Background
James was born on July 14, 1883, in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, the only son among three children of James David James, a coal miner, and Rachel Edwards, both of whom had immigrated from Wales.
James was born on July 14, 1883, in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, the only son among three children of James David James, a coal miner, and Rachel Edwards, both of whom had immigrated from Wales.
James worked as a breaker boy (slate picker) and underground mine laborer during school vacations, graduated in 1901 from Plymouth High School, and in 1904 from Dickinson Law School.
In 1905, James began practice in Plymouth and Wilkes-Barre. Recognized as an outstanding speaker, he entered politics as the Republican committee chairman in his legislative district. In 1919, he reversed twenty years of Democratic control in Luzerne County when he was elected district attorney. He pledged to eliminate vice, using a crusading approach he often employed throughout his career. In 1923, he was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. Older politicians of the region recommended him to the Vare brothers, Republican power-brokers in Philadelphia, and in 1926 he was nominated as lieutenant governor on a ticket headed by John S. Fisher. The Republicans won, and he presided over state senate sessions in 1927 and 1929. In 1932, James was elected to a ten-year term in the superior court. His wife's illness and his interest in the judicial process made him rebuff suggestions that he run for governor in 1934 and 1937. However, in 1938, after Gifford Pinchot, a former Republican governor, had announced that he would run for a third term, James entered the primary. After winning the Republican nomination, James made campaign appearances in a miner's cap and sang mining ballads. He pledged to end the Democrats' wasteful spending and job favoritism. A split between Democratic labor advocates and Senator Joseph Guffey's faction helped James defeat the Democratic nominee, Charles A. Jones, but more telling were the unresolved legislative and grand jury investigations into alleged corruption in the administration of the Democratic governor, George Earle. These rival inquiries remained unresolved by election day, suggesting evils far greater than the final indictments confirmed. James won decisively. As governor, James began a retrenchment program as soon as he took office, characterizing it as "housekeeping. " He fired 2, 104 state employees, thereby abolishing one-sixth of the positions directly under the governor. He reduced spending for highways, although by the end of James's term the Pennsylvania Turnpike had been extended to the Ohio border. He created a department of commerce to coordinate economic recovery, and encouraged voluntary cooperation to replace the New Deal's style of mandatory regulation. A "give-a-job" program was devised to persuade private employers to expand their work force. Because the general assembly would not act to halt bootleg anthracite mining, James brought about the nongovernmental Anthracite Emergency Program, which convinced some mine operators to resume production voluntarily. James insisted that the New Deal perpetuated Democratic patronage and favoritism. Despite the impact of retrenchment and the growth of defense-related employment, he had to call a special legislative session in 1940 to supplement relief funds. Several times he persuaded the federal government to increase Works Progress Administration activities in the state, arguing that they should be awarded on a fair-share basis. By the end of his term the $71 million deficit inherited from Earle had been eliminated, the budget balanced, and a surplus created; but his goal of tax reduction was never achieved. In fact, the Earle administration's emergency taxes were perpetuated and passed on to subsequent administrations. James continually criticized Democratic political methods. In May 1940, he advocated that Congress remain in session to prevent President Roosevelt from personally committing the nation to war. At the Republican convention in Philadelphia he was a presidential nominee on the first five ballots. He pleaded for the Pennsylvania delegation's support for one more ballot, reasoning that Wendell L. Willkie's Democratic origins would eliminate him, but Jay Cooke of Philadelphia and a national committeewoman, Mrs. Worthington Scranton, swung to Willkie. At the roll call the votes of the entire delegation were cast for Willkie. James insisted that Pennsylvania's selective-service machinery, one of the nation's first and most efficient, be nonpartisan. The State Council of Defense, created in May 1941, controlled air raid defense, scrap metal collection, recycling of paper and fats, and child-care centers. James sought to have factory buildings that had been closed during the Great Depression considered as sites for defense industry. James established a reputation for listening to and being concerned with average citizens. While criticizing New Deal methods, he nevertheless stated that no truly destitute person would be cut from relief rolls. He strengthened workers' compensation procedures, and seventy-five thousand more workers became eligible for coverage during his administration; occupational disease laws and mine safety also were improved. Despite his coal mining background, James considered labor organizations dangerous. He sought to give employers legal powers matching those of the unions, an attitude that labor advocates labeled reactionary. His amended Labor Relations Act of 1939 gave employers the right to start a Labor Relations Board investigation, revived the legality of injunctions, impeded dues deductions and closed shop status, and made sit-down strikes illegal. In 1942, he vetoed legislation that would have granted the Labor Relations Board litigant status. In the 1941 legislative session James vetoed many spending measures, stating various reasons. Several measures involving public health were involved. James also rebuffed legislative measures under which state funds would have been used for the obligations of local government. He protected police power on the highways by vetoing an amended traffic code requiring speed patrol cars to be white and softening grounds for suspension of drivers' licenses. He prevented the sale of wine except in the state liquor stores. In 1942, James called an extraordinary legislative session authorized to act only on seventeen subjects that he enumerated, but disagreements arose about the limits of the subjects. He vetoed measures that did not conform. His methods of fiscal calculation were questioned by Democrats, but he insisted they were the same as those used by his predecessor. James's term ended January 19, 1943. After returning to law practice, James was named to the Superior Court in February 1944 and ran for election to a full term that November, but lost by a narrow margin in the landslide endorsement of Roosevelt's wartime policies. He died in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 1973.
James was robust and engaged in outdoor activities until his later years, when he showed signs of Parkinson's disease.
James married Ada Morris in 1912. She died in 1935. James's son, Arthur, Jr. , died of appendicitis in 1939. His daughter, Dorothy, served as hostess of the executive mansion until October 1941, when James married Emily Radcliffe Case, the widow of a longtime friend, Dr. Claude Case.
