Up for auction "Rhode Island Senator" J Howard McGrath Signed TLS Dated 1947.
ES-3863D
James Howard McGrath (November
28, 1903 – September 2, 1966) was an American politician and attorney from the U.S. state of Rhode Island. McGrath, a Democrat, served
as U.S. Attorney for
Rhode Island before becoming Governor, U.S. Solicitor
General, U.S. Senator, chairman of
the Democratic National Committee,
and Attorney General of the United
States. Born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
McGrath was the son of James J. McGrath and the former Ida E. May. He graduated
from the La Salle Academy in
1922, attended Providence College, and
went to the Boston University Law
School in 1929. McGrath married Estelle A. Cadorette on November 28, 1929.
They adopted a son. From 1930 to 1934, he was the city solicitor of Central Falls, Rhode Island.
During this time he was also interested in the real estate, insurance, and banking industries. He served as United States Attorney for
the District of Rhode Island from
1934 to 1940. From 1941 until 1945, he was Governor of Rhode Island,
reorganizing the juvenile court system
while sponsoring a workers' compensation fund and a labor relations board, but
he resigned in the middle of his third term to accept appointment as Solicitor
General of the United States (1945–1946). As Governor, McGrath
presided over a limited-purpose state constitutional convention in 1944. McGrath
was elected as a Democrat to
the United States Senate from
Rhode Island in 1946 to join a Congress (the Eightieth, 1947 to
1949), where the opposition Republican Party had
just replaced Democratic majorities in both houses. (See United States elections, 1946.)
He was briefly chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the District of Columbia for
the 81st Congress (to
which the 1948 election had
returned Democratic majorities). In the Senate, McGrath opposed reducing
wartime economic controls and taxes, wishing to spend the latter instead on
Social Security, national health insurance, and education. He
was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from
1947 to 1949. In managing President Harry Truman's successful 1948 election campaign, McGrath
alienated white Southerners but won over crucial black constituencies by
integrating the Democratic national headquarters staff. Truman
appointed Sen. McGrath Attorney General
of the United States on August 24, 1949. He resigned on April
3, 1952, after he had refused to cooperate in a corruption investigation
initiated by his own department. Truman asked for and received McGrath's
resignation. Alternative
accounts have contradictorily suggested that after a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at
Truman's "Little White House" in Key West, the Secretary of the
Navy, along with other members, had threatened to resign if they,
too, were forced to comply with Special Assistant Attorney General Newbold Morris's request for the personal records of all those
members who might have received gifts under the scope of the corruption
investigation. Under pressure to follow through with the Justice Department
corruption investigation, along with the threats of resignation, McGrath agreed
that Morris's request was asking too much and that the best thing to do at that
point was to clean up the department from that point forward and leave the past
alone. Truman had been backed into a corner and the only way out was to ask for
McGrath's resignation. This account was corroborated by a letter from Truman to
McGrath, which hung in the hallway of McGrath's summer home in Narragansett, Rhode Island up
to the time of his death in 1966. McGrath entered the private practice of law
in Washington, D.C. and
Providence. In 1960, he was an unsuccessful candidate to succeed the retiring
U.S. Sen. Theodore Francis Green (Democrat
of Rhode Island), losing the Democratic primary (also contested by former
Governor Dennis J. Roberts)
to Claiborne Pell. McGrath
died of a heart attack in Narragansett, Rhode Island on
September 2, 1966, at the age of 62. His body was buried at the St. Francis Cemetery in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. There
is a bust of Senator McGrath outside the House chamber in the Rhode Island State House.