Background
James Patrick McGranery was born on July 8, 1895 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Patrick McGranery and Bridget Gallagher.
James Patrick McGranery was born on July 8, 1895 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Patrick McGranery and Bridget Gallagher.
McGranery was educated in local Catholic schools, and as a young man worked as a printer. During World War I he served in Europe as an army balloon pilot and as an adjutant with the 111th Infantry. Discharged in 1919, McGranery enrolled in college preparatory courses at the Maher School in Philadelphia. He entered Temple University in 1920. For the next several years he combined his studies with activity in South Philadelphia ward politics.
Well established on the local political scene by the time of his graduation from Temple University Law School and admittance to the bar in 1928, McGranery headed Al Smith's presidential campaign in the city and was elected to a four-year term on the Pennsylvania Democratic Central Committee. Through his participation in Irish-American fraternal societies and Catholic lay groups, he established a successful law practice in which his major clients were the Philadelphia police and firemen's organizations. McGranery was an unsuccessful candidate for municipal court clerk (1928), district attorney (1931), and the U. S. House of Representatives (1934). In 1936 he was elected to the House, and was returned in 1938, 1940, and 1942. Like most of his urban Democratic colleagues, McGranery was a consistent supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was a representative of the new urban liberals, attuned to the aspirations of the ethnic-religious minorities in the large cities, who provided the strongest and most durable backing for the New Deal and later reform movements. Talented, gregarious, and persuasive, he achieved considerable influence among his fellow congressmen. Although he was a vocal advocate of Irish nationalism, McGranery nonetheless supported Roosevelt's policy of aid to Great Britain before Pearl Harbor and voted for lend-lease in 1941. When his district was eliminated by reapportionment, McGranery resigned from Congress (November 1943) to become assistant to the attorney general. For the next three years he was the chief administrative officer of the Department of Justice under Francis Biddle and, after May 1945, Tom Clark. Biddle recalled his deputy as "an excellent mixer, with a warm heart and fierce hatred for those whom he considered his enemies. " Although he was involved in most of the department's major decisions, McGranery appears to have been bypassed on three sensitive cases under Clark: the Amerasia espionage controversy; a sensational vote-fraud scandal in President Harry Truman's home district; and a decision against prosecuting a prominent Kansas City bond dealer on charges of mail fraud.
McGranery was appointed federal judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in October 1946, and quickly established a reputation as a firm jurist. Critics described him as "a highhanded pro-Government man, " but Francis Biddle, probably more fairly, characterized him as "fundamentally an advocate, not a judge. " In 1949, McGranery refused to allow Earl Chudoff, a U. S. congressman, to represent a client in his court; as employees of the government, he argued, congressmen were barred by law from appearing as defense attorneys in the federal courts. In 1950 he presided over the espionage trial of Harry Gold, upon whom he imposed the maximum sentence of thirty years in prison. On April 3, 1952, McGranery was appointed attorney general by President Truman. He succeeded J. Howard McGrath, also a prominent Irish Catholic Democrat, who had been forced to resign because of his refusal to cooperate with a special investigator probing scandals within the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Because of McGranery's political background and his long-standing friendship with Truman, there were wide expectations that he would conduct a cover-up. Instead, he oversaw a thorough inquiry that led to numerous dismissals and prosecutions. When he left office, the suspicions surrounding his appointment had generally given way to praise for his honesty. During his brief term as attorney general, McGranery was active in several other areas. He either initiated, or laid the groundwork for, major antitrust cases in oil, steel, detergent manufacturing, the diamond trade, and magazine wholesaling. McGranery died in Palm Beach, Florida.
McGranery served as the 61st United States Attorney General during the Administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1952 until 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he served the 2nd United States Congressional District from the State of Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 until 1943. One of the nation's leading Catholic laymen, McGranery received numerous church awards and was a trustee or advisory board member of several Catholic colleges.
A militant anti-Communist, he approved Smith Act prosecutions against several important leaders of the American Communist party. He began denaturalization and deportation proceedings against notorious underworld figures. Perhaps McGranery's most important decision was to sanction the presentation of a strong integrationist amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court in the initial hearing of the school desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in December 1952. It did much to lay the basis for the decision to overrule the "separate but equal" doctrine. After the end of the Truman administration, McGranery practiced law in Washington, D. C. , and Philadelphia; he made it a policy to avoid lobbying activities and cases to which the government was a party.
McGranery's life in many ways exemplified the rise of the Irish-Americans in American society and politics during the twentieth century.
On November 29, 1939, McGranery married Regina Clark, a prominent Philadelphia attorney; they had three children.
