Background
Irving Mcneil was born on January 24, 1896 in Bainbridge, New York, United States, the son of George Albert Ives and Lucy Keeler.
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Irving Mcneil was born on January 24, 1896 in Bainbridge, New York, United States, the son of George Albert Ives and Lucy Keeler.
Ives attended public schools in Bainbridge and Oneonta, then entered Hamilton College.
Discharged as a first lieutenant, Ives returned to college and graduated with the B. A. in 1920.
In 1917 Ives enlisted in the army and saw action in the Meuse-Argonne offensive and at St. Mihiel. Discharged as a first lieutenant, Ives continued studies in 1920. For the next three years Ives worked as a bank clerk for Guaranty Trust Company in Brooklyn, New York. In 1923, he returned upstate to Norwich and took a position with Manufacturers Trust Company. Ten years later he established his own insurance firm in Norwich.
Meanwhile, Ives became active in Republican politics. In 1930 he was elected to the first of eight terms in the New York Assembly. He soon demonstrated a keen understanding of the nuances and subtleties of government. When a group of young legislators revolted against the Assembly leadership in 1935, they chose Ives as speaker. After a year he stepped down to become majority leader, a position he held for the rest of his tenure in Albany.
Bitter over Governor Thomas E. Dewey's refusal to support him for the Republican nomination for the U. S. Senate in 1944, Ives left the Assembly a year later and became dean of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. But at the urging of Republican legislative leaders, Dewey slated Ives for the Senate in 1946. In what was considered an upset, Ives soundly defeated former Governor Herbert Lehman in the election.
After leading the coalition that defeated Robert A. Taft's 1947 amendment to restrict industrywide collective bargaining, Ives voted for the final version of the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, noting that Taft had made substantial revisions. He generally backed President Harry Truman's foreign policy, including the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine, but in 1950 he introduced a resolution calling for the dismissal of Secretary of State Dean Acheson on the grounds of his Far Eastern policies.
Following the 1949 Communist triumph in China, Ives contended that Acheson had lost the confidence of the American public. Ives deplored the red-baiting methods of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and in June 1950 he joined seven Republican colleagues in signing a "Declaration of Conscience" against what would become known as McCarthyism. In December 1954 he voted for McCarthy's censure.
Ives won reelection to the Senate in 1952 by a record plurality of 1. 3 million votes. Two years later, Averell Harriman defeated him for the governorship by slightly more than 11, 000 votes in one of the closest races in New York's history.
Returning to the Senate, Ives helped establish the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field. The committee was headed by John L. McClellan with Ives as vice-chairman and Robert F. Kennedy as counsel. Ives and John F. Kennedy were cosponsors of a 1958 labor reform bill that would have required union officials to guarantee regular elections with secret ballots and to file financial reports with the Department of Labor. Endorsed by the AFL-CIO, the bill passed the Senate but was defeated in the House. A second Kennedy-Ives bill, which required public disclosure of pension and welfare funds, was enacted into law. Because of ill health Ives reluctantly declined to seek a third term in 1958.
Following his retirement he lived in Norwich, New York, where he died.
Irving Ives proved to be too liberal politician for the mostly conservative Senate Republicans and thus never achieved power and prominence. Nevertheless, he did much to move the New York Republican party beyond the rigid dogma of Old Guard conservatism. As chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Industrial and Labor Conditions, Ives rewrote New York's labor-relations act and pushed through such measures as increased unemployment benefits, improved workmen's compensation, and an amendment that established the Department of Commerce. His chief accomplishment, however, was drafting and sponsoring a 1945 law prohibiting racial, religious, or ethnic discrimination in employment. Described by Business Week as "the nation's first State economic equality law, " it became a model for fair-employment laws in other states.
In the Senate Ives stood with Republican liberals on most issues. In 1930 he helped topple the leadership of the Chenango County Republican organization and, in the process.
One of the first senators to endorse Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency in 1952, Ives advised him on labor issues during the campaign. In 1953 he took a prominent part in shaping the administration's labor policy. Yet he expressed frustration that Eisenhower was giving short shrift to liberal Republicans.
On social welfare issues, especially public housing and civil rights, he felt the administration did not go far enough. Nevertheless, he was a staunch supporter of Eisenhower's foreign, economic, and fiscal policies.
Quotations: In describing his political philosophy, Ives once observed that he sought "to improve the world - not reform it. "
Ives was a man of considerable wit and intelligence. A hard worker who kept himself well-informed on a range of issues, Ives was especially skillful in committee and caucus work. Although a lackluster speaker, he came to be effective in floor debate through careful preparation and homespun charm.
Ives married Elizabeth Minette Skinner on October 23, 1920; they had one son. She died in 1947.
On July 12, 1948, he married Marion Mead Crain, who had been his secretary.
