John O. Pastore

John Orlando Pastore (March 17, 1907 – July 15, 2000) was a Rhode Island Democratic Party politician who was a United States Senator from Rhode Island (1950 until 1976) and the 61st Governor of Rhode Island (1945 until 1950), and was the first Italian American to hold either position.

Early life and career

Born in Providence on March 17, 1907, he attended Classical High School and graduated from law school at Northeastern University in 1931 where he went on to practice law in Providence. He was a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 1935 to 1937, was assistant attorney general of Rhode Island from 1937 to 1938 and again from 1940 to 1944. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island in 1944. He became Governor of Rhode Island in 1945 when Governor J. Howard McGrath resigned to become Solicitor General of the United States. In 1946, Pastore was elected to a gubernatorial term in his own right; he was re-elected in 1948.

Senate

In 1950, Pastore was elected to the United States Senate as a Democrat in a special election to replace — once again — J. Howard McGrath, who had resigned in 1949 to become United States Attorney General (Edward L. Leahy held the office during a 16-month interim appointment). Pastore was re-elected in 1952, 1958, 1964 and 1970.

In the summer of 1964, he delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which renominated Lyndon B. Johnson for the Presidency.

He won his final Senate race in 1970 by a 68%-32% margin over John McLaughlin, a Catholic priest who was against the Vietnam War. (McLaughlin, who later left the priesthood, would become more famous as the host of the television program The McLaughlin Group.)

In 1976 he retired, living in Cranston until his death due to kidney failure on July 15, 2000.[1]

Pastore served as the chairman of United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. He is probably best remembered for taking part in a hearing involving a $20 million grant for the funding of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was proposed by Former President Lyndon Johnson. The hearing took place on May 1, 1969. President Richard Nixon had wanted to cut the proposed funding to $10 million due to all the spending during the Vietnam War, and Fred Rogers, host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, appeared before the committee to argue for the full $20 million. In about six minutes of testimony, Rogers spoke of the need for social and emotional education that Public Television provided. Pastore was not previously familiar with Rogers' work, and was sometimes described as gruff and impatient. However, he told Rogers that the testimony had given him goose bumps, and after Rogers recited the lyrics to "What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?", one of the songs from his show, Pastore finally declared, "I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the $20 million."^[2] The following congressional appropriation, for 1971, increased PBS funding from $9 million to $22 million.

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