Herman Welker

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Herman Welker
United States Senator
from Idaho
In office
January 3, 1951 January 3, 1957
Preceded by Glen H. Taylor
Succeeded by Frank Church
Personal details
Born Herman Orville Welker[1]
(1906-12-11)December 11, 1906
Cambridge, Idaho
Died October 30, 1957(1957-10-30) (aged 50)
Bethesda, Maryland
Resting place Arlington National Cemetery
Arlington, Virginia
Nationality United States
Political party Republican
Spouse(s) Gladys Taylor Pence Welker
(19081991)
(m. 19301957, his death)
Children Nancy Welker (b. 1940)
Residence Payette
Alma mater University of Idaho
College of Law, LL.B. 1929
Profession Attorney
Religion Episcopalian
Military service
Allegiance  United States
Service/branch U.S. Army Air Forces
Years of service 194344
Rank Corporal
Battles/wars World War II

Herman Orville Welker (December 11, 1906 - October 30, 1957) was a politician from the state of Idaho. He was a member of the Idaho Republican Party and served one term in the United States Senate, from 1951 to 1957.[2]

Early years

Born in Cambridge, Idaho, Welker was the youngest of seven children of John Thornton and Anna Zella Shepherd Welker, who had moved from North Carolina and started a potato farm. He is the grandson of Rev. George W. Welker of North Carolina. He attended grade school in Cambridge and high school in Weiser. He graduated from Weiser High School in 1924 and went north to Moscow to attend the University of Idaho, where he started off in a general studies program and was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.[3]

Legal career

Welker switched to the College of Law in 1926 and graduated with a LL.B. degree in 1929.[4] He passed the bar at age 21 and was elected as the prosecuting attorney for Washington County before he graduated. He was re-elected and served in that position from 1928 to 1936. Welker moved to Los Angeles in 1936 and had a private practice until 1943, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces and served until 1944. He returned to Idaho and practiced law at Payette until 1950 and was a member of the state senate from 1949 to 1951.

U.S. Senate

In 1950, Welker ran for the U.S. Senate. He won the Republican primary over Congressman John C. Sanborn and defeated former Senator D. Worth Clark in the general election. He gained seats on several important committees, including the Armed Services and Judiciary Committees. He soon distinguished himself as one of the most conservative and anticommunist senators, becoming a leading member and spokesperson for the right wing of the Republican Party.

Harmon Killebrew

In the early 1950s, Sen. Welker told Washington Senators owner Clark Griffith about Harmon Killebrew, a young baseball player from his hometown who was batting .847 for a semi-professional baseball team at the time.[5][6] Griffith told his farm director Ossie Bluege about the tip and Bluege flew to Idaho to watch Killebrew play.[7] The Boston Red Sox also expressed interest but Bluege succeeded in signing him to a $50,000 contract on June 19, 1954.[6][8][9] Killebrew would go on to have a hall of fame career in Major League Baseball.

Association with Joseph McCarthy

In the early 1950s, Welker became closely associated with Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and "McCarthyism", so much so that he was often referred to by Senate colleagues as "Little Joe from Idaho."[10] In 1954, Welker was McCarthy's chief defender during the successful attempt by Democrats in the Senate, joined by some Republicans, to censure McCarthy for the questionable investigative techniques McCarthy had used in pursuing individuals he accused of being communists, and others he accused of being homosexuals, within the government.[11] Welker was one of only 22 Republicans senators who voted against the censure of McCarthy in 1954 for these "red scare" communist witch hunts, and his so-called "lavender scare" tactics aimed at homosexuals in government.[12]

Welker, along with Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, was also a key collaborator with McCarthy in the harassment of Senator Lester C. Hunt of Wyoming and his son, that led to Hunt's suicide in July 1954.[13] Welker threatened Sen. Hunt, a staunch opponent of McCarthy's tactics, that if he did not immediately retire from the Senate and not seek re-election in 1954, Welker would see that his son was prosecuted and would widely publicize his son's alleged homosexuality. Welker also threatened Inspector Roy Blick of the Morals Division of the Washington Police Department with the loss of his job if he failed to prosecute Hunt Jr.[14][15]

