Science
on the
Hill - Chemists who have served in the Congress.
At the
time that this issue of the Indicator goes
to press, the
November election for the 110th congress will still be
several weeks
away. By all accounts this is
going to be a major political event with all 435 of the house seats
contested
and 33 of the 100 Senate seats contested.
For
chemists there is much at stake in the election. Congress
not determines the levels of
funding for research but sets the overall direction of science policies
whether
we like it or not. The size of the
regulatory umbrella over the pharmaceutical, energy, agricultural,
food, and
environmental industries is also at issue.
Contrary
to popular mythology, the congress is not comprised
primarily of lawyers, over time the proportion of lawyers averages
around
45%. According to Johns Hopkins
University, the other large groups represented are, business 13.6 %,
public
service 9.9%, and education 7.4%.
Physicians were tied for ninth place, behind professionals from
military, banking/insurance, and media or entertainment backgrounds. There are less than half a dozen
economists in the congress.
This
might be a good time to pause and examine the careers of some
of the chemists who have been elected to congress.
Most of the chemists have either been educators or came from
the management side of chemical enterprises. Chemists
elected to the highest political offices are
somewhat rare. The notable
exception to this trend is Margaret Thatcher who served as a
Conservative
member of the British Parliament and later rose to Prime Minister. There has yet to be a comparable
American scientist turned politician although President Herbert Hoover
was a
mining engineer and Ulysses S. Grant once expressed an interest in
becoming a
mathematics professor. Dwight
Eisenhower took several engineering and sciences classes while at West
Point
but never declared a formal major.
A
partial list of chemists who have served in the congress
follows. Until quite recently most
of the chemists have served comparatively short terms.
Some of them have earned law degrees in
addition to their scientific training and just about ever person on
this list
has served on committees or commissions whose purpose is not
specifically
scientific.
Samuel
Latham Mitchill (1764 - 1831) Democratic Republican,
Representative from New York 1801-04 & 1810- 13. US Senator 1804
-09.
Mitchill
is the only person on this list to have served in both
the House of Representatives and the Senate. He
was born in Hempstead, Long Island but traveled abroad
for his education. At the
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, he pursued classical studies and
studied
medicine. He graduated in 1786,
returned to the United States, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. In 1788 Mitchill served on a commission
to purchase the lands of the Iroquois Indians in western New York. He went on to serve as a member of the
State Assembly.
From
1798 to 1801 he was professor of chemistry, botany, and
natural history in Columbia College. He was one of the founders of the
State
Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and editor of the New York
Medical
Repository.
Mitchill
served in the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Congresses from
1801 to 1804. He then served in
the Senate from 1804 to1809, returning to the House in the Eleventh and
Twelfth
Congresses. (1810Ð13)
Mitchill
continued to pursue both medicine and natural sciences
after leaving congress. He was
surgeon general of the State militia, founder and president of the
Lyceum of
Natural History of New York City, and professor of chemistry and
natural
history in the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons from1808
to1820. He taught botany and
pharmacology from 1820 to 1826. He
was one of the founders and vice president of Rutgers Medical School.
Nathaniel
Peter Hill, (1832 - 1900), Republican, US Senator
from Colorado, 1879-1885.
Hill
was born in Orange County, New York. He
graduated from Brown University in
Providence, R.I., in 1856. He
remained at Brown from 1856 to 1864 first as an instructor and later as
a professor
of chemistry.
Hill
traveled to Colorado in the spring of 1865 to investigate mineral
resources and then went to Europe to study metallurgy in Swansea,
Wales, and
Freiberg, Saxony. He returned to
the United States equipped with a new method of smelting gold ore.
Hill
took up residence in Black Hawk, Colorado in 1867,
While there he was the manager of the
Boston & Colorado Smelting Company and was elected mayor of Black
Hawk in
1871. He was a member of the
Territorial Council from 1872 to 1873.
In
1873 Hill moved to Denver where he was engaged in smelting as
well as the real estate business.
He also was owner and publisher of the Denver Republican.
Hills election to
the senate cane in 1879 and he served until 1885. He
chaired the Committee on Mines and Mining as well as the
Committee on Post Office and Post Roads.
After leaving the senate he was an United States delegate to the
International Monetary Commission in 1891.
Hill
died in Denver in May of 1900 and is interred in Fairmount
Cemetery.
Edwin
Freemont Ladd (1859-1925) Republican, US Senator from
North Dakota, 1921-25.
Ladd
spent the first part of his life in Maine and graduated from
the University of Maine at Orono in 1884.
His chemical career was spent entirely in education and as a
government
agricultural chemist. He began his
career at the New York State Experiment Station, Geneva, N.Y. and later
was
chief chemist of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station.
Ladd
was the dean of the school of chemistry and pharmacy and a professor
of chemistry at the North Dakota Agricultural College.
He was serving as President of the
college at the time of his election to the Senate.
From
1899-1904 Ladd was the administrator of the North Dakotas
pure-food laws. While in the
senate he chaired the Committee on Public Roads and Surveys. Ladd died while in office and was
interred in Washington DCs Glenwood Cemetery.
Albert
Wahl Hawkes (1878-1971) Republican, US Senator from New
Jersey, 1943-1949.
A
native of Chicago, Hawkes studied chemistry at Lewis Institute
(now the Illinois Institute of Technology) for two years. He graduated
from
Chicago College of Law in 1900.
