Claude Douglas Cairns (June 1, 1914 – July 6, 1985) was an American politician who served as the 31st mayor of Burlington, Vermont. His mayoral victory in 1957 ended eighteen years of Democratic control of Burlington's mayoralty since Republican Louis Fenner Dow left office in 1939.

Life

Claude Douglas Cairns was born in Salem, Massachusetts on June 1, 1914 to Mae Lewis and Claude F. Cairns. In 1932 he graduated from the Chauncey Hall Preparatory School and received a degree in chemical engineering from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1936. From 1941 to his honorary discharge in 1945 he served in the United States Navy on board the

USS Block Island Three ships of the United States Navy have been named ''Block Island'', after Block Island Sound Block Island Sound is a strait in the open Atlantic Ocean, approximately wide, separating Block Island from the coast of mainland Rhode Island. ...

in the Atlantic. From 1953 to 1957 Cairns served two terms as on the Burlington Board of Aldermen. On April 27, 1956 he was elected as Chairman of the Burlington Republican City Committee to succeed John B. Harrington. In September he proposed adding the support of lowering the voting age to eighteen to the Vermont Republican Party platform. On February 18, 1957 he was given the mayoral nomination and on March 5 defeated incumbent Democratic Mayor John Edward Moran with 4,053 votes to 3,830 votes. On January 28, 1958 he stated that he would not run for congress, but on April 30 he changed his decision and announced that he would run in the Republican primary for the House of Representatives and went on to lose the primary to former Governor

Harold J. Arthur Harold John Arthur (February 9, 1904 – July 19, 1971) was the 68th governor of Vermont from 1950 to 1951. He also served as the 64th lieutenant governor of Vermont from 1949 to 1950. Early life, education, and family Arthur was born in Whit ...

. During his tenure as mayor he attempted to have a nuclear reactor built in Burlington and went to the

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) was a United States congressional committee that was tasked with exclusive jurisdiction over "all bills, resolutions, and other matters" related to civilian and military aspects of nuclear power from 1946 ...

, but nothing came of it and attempted to add support for a national sales tax to the 1958 Republican national platform. On February 2, 1959 he announced that he would not to seek reelection and would instead run for alderman again and easily defeated Arthur J. Lambert with 1,434 votes to 856 votes. After leaving the mayoralty he was elected as Chairman of the Chittenden County Republican Party. In 1964 he ran for one of Chittenden County's five state senate seats, but came in seventh place out ten candidates. During the

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Ja ...

and

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – "Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Januar ...

he organized the presidential campaigns of Richard Nixon in Vermont. During the 1964 campaign he was an early supporter of Barry Goldwater and served as chairman and member of the Vermont delegation to the

national convention The National Convention (french: link=no, Convention nationale) was the parliament of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for the rest of its existence during the French Revolution, following the two-year National ...

in support of Goldwater although the delegates were officially uncommitted. He attempted to become the Republican national committeeman for Vermont, but was defeated by incumbent State Senator Edward G. Janeway. He also ran Barry Goldwater's campaign in Vermont in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...

and served as both his vice chairman of his campaign in Vermont and national

campaign Campaign or The Campaign may refer to: Types of campaigns * Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed *Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme * Bl ...

's chairman in 1964. Late into the campaign he led an effort to block the Citizens Party from giving its nomination and extra ballot access line to Lyndon B. Johnson. Cairns died in Burlington, Vermont July 6, 1985 at age 71.

Electoral history

References

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Cairns, Claude Douglas 1914 births 1985 deaths Mayors of Burlington, Vermont Vermont Republicans 20th-century American politicians