George Anthony Dondero
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George A. Dondero (16 December 1883 - 29 January 1968) was a Representative to the U.S. House of Representatives from the state of Michigan.
Dondero was born on a farm in Greenfield Township, Michigan, which has since become part of Detroit. He served as the village clerk of Royal Oak, Michigan in 1905 and 1906, as town treasurer in 1907 and 1908, and as village assessor in 1909. He graduated from the Detroit College of Law in 1910, was admitted to the bar, and started a practice in Royal Oak the same year. He was village attorney, 1911-1921 and assistant prosecuting attorney for Oakland County in 1918 and 1919. He was mayor of Royal Oak in 1921 and 1922 and a member of the board of education, 1910-1928.
In 1932, he was elected as a Republican from Michigan's 17th congressional district to the 73rd United States Congress and the eleven succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1933 to January 3, 1957. The 17th district was newly created following redistricting after the 1930 census and Dondero was the first representative elected from that district. Following the 1950 census, the 18th district was created and Dondero was also the first representative elected from that district, which began in 1953. Both districts are now obsolete.
From 1937 to 1947 Dondero served as ranking member of the House Committee on Education. He was chairman of the Committee on Public Works in the 80th and 81st Congresses. In 1954, he sponsored the bill creating the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which allowed large ocean-going vessels access to the Great Lakes. Thus, he helped connect the central United States with the Atlantic Ocean.
A strict[citation needed] McCarthyite, Dondero mounted an attack on modern art. He asserted that "Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder... Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule... Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms,".[citation needed] In 1952, Dondero went so far as to tell Congress that modern art was, in fact, a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism in the United States.[1] This speech won him the International Fine Arts Council's Gold Medal of Honor for "dedicated service to American Art."[2]
When art critic Emily Genauer (future winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism) interviewed Dondero in the mid-1950s and pointed out the resemblance between his views and those of the Stalinist Communists he despised, Dondero was so enraged that he arranged to have her fired from her job at the New York Herald Tribune[citation needed].
Dondero, a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln[citation needed], named his son after Lincoln's son. Dondero died at the age of 84 in Royal Oak, Michigan and is interred there at Oakview Cemetery. Dondero High School in Royal Oak was named for him.
[edit] References
- George Anthony Dondero at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- The Political Graveyard
[edit] Notes
- ^ Hofstadter, R., "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" (1963) pp. 14-15, where references are given to Dondero's original speeches.
- ^ Anticommunism and Modern Art (Accessed June 6, 2008).
| Preceded by None |
United States Representative for the 17th Congressional District of Michigan 1933 – 1953 |
Succeeded by Charles G. Oakman |
| Preceded by None |
United States Representative for the 18th Congressional District of Michigan 1953 – 1957 |
Succeeded by William S. Broomfield |
