Clare Eugene Hoffman was born on September 10, 1875 in Vicksburg, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Samuel D. Hoffman, a wagon and carriage maker, and Mary V. Ritter. While he was still a boy, the family moved to Cass County, Michigan, where they settled on a farm near Constantine.
Hoffman attended local schools and studied business for one year at Valparaiso University before enrolling at Northwestern University, where he received his Bachelor of Law degree.
Hoffman was admitted to the Illinois bar in that year and the Michigan bar in 1896. For a short time he practiced in Valparaiso, Indiana, and in Muskegon, Michigan. In 1896 he settled in Allegan, Michigan, where he became known as a trial lawyer.
In 1906 Hoffman was elected district attorney for Allegan. He later served as municipal attorney and was for several decades Republican chairman for the county. In 1934 he was elected to Congress from Michigan's Fourth District. He served fourteen successive terms, priding himself on the fact that his margin of victory grew at each election.
In 1940 he introduced legislation to outlaw strikes in defense industries and to exempt workers from the compulsory payment of union dues. In 1947 he introduced a measure to outlaw the closed shop, work slowdowns, picketing, union-dues deductions from wages, and certain kinds of strikes. Later in the year he supported the Taft-Hartley Act. Referring to Hoffman as a "radical anti-labor congressman, " organized labor spent much money in attempts to unseat him. Hoffman became chairman of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments during the Republican-controlled Eightieth Congress. He led it in investigating the disposal of surplus war property, the removal of records by outgoing government officials, federal enforcement of antiracketeering legislation, and the personnel and policy practices of the State Department.
In an attempt to stifle criticism of members of Congress, in 1947 he initiated an investigation of a "smear file" that the Civil Service Commission kept on congressional members. He exacted a promise from the commission to destroy the file, but President Harry S. Truman upheld the commission's refusal to permit members of Congress to have access to it. In 1948, Hoffman failed to win the support of Congress for a measure penalizing newspaper reporters for divulging information that congressional committees had declared confidential, and in 1952 he failed to persuade Congress to limit the amount of editorial space newspapers could devote to a political candidate. When an administration bill providing for the reorganization of the army, navy, and air force under a secretary of national defense was introduced in March 1947, it was referred to Hoffman's committee. He opposed attempts to reduce the size and function of the Marine Corps, and he succeeded in having included in the final bill the "roles and missions" paragraphs, which provided a legal guarantee for Marine Corps survival. This act and his work on the Taft-Hartley Act he considered his chief legislative accomplishments.
In 1953 Hoffman resumed the chairmanship of his old committee, which had been renamed the Government Operations Committee. His major concern was gangsterism in labor unions, which he described as "twice as dangerous to the country" as Communism. His appointment of twelve special subcommittees and his attempt to cut the staffs and funds of the regular subcommittees led to a revolt in which the committee, by a vote of 23-1, passed a resolution requiring approval of the full committee for the creation of special subcommittees, ending existing special subcommittees within ten days, and giving permanent subcommittee chairmen full power to hire and fire employees, to conduct hearings, and to issue subpoenas. The committee did give Hoffman sixty days to conclude special investigations in Kansas City and Detroit.
In 1958 he impugned the budget as too free-spending and internationalist in intent. "I'm for progress, yes, " he once told a reporter, "but not at the cost of going deeper in debt. This is the most selfish generation in our history. We buy everything we think we want, whether we need it or not, and charge it off to our kids. "
The oldest member of Congress, he chose not to run for reelection in 1962. He died in Allegan.
Hoffman went down to history as a prominent politician, and is best remembered as a United States Representative from Michigan and Alternate Delegate to the Republican National Convention. A conservative and an isolationist, as well as a skilled parliamentarian, Hoffman established a reputation in Congress as an individualist who rarely changed an opinion and never straddled an issue.
Hoffman vehemently opposed New Deal measures, voting against the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act, and measures to provide low-cost housing through government subsidies. Before Pearl Harbor he also voted against lifting the arms embargo, the Lend-Lease Act, the arming of merchant vessels, and the Selective Service Act.
A frequent critic of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's prosecution of the war, he warned that it mattered little "whether Hitler gets us and skins us from the top down, or whether our ally, Joe Stalin, gets us and skins us from the heels up. " When questioned by a federal grand jury in April 1942 about the distribution by "subversive groups" of an antiadministration speech he had made, Hoffman reportedly testified that he had given out copies of the speech without knowing of any "ulterior purposes" of the groups in question. Hoffman became noted for his opposition to labor unions during the "Little Steel" strike of 1937.
In 1949 he also opposed Truman's government-reorganization plan and attempted unsuccessfully to get a bill passed requiring both houses of Congress to approve the reorganization.
A foe of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's New Republicanism, Hoffman opposed the 1957 and 1960 civil rights bills, federal aid to education, a minimum-wage bill, and a measure to permit common-site picketing by construction unions. He opposed the Eisenhower Doctrine for the Middle East and the appointment of Meade Alcorn as Republican national chairman.
During the Kennedy administration he voted against the Peace Corps and other New Frontier programs.
Hoffman was seen as a "a bitter lone wolf" during much of his time in office, unable to work with either the Democrats or the Republicans.
On November 22, 1899, Hoffman married Florence M. Wason; they had two children.
