Paul V. McNutt was an American lawyer, diplomat, and politician.
Background
Paul Vories McNutt was born on July 19, 1891, in Franklin, Indiana. He was the son of Ruth Neely and John Crittenden McNutt, a county prosecutor and librarian of the Indiana Supreme Court in the 1890's.
He grew up in Martinsville, Indiana, where his father had established a law practice.
Education
McNutt attended Indiana University, where he managed the dramatic club, presided over the student union, and edited the campus newspaper. After graduating with an A. B. in 1913, he attended Harvard Law School and received an LL. B. in 1916.
Career
McNutt served in the artillery in World War I, rising to the rank of major. Over the next fifteen years the ambitious and resourceful McNutt, a Democrat, constructed a political base in his home state. He joined the law faculty of Indiana University in 1917, returned there after his military service in 1919, and became the school's youngest dean in 1925.
A charter member of his local American Legion post, he was elected commander of the Indiana department in 1927 and national commander in 1928. The veterans were a powerful bloc in Indiana, and McNutt spoke frequently across the state. The fortunes of the Democratic party brightened in Indiana after 1928, and in February 1932, McNutt announced as a candidate for governor, won the nomination easily, and trounced his Republican opponent in the election.
His only false step in 1932 was a failure to commit his state's delegation to Franklin Roosevelt at an early point in the national convention, an outgrowth of McNutt's disapproval of Roosevelt and his own hopes to be a compromise nominee. This misstep influenced his relations with the president during the next eight years. McNutt was inaugurated governor on January 9, 1933.
Within two months, he pushed an extensive program through the state legislature to deal with the depressed economy. The McNutt administration enacted measures at the state level to correspond to the national New Deal programs: the state government was reorganized and centralized, an income tax adopted, and social welfare laws enacted, particularly for old age pensions and broader public services.
When McNutt took office, Indiana was more than $3 million in debt; when he retired four years later, the treasury had a $17 million surplus. Success as an executive and administrator brought national prominence to McNutt and made his presidential hopes for 1940 more plausible. The governorship, however, also left McNutt with political liabilities.
To finance the party organization, state employees were invited to contribute 2 percent of their salaries to the Hoosier Democratic Club. The "Two Percent Club" thus linked McNutt with the machine methods for which Indiana was notorious. The regulation of the beer business in the state was managed through a system of districts, with exclusive franchises granted to "importers" who then sold to liquor dealers.
Critics noted that importers often were campaign contributors. Also, the governor's use of troops and martial law in several disputes promoted Norman Thomas to call him the "Hoosier Hitler". Ineligible for a second term, McNutt left office with the 1940 Democratic presidential nomination as his goal. In February 1937, he was named a high commissioner to the Philippines, a post that rewarded his strong campaigning for Roosevelt in 1936 and combined highly visible government service with absence from the squabbling endemic to Washington during the New Deal. While in the Philippines he suggested that the American policy of rapid independence for the islands merited reexamination.
A return visit to the United States in early 1938 gave him a well-publicized opportunity to launch his presidential drive.
McNutt resigned as high commissioner in July 1939 and was named to head the newly created Federal Security Agency, which administered the federal welfare and relief laws. For the rest of the year, his presidential candidacy prospered in the press and the public opinion polls.
Running as a moderate liberal, McNutt struck a conservative note at the outset of his race but moved leftward as 1940 approached. When his campaign gained momentum, however, his adversaries in the administration, including Postmaster General James A. Farley and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, retaliated. "My office, " McNutt said, "is only an epithet away from the Interior Department and a stone's throw from the Post Office Department".
Widely publicized and ultimately inconclusive investigations of his finances, attacks from sources close to the president, and a number of unfavorable articles and columns crippled his hopes. The German victories in the spring of 1940 and the growing sentiment for Roosevelt to seek a third term caused McNutt to drop out of the race before the Democratic national convention.
At Chicago, he was a favorite with the delegates for vice-president; and when he withdrew his name from consideration in favor of Henry A. Wallace, his appearance on the platform produced a prolonged demonstration and vocal objections to his action. "I eliminated McNutt from consideration, " Roosevelt remarked, "because I was afraid that during the campaign something might break in connection with matters in his state".
McNutt stumped energetically for Roosevelt, recognizing that his own ambitions for the White House were ended. McNutt continued as administrator of the Federal Security Agency until 1945. During World War II, he also served as chairman of the War Manpower Commission.
Although the position appeared to be one of great power, McNutt was less than successful in it because of differences with the departments of labor and war over manpower policy and the draft.
He suffered, moreover, from Roosevelt's unwillingness to give adequate power to his subordinates for an extended period, and from his own shortcomings as a decision-maker. In the fall of 1945, McNutt returned to the Philippines as high commissioner. He smoothed the transition of the islands to independence, but also lobbied with Congress for trade and war rehabilitation legislation that worked to the advantage of American business. After the Philippines became independent on July 4, 1946, McNutt served as ambassador until May 1947.
For the next eight years, he practiced law in New York and Washington, with clients that included the Motion Picture Producers Association during investigations of the supposed Communist infiltration of Hollywood and the Philippine-American Life Insurance Company. He died in New York City.
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Personality
McNutt was a more substantial political figure in the Roosevelt era than the handsome, empty conservative that his detractors sketched. A successful governor and a creditable performer in his federal jobs, he was a moderate who possessed a broad appeal to his party's center. Good looks, personal charm, and some intellectual ability were his strong points; conceit and an ambition that verged on ruthlessness, his most obvious shortcomings. He greatly wanted to be president, and this goal gave coherence and focus to his educational, governmental, and political career before 1940. Although he rendered useful public service thereafter, his last fifteen years were marked by a definite sense of anticlimax.
Connections
McNutt married Kathleen Timolat in April 1918; they had one daughter.