Joe Starnes
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Joe Starnes (March 31, 1895 - January 9, 1962) was a U.S. Representative from Alabama.
Born in Guntersville, Alabama, Starnes attended the public schools. He taught school in Marshall County, Alabama from 1912 to 1917. During the First World War served overseas as a second lieutenant in the Fifty-third Infantry, Sixth Division, in 1918 and 1919. He was graduated from the law department of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1921. He was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice at Guntersville, Alabama. He served as member of the One Hundred and Sixty-Seventh Infantry, Alabama National Guard, since 1923, advancing through the ranks to colonel. He served as member of the State board of education 1933-1949 and became vice chairman in January 1948.
Starnes was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-fourth and to the four succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1935-January 3, 1945). He served on the Dies Committee, precursor to HUAC, and gained notoriety for questioning Hallie Flanagan about whether Christopher Marlowe and "Mr. Euripides" might have been Communists.[1] He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1944. He served as a colonel of Infantry in the European Theater of Operations and in the Army of Occupation from January 4, 1945, until discharged on February 22, 1946. He resumed the practice of law in Guntersville, Alabama. He died in Washington, D.C., January 9, 1962. He was interred in City Cemetery, Guntersville, Alabama.
