Background
Francis Eugene Walter was born in Easton, Pa. , the son of Susie E. and Robley D. Walter.
Francis Eugene Walter was born in Easton, Pa. , the son of Susie E. and Robley D. Walter.
He attended Easton schools, and in 1910 entered the Princeton (N. J. ) Preparatory School, from which he graduated in 1912. He then spent two years at Lehigh University, two years at George Washington University (B. A. ), and three years at Georgetown University Law School (LL. B. ) . He also served briefly in the Naval Air Force during World War I. He graduated from Georgetown in 1919.
Walter was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar, and returned to Easton to practice. In 1928 he became Northampton County solicitor and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Walter won his first of sixteen terms in the U. S. House of Representatives in 1932. During his early years in Congress, he was primarily concerned with local matters, such as obtaining a bridge across the Delaware River near Easton. His first major controversy in Congress was the Logan-Walter bill, requiring judicial review of the regulations issued by New Deal agencies. The bill passed in 1940 but was vetoed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt; the House overrode the veto, but the Senate did not. Early in 1942, Walter was recalled for six months' active duty in the Navy. In 1947 he was elected chairman of War Veterans in Congress. The previous year he had been coauthor of the McCarran-Walter Act, which required the publication of the rules, regulations, delegations of authority, and other business of federal agencies in the Federal Register. He supported the Marshall Plan for European recovery. Walter's two specialties throughout the remainder of his congressional service were laws on immigration and investigations of un-American activities. He went to Europe in 1947 as a member of the House Committee on Foreign Aid to investigate European recovery; this led to the House support of the Marshall Plan. In 1949 he returned to inspect the condition of refugees, and in 1950 he sponsored legislation favored by President Harry S. Truman to increase the number of immigrants admitted from European camps for displaced persons. In 1956 he supported efforts to allow additional refugees to enter the United States from Hungary. His best-known role in immigration legislation was the controversial McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. As chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Walter backed a law that retained the use of quotas strongly favoring northern European countries and severely limiting the number of immigrants from most others. The number of immigrants allowed under this bill, which was enacted over President Truman's veto, was based on the ratios of foreign-born in the 1920 United States census. President Dwight D. Eisenhower later proposed changing the basis to the 1950 census, but Walter blocked that move. For the last fifteen years of his life, he was in charge of United States immigration laws. Not until two years after his death were the quotas ended. In 1955, Walter became chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, whose purpose was investigation of un-American propaganda and subversion. A staunch anti-Communist, he was not reluctant to issue contempt of Congress citations to witnesses who failed to answer the committee's questions. Walter's search for Communist infiltration covered the fields of entertainment, education, and religion, as well as government. The legality of his actions was usually upheld by the Supreme Court, although the court often criticized the committee's procedures. Walter firmly believed that the Soviet threat after World War II was greater than the Nazi threat had been. He felt that the signs of danger had been ignored before World War II, and was determined not to let that happen again. He even proposed (in a 1949 bill) that American Communists should lose their citizenship. No congressional committee ever aroused as much debate as the House Un-American Activities Committee. Walter's leadership came at a time when suspicion and fear of the Soviet Union were widespread. He never became a menacing figure like Senator Joseph McCarthy, but he was one of the leading proponents of the theory that there was a dangerous Communist conspiracy within the United States. Unlike McCarthy, he was a member of the congressional establishment. He was skilled in parliamentary maneuvers, and he had considerable influence with his colleagues through his chairmanships of the Immigration and Naturalization Subcommittee (which controlled private immigration bills), the Democratic Caucus, and the Patronage Committee. From these positions of power and respect, Walter was able to withstand attempts to curb the authority of the Un-American Activities Committee or to place it under the Judiciary Committee. Walter died in Washington, D. C. Although he was often at odds with the Truman and Kennedy administrations on matters of immigration and internal security, he supported the Democratic administrations on economic and social legislation. Because he was most visible in cases involving immigration and un-American activities, he was often perceived as more conservative than he actually was. In general, he was representative of the political establishment of his time.
Walter's views were regarded by some as "reactionary and racist". He was a staunch anti-Communist.
He married May M. Doyle on December 19, 1925; they had two daughters.