(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Businessman congressman politician statesman
He was born as John Parnell Feeney Jr. in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1895. He was the son of John Parnell Feeney and Georgianna Thomas. His father was serving as police commissioner of Jersey City at his death in 1905. In that year, the family moved to Allendale, N. J.
After graduating from public high school, Feeney enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1914 and two years later transferred to the New York University Law School. His formal schooling ended the next year when he enlisted in the army after America's entry into World War I.
Commissioned a second lieutenant, he served overseas, where he became active in counterespionage work and achieved the rank of captain by the time of his discharge in 1919. After the war Feeney obtained employment as a bond salesman with the Paine Webber Company, a New York investment house. He rose quickly, becoming manager of the bond department by 1924; he remained with the company until 1941. In 1920, Feeney, believing he could achieve greater recognition and business under his mother's maiden name, changed his last name to Thomas.
Thomas' business career steered him into conservative New Jersey Republican politics. In 1925, he won a seat on the Allendale Borough Council. From 1926 to 1930 he served as mayor of Allendale. In 1935 he was elected a representative from Bergen County to the New Jersey Assembly. Controversy and publicity surrounded him during his brief Assembly tenure. Opponents, questioning his political ethics, accused him of undue profits from the sale of bonds to the state. He also demonstrated an ability to react violently to ideas that he considered inimical to his own. For example, he called for the impeachment of the governor because of the latter's sales-tax theories.
In the spring of 1936 the Republican state committee picked Thomas to run for the Seventh Congressional District seat. That fall he won the first of six successive terms in the United States House of Representatives. Thomas became a member of the Military Affairs Committee. Originally he supported United States neutrality, but as world conflict seemed inevitable, he soon became an advocate of a strong preparedness program; he also favored the Selective Service Act of 1940 and the Lend-Lease Act of 1941.
After World War II he emerged as a leading opponent of civilian control of peacetime atomic energy, maintaining that military control would prevent domination by "subversive" scientists. As a freshman, Thomas had quickly established himself as a strident and vociferous critic of the New Deal and Democratic politics. Shortly after being appointed in 1938 to the special Dies Committee to investigate un-American activities, Thomas attacked the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre and Writers' projects as being Communist. He felt Communism had penetrated into all areas of American society, especially the government. He saw his mission as one of ferreting out Communists and liberal fellow travelers. He continually tried to link the New Deal to Communism. His partisan tirades, especially calling for the impeachment of Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, drew rebukes from colleagues of both parties, but he relentlessly continued to attack liberal Democrats. In committee hearings, he acquired a reputation as a tough and often abrasive interrogator.
After the 1946 congressional elections, in which the Republicans gained control of the House, Thomas became chairman of the Dies Committee, newly renamed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He streamlined committee operations, increased investigatory personnel, and ran HUAC like a business with himself as board chairman. In 1947 the committee launched an investigation into the effects of the Communist party on the labor movement and other areas of American life. Thomas' deep-seated antipathy toward labor was unrestrained in the hearings. He began using a tactic that ultimately led to a series of contempt-of-Congress citations against uncooperative witnesses. When a witness proved unwilling to testify, the committee replaced him with one of its own investigators, who in turn disclosed what information it had on the witness.
This tactic proved particularly useful when the committee turned its attention to investigating the movie industry in October 1947. Many noted Hollywood personalities, such as Louis B. Mayer, Gary Cooper, and Ronald Reagan, testified about alleged subversive activities of a group of screenwriters. These "friendly" witnesses were often vague in their testimony, but Thomas, relying on confidential information received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, continued his attack. At times he became involved in heated arguments with "unfriendly" witnesses who questioned HUAC's right to subvert their civil liberties. The "Hollywood Ten, " producers, directors, and screenwriters who refused to answer most questions, were found in contempt of Congress and received one-year prison sentences. The famous Hiss-Chambers hearings were conducted before HUAC in 1948. Thomas, however, was absent during most of the hearings, yet his blatant partisanship and dictatorial tactics constantly drew criticism from the Truman administration and civil libertarians.
Undaunted, Thomas launched an attack on Edward Condon, the director of the Bureau of Standards, claiming he was a weak link in America's atomic security. The committee could not substantiate the charges, and Condon was ultimately cleared. Finally, in August 1948 there appeared a series of articles by the columnist Drew Pearson that questioned Thomas' congressional-office payroll practices, and this led to his downfall. In October a federal grand jury began investigating the accusations, and in November, Thomas was indicted for padding his congressional payroll. After a series of delays due to his health problems, Thomas in late 1949 pleaded no contest. He was fined $10, 000 and sentenced to prison. He resigned from the House on Jan. 2, 1950, and served nearly nine months in federal prison at Danbury, Connecticut, before being paroled by President Truman. Ironically, one of his fellow inmates was Ring Lardner, Jr. , one of the Hollywood Ten.
Thomas consistently proclaimed his innocence and attempted a congressional comeback in 1954, but was soundly defeated. In 1956 he moved to St. Petersburg, Fla. , where he died.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Raised Catholic, he later became an Episcopalian.
On January 21, 1921, he married Amelia Wilson Stiles; they had two children.
