Philip Aloysius Hart was an American lawyer and politician. He served as the 49th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan and as United States Senator from Michigan.
Background
Philip Aloysius Hart was born on December 10, 1912 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. He was the son of Philip Aloysius Hart and Ann Clyde. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from Ireland and worked as a landscape gardener and estate manager in the Bryn Mawr area.
Hart's father was a banker who became president of the Bryn Mawr Trust Company. During his political career, Hart often referred to his father as the "only Democrat in Bryn Mawr. "
Education
Hart attended Waldron Academy and West Philadelphia Catholic High School before entering Georgetown University. At Georgetown he was elected president of the student body and graduated cum laude in 1934.
After graduation he entered the University of Michigan Law School at Ann Arbor and received his degree in 1937.
Career
After being admitted to the bar the following year, Hart remained in Michigan, practicing law in Detroit until he entered the United States Army in 1943 as a captain. Serving with the Fourth Infantry Division, Hart landed on Utah Beach at Normandy and was wounded seriously. He fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He was discharged as a lieutenant colonel in 1946.
Returning to Detroit after his discharge, he attracted the attention of G. Mennen Williams, who had been elected governor of Michigan in 1948. Williams's election was the culmination of a remarkable rebuilding of the longmoribund Michigan Democratic party, and Hart was one of a number of young veterans and others drawn to the resurgent party because of liberal, activist ideas about government and public service. Williams appointed Hart Michigan's Corporation Securities Commissioner in 1949, beginning the career in public service that occupied the rest of his life.
After an unsuccessful campaign for secretary of state in 1950, he served as director of the Michigan Office of Price Stabilization in Detroit in 1951 and 1952 and as United States attorney of the Eastern Michigan District in 1952 and 1953. In 1952 he was named "Outstanding Federal Administrator of the Year. " In 1953, following Dwight Eisenhower's election to the presidency, Hart resigned as United States attorney.
After serving briefly as legal counsel to Governor Williams, he was elected lieutenant governor in 1954 and reelected in 1956. In 1958 he defeated incumbent Republican senator Charles E. Potter and began the first of three terms in the United States Senate. The generation of veterans who had entered politics after the war rapidly assumed leadership roles in national affairs in the mid-1950s, and Hart was one of the leaders on the Democratic side. He was reelected to the Senate from Michigan twice, defeating Elly Peterson in 1964 and Lenore Romney in 1970.
Hart served as a director and officer of the Detroit Tigers and the Lions prior to his election to the Senate.
In 1976, Hart chose not to stand for reelection to a fourth term in the Senate because he had been diagnosed with cancer. He died later that year in Washington, and was buried on Mackinac Island in Michigan, where he had a vacation home.
Achievements
Religion
Hart was a member of the Catholic Church.
Politics
In the Senate, Hart quickly established himself as a leader among the liberal Democrats rising to positions of power in the body. He became a close ally of Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, the majority leader, and served as a member of the Democratic Policy Committee.
He played a leading role in the rejection of President Richard Nixon's nominations of Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr. , and G. Harrold Carswell to the United States Supreme Court and was among the leaders of Senate opposition to the antiballistic missile defense system.
Personality
Hart's campaign literature and official biographies make only fleeting and incomplete references to his distinguished military record, a mark of the personal modesty that characterized his public life.
Hart's support for consumer and civil rights legislation and organized labor, as well as his personal integrity, modesty, and simplicity, earned him the title "Conscience of the Senate" and the respect of his peers. While he frequently pointed out that his wife's inheritance had freed him from concern about providing for his large family so that he could pursue a career in public service, his reputation was as a senator of absolute integrity.
In his bestselling book Inside Congress, author Ronald Kessler lauded Hart as one of the few truly honorable men who served in the Senate. He pointed out an incident where the Senator refused even a box of chocolates as a gift from a lobbyist.
Interests
Politicians
Mike Mansfield
Connections
Hart married Jane Cameron Briggs on June 19, 1943. She was the sister of his Georgetown roommate Walter "Spike" Briggs and daughter of Detroit industrialist and sportsman Walter O. Briggs, who owned both the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Lions.
He and his wife had nine children, one of whom died at an early age.
Jane Hart was active and visible in the late 1960s and early 1970s as an opponent of the Vietnam War, frequently appearing at antiwar demonstrations while her husband was still publicly supporting the war. She also participated in the civil rights and world peace movements and was a proponent of major changes in the Catholic Church. Despite strong differences in their positions, especially on the Vietnam War, Hart was supportive of his wife's efforts, particularly when she was criticized for not conforming to the traditional role of a Senator's wife.