Background

He was born on January 19, 1886 in Portland, Oregon, United States, the son of Sue Claggett and Samuel Pettengill. After his mother's death, he moved to Vermont with his father in 1892. They settled on a farm near Grafton.

Education

He graduated from Vermont Academy (1904), Middlebury College, where he received a B. A. in 1908, and Yale Law School, earning an LL. B. in 1911.

Career

He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1911 and opened a practice in South Bend, Indiana, that same year.

Pettengill, a Democrat, was a member of the board of education of South Bend from 1925 to 1928. In 1930, he was elected to the House of Representatives from the Thirteenth District on a platform opposing Prohibition, and from 1933 to 1939 he represented the Third District. He first served on the Military Affairs Committee, and in 1934 was on the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. Even though he said he felt that the people were "so darn tired of the depression, " they would be in favor of strong party discipline, Pettengill soon broke with the New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt. His opposition to Roosevelt led to his not standing for reelection in 1938.

Pettengill published a book on regulating the petroleum industry, based on hearings by the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee in the summer of 1934. On February 5, 1937, Pettengill announced he would fight Roosevelt's attempts to enlarge the Supreme Court membership (the "court-packing" bill). He explained his views on the New Deal in his book Jefferson: The Forgotten Man (1938).

After leaving Congress, Pettengill was a newspaper columnist (1939 - 1948), vice-president and general counsel to the Transportation Association of America (1943 - 1945), an attorney for Pure Oil Company (1949 - 1956), a commentator on the national ABC radio syndicate (1946 - 1948), and the author of a number of magazine articles. He wrote Smoke-screen (1940) "to demonstrate that we are moving toward national socialism, and that from now on, we should move away from it. " Pettengill became a Republican and in 1940 chaired the "No Third Term" (for Roosevelt) meeting at Carnegie Hall in New York City, sponsored by the National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government. He was financial chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1942.

He moved back to Grafton, Vermont, where he was president of the Grafton Historical Society (1962 - 1972). He published a children's book about the life of early settlers in Vermont and New Hampshire, The Yankee Pioneers: A Saga of Courage (1971).

He died in Springfield, Vermont.

Achievements

• Samuel Barrett Pettengill was a well-known U. S. Representative from Indiana, helped formulate much influential legislation. He was influential in the enactment of the Connolly Hot Oil Act and the formulation of the Interstate Oil Compact. As a member of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Mr. Pettengill helped formulate the Securities Act, the Motor Carriers Act, the Stock Exchange Act, the National Gas Act and other legislation dealing with railroads, commodity exchanges, public utilities, aviation and the Panama Canal. Pettengill received the American Freedoms Award in 1950 and 1960, the Patriotic Service Award (Sons of the American Revolution), and the Caleb B. Smith Award (Masons).

Works

More photos

• book

  • My story

    (Book by Pettengill, Samuel Barrett)

  • For Americans only

    (by Samuel B. Pettengill and Paul C Bartholomew, Buy and H...)

  • Smoke-Screen

Politics

He was stronglu opposed to New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt. Pettengill remarked that he was for the New Deal "in so far as it is constitutional, Jeffersonian and within the nation's pocketbook, " but found that it moved too much toward centralized government.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Pettengill made his political philosophy clear in the foreword to his book: "American industry must predicate its political and social problems upon the faith that our people want to do, and in the long run will do, what is right - if they know the facts. If I were to venture a suggestion to the leaders of our enterprise, it would be to tell the truth, to act on the square, and take the public into their full confidence. I do not believe that recovery from the greatest depression of our history can be built permanently on propaganda, half-truths, half-lies, wire-pulling. "

Connections

He married Josephine H. Campbell on June 1, 1912; they had one child. After the death of his wife in 1948, Pettengill married Helen M. Charles on July 16, 1949.

Father:

Samuel Pettengill

Mother:

Sue Claggett Pettengill

Spouse:

Helen M. Charles

Spouse:

Josephine H. Campbell