John Stennis
John Cornelius Stennis (August 3, 1901April 23, 1995) was an American politician who served as a U.S. Senator from the state of Mississippi. He was a Democrat who served in the Senate for over 41 years, becoming its most senior member for his ...
(Democrat of Mississippi), and
Sam Ervin
Samuel James Ervin Jr. (September 27, 1896April 23, 1985) was an American politician. A Southern Democrats, Democrat, he served as a United States Senate, U.S. Senator from North Carolina from 1954 to 1974. A native of Morganton, North Carolina, ...
(Democrat of North Carolina). The senators were hand-picked by Nixon because they were men who ''played by the rule'', who had the respect of other senators, were neither liberal nor ''media hounds'', and were not presidential contenders.
They began meeting on August 31, 1954 for what would amount to 2 months of hearings.
The Watkins Committee divided the 46 counts into five categories: contempt of the Senate or a senatorial committee; encouragement of federal employees to break the law; receipt of classified documents from executive files; abuse of Senate colleagues; and abuse of military personnel. Watkins barred television cameras and media from the hearings, and insisted that McCarthy conform to Senate protocol. When McCarthy appeared before the committee and began badgering the committee members, Watkins expelled him from the procedures. Most of the charges were rejected either because they either fell into actions that had long been tolerated, or they were judged to have the potential to limit Senatorial investigations in the future. The two charges they finally decided to bring related to his failure to attend the Subcommittee on Rules and Administration, which had called him to testify in 1951 and 1952, and his abuse of then-
Brigadier General
Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...
Ralph W. Zwicker in the Army hearings of 1954. The Zwicker count was eventually dropped and one regarding his statements about the Watkins committee itself was added.
One final attempt was made before the charges were brought to the full Senate to obtain an apology from McCarthy, but he refused.
The two counts on which the Senate ultimately voted were:
*(1) his refusal to appear before the Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections to answer questions about his personal character, and his general obstruction to the work of the panel during its investigation of him in 1951 and 1952; and
*(2) his "charging three members of the Select Committee with "deliberate deception" and "fraud" for failure to disqualify themselves; in stating to the press on November 4, 1954, that the special Senate session that was to begin November 8, 1954, was a "lynch-party"...
On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy on both counts by a vote of 67 to 22.
The Democrats present voted unanimously and the Republicans were split on whether condemnation should prevail.
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
, who was hospitalized for back surgery, was not present at the vote and did not indicate specifically how he would have voted.
[Oshinsky (2005), pp. 33, 490]
After the Senate
McCarthy's anti-communist rhetoric was still popular with Utah's electorate and impacted Watkins' re-election bid in 1958. Former
Utah Governor J. Bracken Lee
Joseph Bracken Lee (January 7, 1899 – October 20, 1996) was an American political figure in the state of Utah. A Republican, he served two terms as the 9th Governor of Utah (1949–1957), six 2-year terms as mayor of Price, Utah (1935–194 ...
took the opportunity to oppose Watkins for the senatorial nomination. Though Watkins won the Republican
primary
Primary or primaries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Primary (band), from Australia
* Primary (musician), hip hop musician and record producer from South Korea
* Primary Music, Israeli record label
Works
* ...
, Lee ran as an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
in the
general election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
. This caused a split in the Republican vote and allowed Democrat
Frank E. Moss
Frank Edward "Ted" Moss (September 23, 1911 – January 29, 2003) was an American lawyer and politician. A Democrat, he served as a United States Senator from Utah from 1959 to 1977.
Early life and education
Frank Moss was born in Holladay ...
to win the seat.
Lee went on to a long career as
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...
of
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
. Moss served three terms in the Senate, losing to Republican
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...
in 1976.
Following his defeat, Watkins was hired as consultant to Interior Secretary
Fred Seaton
Frederick Andrew Seaton (December 11, 1909 – January 16, 1974) was an American newspaperman and politician. He represented the U.S. state of Nebraska in the U.S. Senate and served as U.S. Secretary of the Interior during Dwight D. Eisenh ...
, but left in 1960 to accept an appointment by Eisenhower on the
Indian Claims Commission The Indian Claims Commission was a judicial relations arbiter between the United States federal government and Native American tribes. It was established under the Indian Claims Act of 1946 by the United States Congress to hear any longstanding clai ...
, becoming its chairman and subsequently its chief commissioner. In 1967 Watkins retired to write his memoirs and in 1969 published a book entitled ''Enough Rope'', which detailed the work of the Watkins Committee and the censure of Joseph McCarthy.
Death
Watkins died in
Orem, Utah
Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the northern part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is approximately south of Salt Lake City.
Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Me ...
, on September 1, 1973, and was buried at Eastlawn Memorial Hills cemetery, Orem, Utah County, Utah, on September 3, 1973.
References
Klingaman., William ''The Encyclopedia of the McCarthy Era'', New York : Facts on File, 1996 . Menominee Termination and Restoratio
External links
Collections related to Arthur V. Watkinsin the
L. Tom Perry Special Collections
The L. Tom Perry Special Collections is the special collections department of Brigham Young University (BYU)'s Harold B. Lee Library in Provo, Utah. Founded in 1957 with 1,000 books and 50 manuscript collections, as of 2016 the Library's special ...
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Harold B. Lee Library
The Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) is the main academic library of Brigham Young University (BYU) located in Provo, Utah. The library started as a small collection of books in the president's office in 1876 before moving in 1891. The Heber J. Gran ...
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Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ...
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Watkins, Arthur Vivian
1886 births
1973 deaths
American Latter Day Saints
Brigham Young University alumni
Columbia Law School alumni
New York University alumni
Politicians from Orem, Utah
Politicians from Salt Lake City
People from Midway, Utah
Republican Party United States senators from Utah
Utah lawyers
Utah Republicans
Utah state court judges
Writers from Utah