1st Term
During his tenure in Congress, he served on the following committees: Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Accounts, Interstate and Foreign Commerce and the Joint Committee on Printing. Some of his activities during his first two terms included serving on a funeral committee for fellow Pennsylvania representative W.W. Griest and introducing bills to increase the pensions of Civil War and Spanish-American War veterans, build an addition to the Veterans Bureau Hospital in Coatesville, remodel a public building in Phoenixville, and survey the Darby River, as Darby Creek was called then. He also had received and noted in the Congressional Record petitions from the West Chester Farmers' Club, Dilworthtown Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and New Century Club of West Chester: all opposing any change in Prohibition.
Congressman Wolfenden generally kept a low profile, in line with McClure's wishes that War Board members keep out of the public spotlight. Less than a year after he took office, the stock market crash occurred in October 1929 and the protracted misery of the Great Depression began for the American people.
One notable vote was his in favor of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which helped erect a protectionist trade barrier for the United States and was retaliated against by our trading partners, who raised their own tariffs. It is thought by many economists that this tariff helped to worsen the Depression by hurting exports. In 1930, he also cast a pro-labor vote, voting against the Anti-Injunction Act.
As the Great Depression was gaining momentum and Republicans nationally fell out of favor with the public, Wolfenden, bucking the trend, was easily reelected in 1930, beating his Democratic opponent, Harry Wescott by 64,000 votes, 84,521 to 20,443. Widespread discontent, brought on by untold economic suffering and misery, caused the Democrats to make a net gain of 53 House and eight Senate seats. The Republicans clung to a one vote lead in the Senate, 48 to 47, and two votes in the House, 218 to 216, although the deaths of several GOP members gave the Democrats a majority by the time Congress reorganized several months later.
Read more about this topic: James Wolfenden
Famous quotes containing the word term:
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)