Background
Prescott Sheldon Bush was born on May 15, 1895 in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Samuel Prescott Bush, a steel company president, and Flora Sheldon.
Prescott Sheldon Bush was born on May 15, 1895 in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Samuel Prescott Bush, a steel company president, and Flora Sheldon.
After attending the Douglas School in Columbus and St. George's School, Newport, Rhode Island (1908 - 1913), Bush entered Yale. A superb athlete, he played varsity golf, football, and baseball. He was also president of the Yale Glee Club, a Whiffenpoof (second bass), and the best close-harmony man in the class of 1917.
He received training in intelligence at Verdun and was briefly assigned to a staff of French officers.
After graduation, Bush served in the American Expeditionary Forces (1917 - 1919) as a captain in the field artillery during World War I.
Alternating between intelligence and artillery, Bush was under fire in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. After his discharge in 1919, Bush went to work for the Simmons Hardware Company in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Bushes moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1923, where Bush worked for the Hupp Products Company. He left in November 1923 to become president of sales for Stedman Products of South Braintree, Massachussets.
In 1925, he joined the United States Rubber Company in New York City as manager of its foreign division and moved to Greenwich, Connecticut Bush became vice-president at the investment banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company in 1926 and, when it merged with Brown Brothers in 1931, became a partner in the new firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman. Bush called it "my good fortune" to work with close friends, including Yale classmates E. Roland Harriman, Knight Woolley, and Ellery James, as well as Robert A. Lovett and Thomas McCance.
In 1935, Bush was president of the United States Golf Association, and from then until 1952 was moderator of the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting. Six-foot-four and very strong, Bush looked imposing.
Bush was Connecticut chairman of the United Negro College Fund. One of the UNCF's earliest supporters, he believed in the American dream for everyone, black or white. In 1952, Bush won election to the Senate, defeating Abraham Ribicoff for the vacancy caused by the death of James O'Brien McMahon.
He served on the Banking and Currency Committee and was chairman of its Subcommittee on Securities. Appearing on CBS-TV's "Face the Nation" on February 13, 1955, Bush talked about "prosperity with peace, which incidentally is another contribution of the Eisenhower Administration. " Recognized as an expert on the economy and government finance, Bush's Senate speeches were sometimes widely published. In a speech on Nathan Hale given June 6, 1955, in New London, Connecticut, Bush shared reflections on the Cold War.
In 1956, Bush was chairman of the Republican National Platform Committee, and that November he was reelected to the Senate, defeating Thomas Dodd by more than 128, 000 votes. He served on the Armed Services and Public Works Committees. His commitment to civil rights was captured by a photograph that appeared in the New York Times on March 2, 1960; he is catching some sleep in his clothes on his office couch during an all-night filibuster in the Senate. During the Kennedy administration, Bush usually voted against President John F. Kennedy, but he supported the Peace Corps and the administration's plan to buy $100 million worth of United Nations bonds in 1962.
A hard-working senator, Bush often flew to Hartford to speak to constituents, returning to Washington by night train. In poor health at sixty-seven, he did not seek reelection in 1962. The head of the Connecticut AFL-CIO later told Prescott Bush, Jr. , that if his father had run, he would have had the support of labor for the first time.
Bush worked again at Brown Brothers, Harriman but spent half the year in Hobe Sound, Florida, where he sang in church every Sunday.
Prescott Bush died in New York City.
Prescott Bush's main achievement came in 1952 when he won election to the Senate, defeating Abraham Ribicoff. He also served as chairman on boards of various committees, such as the Republican National Platform Committee and the Armed Services and Public Works Committees. With a reputation for integrity and administrative ability, Prescott Sheldon Bush was a director of many corporations: Columbia Broadcasting System, Dresser Manufacturing Company, Union Banking Corporation, Simmons Company, Massachusetts Investors Second Fund, Rockbestos Products Corporation, United States Guarantee Company, Commercial Pacific Cable Company. He also served as chairman of the board of Pennsylvania Water and Power Company. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Bush and three other businessmen to organize the United Service Organizations (USO) at the beginning of the Second World War.
Bush served as National Campaign chairman in 1942, raising a record $32 million. In 1943 and 1944, he was chairman of the National War Fund Campaign. From 1944 to 1956, Bush was a member of the Yale Corporation, the principal governing body of Yale University. His involvement in politics deepened. From 1947 to 1950 he served as Connecticut Republican finance chairman, and was the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in 1950, losing to Senator William Benton by only 1, 000 votes.
As his wife noted in Yale's "The Observation Post" (November 1972), Bush had "an innate sense of right from wrong, " and often saw issues--including foreign policy--in terms of morality. He did not believe public and private morality could be separated.
Quotations:
"We must maintain strong defenses, military and spiritual, " Bush said, predicting, "It is our conduct, our patriotism and belief in our American way of life, our courage that will win the final battle. "
In 1966, Bush wrote, "Wherever I found myself in war or peace, in business or politics, in sports or social life, always the fact of Yale seemed to be there. "
His devotion to singing at Yale would remain strong his entire life, evidenced in part by his founding of the Yale Glee Club Associates, an alumni group, in 1937. Prescott Sheldon Bush was also a member of the United States Golf Association.
Quotes from others about the person
In Looking Forward (1987), Vice-President George Bush called his parents the greatest influence on his life and said, "Dad taught us about duty and service. " The autobiography is dedicated "To my mother and father, whose values lit the way. "
On August 6, 1921, Bush married Dorothy Walker. They had five children; one of them, George Herbert Walker Bush, would become the forty-first president of the United States.
In 1988, George Herbert Walker Bush became the first senator's son to be elected president.
1863–1948
1899–1993
1901–1992
1872–1920
1924 – unknown
1938–2018
1922–2010
1901–1978
1896–1900
A friend of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bush often played golf with the president.
