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Dennis Chávez was born on April 8, 1888 at Los Chavez, Valencia County, New Mexico, United States. He was the son of David Chavez, an impoverished farmer-laborer, and of Paz Sanchez. He was baptized Dionisio, but his name was changed to Dennis at school.
The family soon moved to Albuquerque, where at thirteen Chavez dropped out of the eighth grade and took a job as a grocery delivery boy. Although he had never completed high school, Chavez passed a special examination and was admitted to Georgetown University Law School. At the age of thirty-two he obtained the LL. B. and immediately returned to Albuquerque.
For a time Chavez worked for the Albuquerque Engineering Department, but in 1916 he obtained temporary employment as a Spanish interpreter for Senator A. A. Jones's reelection campaign. He was rewarded with a clerkship in the U. S. Senate (1918 - 1919). A Democrat, Chavez was more interested in politics than law, and embarked on an ambitious political career. After serving in the New Mexico House of Representatives (1923 - 1924), Chavez was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1930. During his second term he decided to challenge Bronson F. Cutting, the Democratic incumbent, for the Senate nomination. The 1934 election was both bitter and close. Chavez lost and charged the opposition with fraud. Early in 1935, Cutting was killed in an airplane crash and Governor Clyde Tingley, influenced by the Democratic National Committee, appointed Chavez to the seat. When Chavez was being sworn in, five New Deal liberal senators, friends of Cutting, walked out in protest. Chavez was elected senator in his own right in 1936, and reelected in 1940, 1946, 1952, and 1958. Only the 1952 election was close. In 1946 he defeated Patrick Hurley, Herbert Hoover's secretary of war and Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to China. Hurley challenged him again in 1952. When the vote count indicated a narrow Chavez victory, Hurley charged "error, fraud, and violations of the election law. " Two Senate committees recommended that Chavez be unseated, but the full Senate voted by a narrow margin that his election should stand. He was basically liberal in his approach to national problems. In 1952 the Congress of Industrial Organizations listed him as one of only eight senators who voted "right" on labor-related issues. Chavez's Spanish heritage led him to be concerned about the status of Puerto Rico, especially during World War II, when unemployment was high and poverty rampant on the island. Chavez was an advocate of the Good Neighbor Policy toward Latin America. He favored normalization of relations with Spain in 1939 and urged the inclusion of Spain in the NATO treaty a decade later. During the New Deal, Chavez opposed Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier's program of assisting American Indians to restore their culture and regain some of their land. For example, when Collier proposed to cut Navajo grazing stock as a conservation measure, Chavez and the Navajos objected. After a number of confrontations, Chavez tried to get Collier fired and demanded an investigation of Collier's goal of making Indian tribes self-sustaining. Chavez believed that the road to success for Indians, Puerto Ricans, or any other minority was through integration into the larger society. That is one reason why he opposed Indian autonomy and proposed making English the language of Puerto Rico. Chavez earned some degree of national reputation for his long and sustained battle to establish a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC). He argued that racial discrimination must be eliminated from all areas of federal employment. Chavez succeeded in getting a temporary FEPC during the war, but he persisted in seeking a permanent commission. He also wanted to extend its jurisdiction beyond federal employment to encompass all aspects of employment. The bill was filibustered to death in 1946 by southern Democrats and conservative Republicans. President Harry Truman was able to enact some parts of the FEPC legislation by executive order, and the remaining provisions were included in the civil rights laws of the 1960's. During Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration Chavez scrambled to maintain his position and to survive McCarthyism. He called the McCarthy era "a period when we quietly shackled men's minds. " He became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Defense and was beginning to take an interest in that area when he was found to be suffering from cancer in early 1961. He died at Washington, D. C. At the graveside service Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson referred to Chavez as a man "who recognized that there must be champions for the least among us. "
Chavez was known as a quiet member of the Senate. He spoke little, but worked hard on committees and for legislation he supported.
In 1911 he married Imelda Espinosa; they had three children.