Alex Ross in The New Yorker wrote in 2012 of an event "loosely dramatized in the novel and film Advise & Consent [in which] Senator Lester Hunt, of Wyoming, killed himself after ... Welker [and others] ... threatened to expose Hunt’s son as a homosexual".[16]

1956 election

In 1956, Welker ran for a second term in the Senate. Although he won the Republican nomination, again defeating Sanborn, he was decisively defeated by 32-year old Democrat Frank Church; Welker less than 39 percent of the vote. This increased Democratic control of the Senate led to much anger within the Republican Party, with Joseph McCarthy even accusing President Dwight Eisenhower of not supporting Welker's reelection campaign enough.[17]

Election results

U.S. Senate elections in Idaho (Class III): Results 1950–1956
Year Democrat Votes Pct Republican Votes Pct 3rd Party Party Votes Pct
1950 D. Worth Clark 77,180 38.3% Herman Welker 124,237 61.7%
1956 Frank Church 149,096 56.2% Herman Welker (inc.) 102,781 38.7% Glen H. Taylor 13,415 5.1%

Death

After leaving the Senate in January 1957, Welker practiced law in Boise and participated in farming. After a few months, however, he became ill, and traveled to Bethesda, Maryland, for medical treatment at the National Institutes of Health. He was admitted on October 16, 1957, where he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Operations were quickly performed, but Welker died later that month. McCarthy had died earlier that year in Bethesda (Welker had attended McCarthy's funeral), as would ultimately Welker's successor, Frank Church, in 1984.

Welker was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.[18] He married Gladys Taylor Pence in 1930, and they had a daughter, Nancy.[19]

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

  1. "Index". Gem of the Mountains, University of Idaho yearbook. 1928. p. 449. 
  2. "Former Sen. Herman Welker dead at 50 after surgery". Lewiston Morning Tribune. Associated Press. October 31, 1957. p. 1. 
  3. "Juniors". Gem of the Mountains, University of Idaho yearbook. 1928. p. 88. 
  4. "Seniors". Gem of the Mountains, University of Idaho yearbook. 1929. p. 62. 
  5. Thielman, p. 131.
  6. 6.0 6.1 Porter, p. 808.
  7. Thielman, p. 133.
  8. Thielman, p. 134.
  9. "Senators Pay $50,000 To First Bonus Player". Sports (The New York Times). June 20, 1954. p. S3. 
  10. Ashby, LeRoy; Rod Gramer (1994). Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church. Pullman, Washington: Washington State University Press. p. 61. ISBN 0-87422-103-X. 
  11. Rodger McDaniel, Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt (WordsWorth, 2013), ISBN 978-0983027591
  12. U.S. Senate, roll call vote on Senate Resolution 301, Dec. 2, 1954.
  13. McDaniel, Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins.
  14. Drew Pearson On The Washington Merry-Go-Round, June 20, 1954, accessed February 28, 2011. .
  15. Diaries, 1949-1959,author= Drew Pearson (NY: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1974), 325.
  16. Ross, Alex, "Love on the March", The New Yorker, November 12, 2012. Retrieved 2012-11-06.
  17. "McCarthy says Ike 'purged' Sen. Welker". News and Courier (Charleston, SC). Associated Press. January 5, 1957. p. 2A. 
  18. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hwelker.htm
  19. Romig, Bob. "The Pence Family". Pence Land. Retrieved March 5, 2013. 

Further reading

  • McDaniel, Rodger. Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins: The Suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester Hunt (WordsWorth, 2013), ISBN 978-0983027591

External links

Party political offices
Preceded by
C. A. Bottolfsen
Republican Party nominee, U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Idaho
1950 (won), 1956 (lost)
Succeeded by
Jack Hawley
United States Senate
Preceded by
Glen H. Taylor
U.S. Senator (Class 3) from Idaho
January 3, 1951January 3, 1957
Served alongside: Henry Dworshak
Succeeded by
Frank Church
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