James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. was a Republican politician from New York. He was the son of New York State Comptroller James Wolcott Wadsworth, and the grandson of Union General James S. Wadsworth.
Background
James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. was born in Geneseo, N. Y. , the son of James Wolcott Wadsworth and Marie Louisa Travers Wadsworth. His father, who farmed vast acreage in the Genesee Valley, was a Republican who held many political offices, most importantly as a member of Congress. His conservative views, particularly his fight against Theodore Roosevelt's Meat Inspection Act of 1906, greatly influenced his son's political thought and life.
Education
Wadsworth was educated at the Fay School and St. Mark's School (both in Southboro, Massachussets), and Yale University, from which he graduated in 1898.
Career
During the Spanish-American War he served as a private in the Puerto Rican campaign. After the war he farmed and raised livestock near Geneseo. In 1904 Wadsworth was elected to the New York State Assembly, and two years later he became the youngest speaker of the assembly in the history of the state. Although opposed to some of the important policies of the progressive governor, Charles Evans Hughes, he reacted responsibly to them and was generally supportive. He did, however, successfully oppose Hughes on the direct primary. Wadsworth did not stand for reelection to the assembly in 1910. From 1911 to 1914 he managed the 500, 000-acre ranch belonging to his aunt, Mrs. John Adair, in Paladuro, Texas. He returned in 1912 to head the New York delegation to the Republican National Convention (at which he opposed Theodore Roosevelt's nomination for president) and to run (unsuccessfully) for lieutenant governor of New York. Wadsworth served as a delegate to Republican national conventions from 1908 to 1928 and in 1940, and frequently headed the New York delegation. In 1914 he was elected to the United States Senate and was reelected in 1920. In his first term he waged a rearguard defense against Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom program. He was a strong advocate of the nation's entry into World War I, and in 1919 he became chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. In that capacity he was the principal author of the National Defense Act of 1920, which became the basis for much of the modern United States Army. Wadsworth incurred the wrath of prohibitionists and suffragists with his opposition to the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments. His stand against the former, based on constitutional principle, cost him his Senate seat in 1926, when he was defeated by Robert F. Wagner. This defeat temporarily ended his domination of the New York Republican party and permanently ended his presidential aspirations. In 1932 Wadsworth was elected to the House of Representatives and was reelected to eight succeeding congresses (March 1933 - January 1951). He reestablished much of his control over New York's Republican party, but only until Thomas Dewey's political ascendancy in the late 1930's. He unalterably opposed New Deal domestic policies and was one of the founders of the American Liberty League, the nation's most prominent anti-New Deal pressure group. He just as adamantly supported the Roosevelt administration's foreign and military policies, standing almost alone among Republicans in his opposition to the Neutrality Acts (1935 - 1937) and serving as the principal congressional architect of the National Selective Service Act of 1940 (the Burke-Wadsworth Act). Wadsworth was a strong supporter of military measures in Congress during World War II, earning the appellation Mr. National Defense. He was the principal force behind unsuccessful efforts to establish universal military training. On domestic issues Wadsworth continued his conservative opposition to liberal programs. In a 1946 poll his colleagues in the House of Representatives voted him the "ablest" member and the one having the "best grasp" of foreign affairs. In the late 1940's as a member of the House Rules Committee, Wadsworth was a force behind a coalition of conservative Republicans and southern Democrats that defeated much of the Fair Deal. Nevertheless, President Harry Truman respected his integrity and patriotism; in June 1951 he appointed Wadsworth chairman of the National Security Training Commission, a post he held until his death in Washington, D. C. For a half a century Wadsworth brought to bear on important domestic issues a conservatism against which welfare-state legislators honed their liberalism.
Achievements
Personality
Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, a liberal Democrat, described him as a "noble man"; and the liberal Republican Congressman and Senator Kenneth Keating said that integrity was his essential quality, more important than his political ideology.
Connections
In 1902 Wadsworth married Alice Hay, the daughter of Secretary of State John Hay; they had three children.