jurist politician federal judge
Goldsborough was born on September 16, 1877, in Greensboro, Maryland, the son of Washington E. and Martha P. Laird Goldsborough. Since his father was in the consular service and his parents were often abroad, Thomas was brought up by his grandfather, a country doctor.
Goldsborough attended public schools in Caroline County and in 1899 received the B. A. from Washington College. A star second baseman at the college, he received offers from several major-league teams but chose to enter the University of Maryland Law School, from which he graduated in 1901.
Goldsborough established a practice in Denton, Maryland, and in 1904 was named state's attorney for Caroline County. During the next four years he worked vigorously to eliminate gambling and bootlegging in the area. At the end of his term he returned to private work. Goldsborough soon enjoyed an extensive practice and gained a reputation as a litigation lawyer. In 1914 he became widely known as a public defender when he represented two young blacks accused of robbing and killing a white man. Goldsborough managed to avert a lynching and then won a change of venue. In 1920, at the request of local Democratic leaders, Goldsborough ran for Congress in the first Maryland district. He won election easily and was reelected nine consecutive times. Securing an assignment on the House Banking and Currency Committee, he joined with Henry Steagall of Alabama in introducing legislation that led to the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1933. But aside from that achievement Goldsborough did not influence any major legislation during his eighteen years in Congress. He had a moderately liberal voting record, and after 1933 he gave unqualified support to the New Deal measures proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the attempt to purge the Democratic party of conservatives in 1938, Goldsborough joined with the president in an unsuccessful attack on Maryland senator Millard E. Tydings. Although conservative voters in his district attempted to block his reelection, Goldsborough won handily at the polls. Possibly as a result of his support of Roosevelt in 1938, the president named Goldsborough to the United States District Court in Washington, D. C. , in April 1939. Although Goldsborough was involved in a few controversial cases in his early years on the bench, he won national fame when he presided over the contempt trial of United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis in December 1946. The case resulted from a strike against the bituminous mines, still under government ownership and operation following World War II. He imposed a fine of $3. 5 million on the United Mine Workers and a separate fine of $10, 000 on Lewis personally. The Supreme Court, by a vote of seven to two, upheld Goldsborough's ruling but reduced the fine against the union to $700, 000. In April 1948 Lewis again appeared before Goldsborough. Without formally calling for a strike, Lewis had declared that the mine operators had "dishonored" the pension agreement, and 350, 000 miners stayed away from work. The government applied for an injunction under the recently passed Taft-Hartley Labor Act, and Lewis was cited for contempt, despite his protests that he had never called a strike and knew nothing about one. Goldsborough dismissed this claim, noting that Lewis' statement was a patent signal for a strike, and fined the union $1. 4 million. When some mineworker locals hinted that they would go out again in protest, Goldsborough staged an astute legal trick. He found Lewis guilty of both civil and criminal contempt but fined him $20, 000 on the criminal citation only. He left the civil charge pending as a guaranty of good behavior on the part of Lewis and the union. Despite these rulings Goldsborough was not antilabor; later, in 1948, he ruled in favor of the United Mine Workers in their bid to increase pension payments over the objections of the coal operators. Several other rulings from his court, including the invalidation of severely restrictive immigration procedures, indicated that Goldsborough carried over his liberal, common-sense attitudes from Congress to the court. He died in Washington, D. C. , on June 16, 1951, his forty-second wedding anniversary. He is interred in Denton Cemetery of Denton, Maryland.
On June 16, 1909 Goldsborough married Laura Hall; they had four children.
