Edgar Howard was an American politician and editor.
Background
Howard was born in Osceola, Iowa, in 1858, the son of James Dakin Howard, a farmer of modest holdings, and Martha Daniel Howard. Within a few years the family moved to Glenwood, Iowa, where Howard's father worked as an agent for a livestock dealer.
Education
Howard learned the printing trade while attending public schools and later Western Collegiate Institute. He attended, but not graduated from the Iowa College of Law in Des Moines.
Career
He spent several years as a traveling printer, reporter, and editor. In 1883, he became part owner and editor of the Papillion (Nebr. ) Times.
He was admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1886 and soon thereafter moved to Benkelman, in southwestern Nebraska, where he founded the Dundy Democrat. Returning to the Papillion Times in 1889, he became active in state Democratic politics, supporting William Jennings Bryan for his district's congressional nomination in 1890. That year was one of political upheaval in Nebraska. A new party, soon to be labeled the Populists, won both houses of the state legislature, captured two of the three congressional seats, and nearly won the governorship. Howard was deeply committed to the cause of Bryan (who had named him his personal secretary in 1891), but he nonetheless looked askance at Bryan's overtures to the Populists and was only slowly won over to Bryan's cause of free silver. By 1894 – certainly by 1895 – the conversion process was complete, and Howard remained true to free silver for the next half-century.
Elected to the lower house of the state legislature in 1894 and as county judge the following year, he was an alternate delegate to the 1896 Democratic convention, which nominated Bryan for president. In 1900, Howard himself accepted the Fusion nomination for Congress and, firmly convinced that the issues of anti-imperialism and free silver would carry the day, sold the Times in anticipation of victory. After his defeat, he purchased the Columbus (Nebr. ) Telegram. Although Howard sought elective office only once (unsuccessfully) in the next sixteen years, he remained active in state Democratic politics, speaking for the Bryan wing of the party and sometimes engaging in bitter feuds with the faction headed by Gilbert M. Hitchcock, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald. Despite his continuing closeness to Bryan, Howard was slow to embrace some of his moral crusades during these years, openly breaking with Bryan on the issue of county option in 1910, coming to accept woman suffrage only in 1914, and reluctantly accepting prohibition in 1916. His support for prohibition seems to have been largely a result of Bryan's influence and never extended to his personal life.
In 1916, Howard was elected lieutenant governor, and in 1918 he unsuccessfully sought the nomination for United States senator. Although initially enthusiastic for Wilson's reforms, he opposed military preparedness in 1917 and the League of Nations in 1919. His disaffection from the majority within his own party led him in 1921 to participate in the formation of the Progressive party. This foray into third-party politics was brief; in 1922 he was elected, as a Democrat, to the first of six consecutive terms in the House of Representatives. As a representative, Howard attracted attention by his unusual appearance – he customarily dressed in black frockcoat, black string tie, and large black hat, and wore his hair at shoulder length until his ninety-first year. Through his wit, speaking abilities, and sense of political timing he gained entry into the ranks of the Democratic leadership. His fondness for poker helped cement his friendship with John Nance Garner, who became House minority leader.
In 1934 Howard, then seventy-six, was defeated for reelection by a much younger and highly popular radio announcer, Karl Stefan. He returned to the Columbus Telegram, unsuccessfully sought the nomination for lieutenant governor in 1936, and failed in an attempt to regain his congressional seat two years later. His last political foray was as a delegate to the 1944 Democratic conventiona minority-owned printing business in Manhattan.
He died in New York City of myocardinitis.
Achievements
Politics
Howard promoted legislation to benefit his agricultural constituents, to aid Indians (his district included three small reservations), and to provide for the insuring of bank deposits (a Bryan reform adopted in Nebraska in 1909). In foreign policy, he remained a staunch isolationist. As the economic situation worsened in 1930 and 1931, Howard became hopeful that a Democratic sweep in 1932 would bring the reforms he had sought for so long. Committed to Franklin D. Roosevelt as early as July 1931, Howard apparently played a key role in convincing Garner to accept the vice-presidential nomination, which broke the convention deadlock. He remained an enthusiastic supporter of the New Deal, and his own major accomplishment was the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (the Wheeler-Howard Act), which reversed the policy of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 and reestablished tribal structure as the cornerstone of Indian policy.
Connections
Howard was married on November 11, 1884, to Elizabeth Paisley Burtch, daughter of an early Bellevue, Nebr. , settler. They had four children.