Hawkes
was active in the chemical industry. During
the First World War he served as
director of the Chemical Alliance in Washington. In
1927 he became president of a floor covering company,
Congoleum-Nairn, Inc. of Kearny, N.J..
He rose to chairman of the board in 1937. From
1941 to 1942 Hawkes was the president and director of
the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.
During
the years 1941 -42 Hawkes also served on the Newark Labor
Board, the Board to Maintain Industrial Peace in New Jersey, and the
National
War Labor Board. He was elected to
the Senate in 1942 but did not seek re-nomination at the end of his
term.
Hawkes
was a prominent conservative scholar and the author of Who
Can Preserve Representative Democracy?
(1939), Congress and the Patent System
(1944), and The
Role of the United States in Economic Affairs
(1947).
C.G.
Mike McCormack (1921 - ) Democrat, US Representative from
Washington State, 4th district, 1971-1980.
Of all
the persons on this list, McCormack has maintained the
closest ties to chemistry. He was the 1999 recipient of the Charles
Lathrop
Parsons Award that recognizes "outstanding public service by a member
of
the American Chemical Society".
He was
born in Basil, Ohio, and in 1939 enrolled in the University
of Toledo. He entered the military in 1943, attended Officer Candidate
School,
and was commissioned as second lieutenant, parachute infantry, United
States
Army. After serving in occupied Germany until 1946, he attended
Washington
State College where he received Bachelor and Master of Science degrees
in
Physical Chemistry. After a brief
time at the University of Puget Sound, McCormack spent twenty years as
a
research chemist with the Atomic Energy Commission at Hanford,
Washington.
In
1956 McCormack elected for the first of two terms in the
Washington State House of Representatives. This was followed by three
terms in
the State Senate. His election to the House of Representatives came in
1970.
McCormack's
freshman term was notable as he was the only house
member with a degree in Science.
He soon was recognized as an expert on energy matters. He was a
member
of the House Science and Technology Committee and chairman of the
Subcommittee
on Energy Research and Production.
McCormack was involved in legislation that encompassed solar
energy,
electric cars, and fusion power. McCormack was also involved in the
unsuccessful attempt to pass legislation converting the United States
to the
Metric system.
He
lost his seat in the 1980 "Reagan landslide" but
remained active in Washington DC. He was a member of the Space
Telescope
Institute Council.
Returning
to Washington State, McCormack founded the Institute for
Science and Society, which promotes Science Literacy among K-12
teachers.
Robert
James Huber (1922-2001) Republican. U.S. Representative
from Michigan 18th District, 1973-75.
Huber
attended the University of Detroit from 1935 to 1937 but
graduated from Culver Military Academy in 1939 with a B.S. degree. He went on to Yale Universitys
Sheffield Scientific School before serving in the Army from 1943 to
1946.
Huber
was mayor of Troy, Michigan from 1959 to 1964. He
was also a member of the state
senate and candidate for US Senate.
Huber was president of Michigan Chrome and Chemical Inc.
John
W. Olver (1936- ) Democrat. US
Representative from Massachussetts 1st
District, 1991-.
Olver
was born in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in 1936. He
grew up on a farm with his brother
and sister. He earned his B.A.
from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his M.A. from Tufts University,
and his
Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Olver
was a chemistry professor at the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst. His research interests
were in analytical and electrochemistry.
In 1969 he was elected to the Massachusetts State House. He served in the state senate from 1973
to 1991. In June of that year he
was sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives to complete the term
of the
late Rep. Silvio O. Conte.
He is
currently serving on the House Appropriations Committee and
the Appropriation's subcommittee on Transportation.
In 2005 he was named to the Environment and Related Agencies
Appropriations Subcommittee.
Ed
Lopez Pastor (1943 - ) Democrat. US Representative from
Arizona 4th District, 1991 Ð.
Like
Olver, Pastor is a former educator. He was
born in the mining community of Claypool in Gila
County, Arizona. Pastor received a
scholarship to attend Arizona State University where in 1966, he earned
a B.A.
degree in chemistry. He became a
high school chemistry teacher at North High School in Phoenix.
Pastor
left teaching in 1969 for a career in public service.
He was the deputy director for
Guadalupe Organization which seeks to improve education for the
Indo-Latino
youth of Guadalupe, Arizona. From
there he served an internship at the Council for Better and Equal
Business
Opportunities in Washington, D.C..
Pastor
returned to Arizona State University to study law and was
awarded J.D. in 1974. Pastor was
hired as an aide by Arizonas first Hispanic Governor, Raœl Castro. In 1976 he was elected to the first of
three terms on Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
In 1991 he ran for the vacant seat caused by the resignation
of Representative Morris K. Udall.
Pastror
has served on the Appropriations subcommittees for
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and
Related
Agencies as well as Energy and Water Development. The
Congressional Hispanic Caucus elected Pastor as its
Chairman during the 104th Congress.
He is currently on the Agriculture Committee, and on the
Committee on
House Oversight.
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The
author wishes to thank Mary Baumann of the U.S. Senate
Historical Office for her help with this article. There
are a number of excellent web resources about the US
Congress including the House and Senate web sites.
Another excellent resource for political biographies of all
ranks and parties is the Political Graveyard. However
the researcher is cautioned that only deceased
persons are listed on the site.
http://politicalgraveyard.com