Career in National Politics
In 1918, Walsh was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1919, to March 4, 1925. He was the first Irish-Catholic Senator from Massachusetts. A noted orator, he introduced Irish Republic President Éamon de Valera at Fenway Park on June 29, 1919. At the Democratic National Convention in 1924, he spoke in favor of condemning the Ku Klux Klan by name in the party platform: "We ask you to cut out of the body politic with the sharpest instrument at your command this malignant growth which, injected, means the destruction of everything which has made America immortal. If you can denounce Republicanism, you can denounce Ku Kluxism. If you can denounce Bolshevism, you can denounce Ku Kluxism."
"If you can denounce Republicanism, you can denounce Ku Kluxism. If you can denounce Bolshevism, you can denounce Ku Kluxism."
David I. Walsh1924
Walsh failed to win reelection by just 20,000 votes in 1924, the year of the Coolidge landslide, and briefly resumed the practice of law in Boston. Following the death of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the Republicans fought hard to retain his seat. Though Herbert Hoover and Charles Evans Hughes campaigned for his opponent, in the December 1926 special election Walsh won the right to complete the remaining two years of Lodge's term, defeating William Morgan Butler, a friend of Coolidge and head of the Republican National Committee.
Walsh's 1924 defeat also marked a turning point in his political philosophy. He had previously endorsed an activist role for government, but after 1924 his rhetoric increasingly attacked the "federal bureaucracy" and "big government." Though he had once advocated in favor of federal child labor legislation, he became one of its most consistent opponents.
In 1929, Time published a detailed profile of Walsh and his voting record. It noted that he voted for the Jones Act of 1929 that increased penalties for the violation of Prohibition, but said the Senator "votes Wet, drinks Wet." Its more personal description said:
- A bachelor, he is tall and stout. A double chin tends to get out over his tight-fitting collar. His stomach bulges over his belt. He weighs 200 lbs. or more. Setting-up exercises every other day at a Washington health centre have failed to reduce his girth. He is troubled about it. His dress is dandified. He wears silk shirts in bright colors and stripes and, often, stiff collars to match. His feet are small and well-shod. Beneath his habitual derby hat his hair is turning thin and grey. Society is his prime diversion. Of secondary interest are motoring, sporting events, the theatre. In Washington he occupies an expensive suite of rooms at the luxurious Carlton Hotel on 16th Street. A good and frequent host himself, he accepts all invitations out, is one of the most lionized Senators in Washington.
Time reported that some commented on the contrast between his political populism and his luxurious life style. The profile noted he was a "gruff and bull-voiced debater" but that "in private conversation his voice is soft and controlled." In sum, Time said that "Impartial Senate observers rate him thus: A good practical politician, a legislator above the average. His political philosophy is liberal and humane, except on economic matters (the tariff) which affect the New England industry, when he turns conservative. His floor attendance is regular, his powers of persuasion, fair."
When attacking the Hoover administration following the 1930 elections, Walsh identified two principal causes of voter dissatisfaction: "the administration's indifference to economic conditions and its failure to recognize the widespread opposition to prohibition."
Walsh won reelection in 1928, 1934 and 1940, failing in his final bid for reelection in 1946. During his Senate service, Walsh held the posts of chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor (73rd and 74th Congresses) and of the Committee on Naval Affairs (74th-77th and 79th Congresses). In 1932, he supported Al Smith against FDR for the Democratic nomination for president. He objected to Justice Hugo Black's failure to disclose his earlier membership in the Ku Klux Klan and promoted the appointment of Jews to the judiciary, notably that of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a longtime friend. Though a Democrat, he gave only reluctant support to President Roosevelt's agenda. In 1936, when some Democrats looked for an alternative presidential candidate, he supported Roosevelt, "although their relations are none too good." A newspaper reported that "He is not of the insurgent type....At heart, observers say, he dissents from many of the policies of the New Deal," but "he will stay on the reservation" and "he will avoid an open break." During the campaign, he failed to speak in support of the President until October 20, 1936.
In 1936, Walsh, as head of the Senate Labor Committee, lent his name an administration bill to establish labor standards for employees of government contractors, known as the Walsh–Healey Public Contracts Act It provided for minimum wages and overtime, safety and sanitation rules, and restrictions on the use of child and convict labor.
In 1937, he declared himself an opponent of the administration and joined the opposition to FDR's plan to enlarge the Supreme Court. Speaking at New York City's Carnegie Hall, Walsh argued his position in terms of the separation of powers, judicial independence, and the proper role of the executive. He described the public's reaction as "a state of fear, of apprehension, of bewilderment, of real grief, as a result of the proposal to impair, if not indeed to destroy, the judicial independence of the Supreme Court." He also emphasized the role of the Court in protecting civil liberties, citing two examples:
- One was the enactment, during the war hysteria, of a law in one of the sovereign States making it a crime to teach a child the German language.... teacher in a German-language school was indicted and convicted....The United States Supreme Court, nine old men, sworn to uphold the Constitution, struck down that law and released from jeopardy an American citizen whose only offense was that he was a victim of war hysteria. I wonder if young men would have had the courage to do it.
- Another was an outburst during the Ku Klux Klan hysteria. A State Legislature and the Governor approved a law, supported by an initiative vote of the people, denying a parent the right to send his child to a religious school of his choosing. An independent judiciary, the United States Supreme Court, nine old men, struck down that law and proclaimed that it is an unalienable right under the Constitution for a parent to bring up his children and educate them as he may choose.
He continued:
- Who can say when some majority of the moment may attempt to harass a minority? Who dares predict that a future Congress in a time of hysteria may not succumb to the prejudice or passion of the hour....Without an independent judiciary, I hesitate to even think of denials to minorities of constitutional guarantees if some of the doctrines preached by groups in this country today should be enacted into law.
One Cabinet official described his overall relationship to the administration as "not sympathetic...to put it mildly."
Along with 4 of his colleagues, Walsh condemned antisemitism in Nazi Germany in a Senate speech on June 10, 1933.
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