Lynn Joseph Frazier was a politician from North Dakota, serving as a U. S. Senator from 1923 to 1941 and the 12th Governor of North Dakota from 1917 until being recalled in 1921.
Background
He was born in Steele County, Minnesota, the son of Thomas Frazier, a farmer, and Lois (Nile) Frazier, natives of Rangeley, Maine, and descendants of early Minnesota pioneers; Thomas Frazier traced his ancestry to Simon Frasher, a British army general in the American Revolution.
In 1881 his parents took him to Pembina County, Dakota Territory, where they built a sod house.
Education
His father died before he graduated from high school, and he and his brother had to manage the family farm.
After teaching high school for a brief period, he entered the Normal School in Mayville, North Dakota from which he graduated in 1895.
In 1897, at the age of twenty-three, Frazier enrolled in the University of North Dakota, where he achieved a good scholastic record, became captain of the football team, and graduated in 1901.
Career
Before the formation of the Nonpartisan League in 1915, Frazier was better known as a successful farmer and advocate of farmer's rights, who neither smoked, drank, nor used profane language, than as a politician.
Yet he was endorsed for governor by the league in 1916, nominated in the primary on the Republican ticket, and, along with other league candidates, was swept into office.
During his first term as governor, laws were passed to establish a new grain grading system; guarantee bank deposits; shift more of the tax burden onto corporations, industry, and trade; grant suffrage rights to women; use the initiative and referendum; and adopt the Torrens system in the registration of land titles.
In 1918 Frazier was reelected by a handsome majority. During his second administration the legislature enacted more laws than he called for; they included the creation of an industrial commission to operate utilities and properties established, owned, or operated by the state, except those of a charitable, educational, or penal character; and the establishment and operation of a state-owned bank in which were to be deposited all state, county, township, municipal, and school district funds.
Also enacted were laws for the creation of the North Dakota Mill and Elevator Association, a state-owned and operated warehouse, elevator, and flour-mill system; a state hail insurance plan; a program providing homes for residents of the state; a state inspector of grades, weights, and measures; a workmen's compensation act; the regulation of coal mines; and state income and inheritance taxes.
Frazier's third administration was beset with difficulties. Resistance to his policies hardened. Limits were placed on the amount of public funds to be deposited in the state bank, and the building of state-owned projects slackened.
Frazier refused to confine the operations of the state bank to rural credits; and his refusal, along with that of other leaguers, led to the circulation of petitions for the recall of the members of the industrial commission of which he was a member.
In the special election of 1921, Frazier, William Lemke, the attorney general, and John H. Hagan, the commissioner of agriculture, were recalled.
In 1922, in a drive to unseat Porter McCumber from the United States Senate and right some of the wrong done in the recall election of 1921, a combination of progressive Republicans, leaguers, and others who considered Frazier an honest man, nominated and elected him to the Senate by a substantial majority.
In the Senate he sought legislation to give the producers of wheat, corn, and cotton their cost of production plus a fair profit; to transfer the administration of the Packers and Stockyards Act from the Department of Agriculture to the Federal Trade Commission; and to require members of Congress and employees of the federal government to file statements of stocks, bonds, and other securities owned by them or members of their families in industrial, mining, oil, and other operations.
In 1924 Frazier and three of his colleagues in the Senate, Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin, Edwin C. Ladd of North Dakota, and Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa, were branded by the regular Republicans as "renegades, " who were not to be invited to further Republican conferences or named to vacancies on Senate committees.
Reelected to the Senate in 1928 and again in 1934, Frazier continued his campaign for agricultural price supports and also supported prohition, the payment of a cash bonus to World War I veterans, and disarmament.
He served on various committees, including agriculture and forestry, banking and currency, civil service, and Indian affairs. In the Senate he is best remembered as a coauthor of the Frazier-Lemke Amendment to the Farm Bankruptcy Act of 1934, which postponed interest payments on farm mortgages for three years. A revised amendment in 1935 was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937.
By 1940 his long antimilitary record came under severe attack from opponents who accused him of selling America short.
He also was opposed for reelection by William Langer, who himself had been antiwar in the 1930's but now wanted Frazier's seat in the Senate.
Conservatives also rallied against him because of his hostility to banks and insurance companies. Frazier was a product of his agricultural environment and the various protest movements that swirled about him.
He died in Riverdale, Maryland, while on a visit. Interment was in Park Cemetery, Hoople, North Dakota.
Achievements
Religion
A member of the Methodist church and Modern Woodmen of America, his chief hobbies were walking and coin collecting.
Politics
Yet he was endorsed for governor by the league in 1916, nominated in the primary on the Republican ticket, and, along with other league candidates, was swept into office.
Views
Almost bovine in appearance, he was thoroughly committed to the farmers and their cause and fought a rearguard action in attempting to resist the encroachments of industry, finance, transportation, and their allies on agriculture.
An antiwar man throughout his career, he exposed himself to attacks from political adversaries, rivals, and others who believed him insensitive to the dangers of the hour.
Connections
On November 26, 1903, Frazier married Lottie J. Stafford in Hoople, North Dakota; they had five children: twins, Unie Mae (Mrs. Emerson G. Church) and Versie Fae (Mrs. Stanley H. Gaines), and Vernon, Willis, and Lucille. Lottie Frazier died on January 14, 1935.
On September 7, 1937, he married Cathrine W. Paulson, a widow and daughter of Christopher Behrens, a miller, of Redwing, Minnesota.