(Contents: I. American Valley, II. Once to Every Man a Nat...)
Contents: I. American Valley, II. Once to Every Man a Nation, III. The Forgotten Generation, IV. California Leads the Way, V. The Government Makes Poverty Official, VI. The Great Divide, VII. Recession - Made to Order, VIII. Here Comes the Next Depression, IX. The Perils of Prosperity, X. A World to Win. -- end. 110 pp. Excellent Depression-Era read on poverty and it's economics.
Sheridan Downey was an American lawyer and politician. He served as United States Senator from California from 1939 to 1950.
Background
Sheridan Downey was born on March 9, 1884, in Laramie, Wyoming Territory. He was the son of Stephen Wheeler Downey and Evangeline Victoria Owen. His father was an attorney and one of the territory's first delegates to the United States Congress.
Education
Downey attended public schools and the University of Wyoming, and in 1907 received an Bachelor of Laws from the University of Michigan Law School.
Career
In 1907 Sheridan Downey was admitted to the Wyoming bar and began practicing law in Laramie. In 1908, as a Republican, he was elected district attorney of Albany County on a reform ticket. Reportedly he angered wealthy cattlemen by refusing to accept their bribes during disputes with homesteaders.
In 1912, Downey split the Wyoming Republican party by leading a faction in support of Theodore Roosevelt's "Bull Moose" movement. As a result the state went Democratic. But when the Democrats offered Downey a patronage position, he rejected it. He then moved to Sacramento, California, where he formed a law partnership with his brother Stephen. For several years he remained out of politics, devoting himself to the law practice and to real estate development.
In 1924, Downey supported the third-party effort of Progressive Robert La Follette, and by 1932 he had become a Democrat. In 1934 he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of California on the same slate with Upton Sinclair. Soon thereafter Downey became an attorney for Dr. Francis Townsend, who was capturing national attention with his $200 per month pension proposal for citizens aged sixty or over who agreed to spend the money within one month. The pension program was to be financed by a 2 percent federal sales tax. Downey's enthusiasm for the program led him to write Why I Believe in the Townsend Plan (1936).
Downey ran unsuccessfully as a Townsendite candidate for Congress in 1936, but two years later was elected to the U. S. Senate, running on a "$30 Every Thursday" (for unemployed citizens over fifty) platform. He had the support of several pro-pension groups, liberals, and organized labor. He served two terms in the Senate. As he had promised during his campaign, Downey introduced a series of pension bills beginning in early 1940. In 1941 he chaired a special Senate committee on old age insurance that recommended increasing monthly pension benefits to a minimum of $30. As chairman of the Senate Civil Service Committee he sponsored legislation to increase salaries and improve working conditions for federal employees.
In 1944, always concerned with California-related issues, Downey launched a campaign for the California Central Valley project. He introduced an amendment, never passed, to a rivers and harbors bill that would have exempted the project from limitations preventing farms larger than 160 acres from receiving irrigation from federally financed projects. He wrote They Would Rule the Valley (1948), condemning the Bureau of Reclamation for its role in applying the legislation to the Central Valley project. Downey supported the tidelands oil bill, which established state rather than federal ownership of oil-rich underwater marginal land.
After his retirement from Congress in 1950, because of ill health, Downey remained briefly in Washington in order to represent the city of Long Beach, California, in its controversy with the federal government over ownership of offshore oil lands. California Governor Earl Warren appointed Senator Richard M. Nixon to fill Downey's unexpired term. Downey died at San Francisco.
While serving on the Senate Military Affairs Committee, Downey supported a limited draft and limited industrialization for war. But in 1941 he opposed granting the administration authority to requisition industrial plants and machinery. He supported draft deferment for fathers, opposed the movement of agricultural workers into war industry, and suggested that Mexican workers be brought to California in order to maintain agricultural production. On several occasions he proposed saturation bombing attacks on Germany as a substitute for an invasion of Europe. After the war Downey opposed the continuation of the draft, charged that the army was "hoarding" doctors badly needed by civilian communities, and called for the cancellation of all lend-lease obligations in the interest of peace. He favored international control of atomic energy under United Nations auspices, the sharing of atomic secrets in order to prevent a nuclear arms race, and the development of industrial uses of atomic energy.
Personality
Downey was often described as slight, grayish, and strikingly handsome.
Connections
On November 15, 1910, Downey married Helen Symons; they had five children.