Arthur Vivian Watkins was born in Midway, Utah. His parents, Arthur Watkins and Emily A. Gerber, were children of European-born Mormon pioneers who had settled in Utah. Watkins's father was a rancher and carpenter. One of six children, Watkins spent most of his childhood logging, fishing, hunting, and engaging in the life of a young Utah homesteader.
Watkins attended local public schools and in 1904 entered Brigham Young University, where he majored in political science. He graduated from BYU in 1906. In 1909, after being released from his missionary service, Watkins elected to stay in New York and take graduate-level classes at New York University and Columbia University, from which latter school he received an LL. B. degree in 1912.
He went to New York City, where he served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints until 1909. He then returned to Utah, where he was admitted to the bar later that year. After setting up in private practice, in 1914 Watkins became editor of the Vernal, Utah, Express. Shortly thereafter, he became assistant county attorney for Salt Lake County, serving in this post until 1915. The busy Watkins also managed commercial orchards and a turkey farm in Utah from 1919 to 1932. Watkins's political career began in 1920, when he was elected to the post of judge for Utah's Fourth Judicial District; he served at this post until 1933. In 1936 Watkins ran for U. S. Congress, won the Republican nomination, but lost in the final election to Democrat J. Will Robinson by a slim margin. Discouraged by his defeat, Watkins did not run for political office again until a decade had passed. In 1944 Watkins served as a member of the platform committee of the Republican National Convention. In 1946 he ran for the U. S. Senate, defeating Abe Murdock, the incumbent Democrat and New Dealer. In January 1947 Watkins took his seat for the second session of the Seventy-ninth Congress and began his service that would last until he was defeated in the 1958 election by Democrat Frank E. Moss. The silver-haired Watkins demonstrated his support for the Republican party platform and its leaders, as shown by his record in the Senate. Watkins was assigned to the Public Lands and Public Works committees, and also to the Joint Committee of the Economic Report at the first session of the Eightieth Congress. Additionally he chaired the Indian Affairs subcommittee, and sat on the Irrigation and Reclamation and the Public Roads subcommittees. From early in his senatorial career controversy surrounded Watkins. He openly opposed and criticized President Truman's appointment of former Utah senator Abe Murdock to the National Labor Relations Board. Watkins argued that Murdock's prolabor stance would inhibit the proper administration of the Taft-Hartley law. Despite Watkins's oratory, Murdock was confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate. Senator Watkins also voiced reservations about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), asserting that such a treaty would deprive Congress of the right to decide on a declaration of war in the event of an attack on a treaty ally. Despite otherwise unanimous endorsement for the NATO alliance by the Foreign Relations Committee, Watkins asked for publication of the bill and a full senatorial debate. Watkins was overruled, and the NATO bill passed in two weeks. Maintaining what might be described as an isolationist stance, Watkins joined with fellow Republicans Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Kenneth S. Wherry of Nebraska to express three strong reservations about the NATO Treaty. They asked that the United States deny any pledge to give military supplies to other nations; that it renounce any obligation to use U. S. armed forces without the consent of Congress; and that it assume no obligation to declare war if another NATO country was attacked. Watkins joined with twelve other senators to vote against the NATO Treaty. In 1950 Watkins questioned President Truman's decision to send U. S. troops to Korea without first asking for congressional approval. Watkins also opposed the continuation of bipartisan foreign policy tactics in the United States. He joined fellow Republicans to vote for congressional control of decisions regarding the deployment of U. S. forces in Europe, a measure that would have given Congress binding control over troop deployment abroad, but this measure was defeated. In 1952 Watkins defeated Democrat Walter U. Granger in the Utah senatorial election. Unaware of what the future held in store for him, Senator Joseph McCarthy offered to campaign for Watkins. Watkins refused McCarthy's offer for campaign support, choosing to separate himself from the hysteria and controversy that surrounded McCarthy. Watkins rose to prominence when, despite opposition from his fellow Republicans, he chaired the Senate committee that recommended the censure of McCarthy for his misconduct in investigating Communists in government. Perhaps Watkins's outstanding legislative legacy is his cosponsorship of the Upper Colorado River Storage Project in which multipurpose dams were built at Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon. Following his Senate career, Watkins returned to Salt Lake City and specialized in water law until his death. A devoted family man and a devout member of his church, Watkins held many church positions in addition to his professional jobs and public offices.
He was influential as a proponent of terminating federal recognition of American Indian tribes, in the belief that they should be assimilated and all special status lifted. In 1954 he chaired the Watkins Committee, which led to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had made extensive allegations of communist infiltration of government and art groups.
Quotes from others about the person
Senator Wallace F. Bennett, a Utah senator who served with Watkins for eight years, said that "Utah will always benefit from his [Watkins's] leadership in the development of the Upper Colorado River Storage Project. This was probably his greatest achievement. "
Watkins married Audrea Rich on June 18, 1913; the couple had six children. After his first wife's death, on 1 March 1, 1972, Watkins married Dorothy Eva Watkins in Salt Lake City.
