James E. Murray - Political Career

Political Career

Murray was county attorney of Silver Bow County, Montana from 1906 to 1908, and became chairman of the State advisory board of the Public Works Administration from 1933 to 1934.

When Senator Thomas Walsh resigned to enter Roosevelts Cabinet in 1933, John Erickson the Democratic governor had himself appointed to the slot, despite his weak political base. Murray defeated Erickson in the 1934 primary, and was elected senator on the platform of "one hundred per-cent support" of President Roosevelt. Murray was a staunch liberal and aggressive supporter of the New Deal Coalition. Murray broke with the senior senator Wheeler when Murray backed Roosevelts attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937; unlike Wheeler, Murray gave up his isolationism in foreign affairs, and backed Roosevelts aggressive foreign policy against Germany and Japan in 1939-1941. After the war, the conservatives controlled Congress, so Murray had little success with his proposals to expand Social Security, provided free medical care for the aged, expand federal aid to education, or create a Missouri Valley Authority with the federal control over Montana's water resources patterned after the Tennessee Valley Authority. Instead, Congress adopted the Pick-Sloan Plan with flood control by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and private development.

As Chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee in the 1950s, Murray was more successful in promoting federal development of hydroelectric power through large dams throughout the West. He used his chairmanship of the Senate's Interior Committee to secure western water projects that led to congressional approval and funding for large dams in Montana at Canyon Ferry on the Missouri River, Yellowtail on the Bighorn River, Hungry Horse on the Flathead River, and Libby on the Kootenai River.