The 1947 Jerry Voorhis book Confessions of a Congressman is of interest in particular because it comes right off the heels of the first Congressional loss to a Richard Nixon.<\/p>\n
The 12th District campaign of 1946 got started along in the fall of 1945, more than a year before the election. There was, of course, opposition to me in the district. There always had been. Nor was there any valid reason for me to think I lived a charmed political life. But there were special factors in the campaign of 1946, factors bigger and more powerful than either my opponent or myself.<\/em><\/p>\n And they were on his side.<\/em><\/p>\n In October 1945, the representative of a large New York financial house\u00c2\u00a0 made a trip to California. All the reasons for his trip I, of course, do not know. But I do know that he called on a number of influential people in Southern California. And I know he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bawled them out.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d For what? For permitting Jerry Voorhis, whom he described as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one of the most dangerous men in Washington,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to continue to represent a part of the state of California in the House of Representatives. This gentleman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reasons for thinking me so \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dangerous\u00e2\u20ac\u009d obviously had to do with my views and work against monopoly and for changes in the monetary system.<\/em><\/p>\n It appears that his California friends listened to him and were impressed.\u00c2\u00a0 Just how much this Eastern gentlemen and others like him had to do with the actual running of the campaign I do not know.\u00c2\u00a0 But many of the advertisements which ran in the district newspapers advocating my defeat came to the papers from a large advertising agency in Los Angeles, rather than from any source within the Twelth District.\u00c2\u00a0 And payment was made by check from the same agency.<\/em><\/p>\n [Followed by a discription of a McCarthyite campaign full of misdirections. \u00c2\u00a0And from the congratulatory letter Voorhis sent off to Nixon:]<\/p>\n During the 10 years of my service I came to have a profound respect for the Congress of the United States and to realize the critical importance of its work, not only for the future of our country, but for the future of the whole world. \u00c2\u00a0For those of us who believe in democratic government, under a Constitution which protects the individual citizen’s rights and liberties, it becomes more and more evident that the one essential bulwark of the people’s liberties in such a nation is the vigor and effectiveness of the national legislature. And then the description of his parting meeting with Nixon. \u00c2\u00a0We talked for more than an hour and parted, I hope and believe, as personal friends. \u00c2\u00a0Mr. Nixon will be a Republican congressman. \u00c2\u00a0He will, I imagine, be a conservative one. \u00c2\u00a0And I know I appreciated his coming to see me very sincerely indeed. The subject of the unnamed conspirators swooping into the district, if you google the excerpt, is of interest in various conspiratorial … analyses you might go ahead and say and chunk the “Conspiracy theory” label.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 1947 Jerry Voorhis book Confessions of a Congressman is of interest in particular because it comes right off the heels of the first Congressional loss to a Richard Nixon. The 12th District campaign of 1946 got started along in the fall of 1945, more than a year before the election. There was, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10064,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10060\/revisions\/10064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIf that national legislature occupies its proper place as a co-equal branch of government, and especially if it puts forth and enacts into law a program calculated to meet the nation’s present and future problems, the future of freedom will be safe. \u00c2\u00a0What will happen under opposite circumstances we all know. […]<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>But, he also believes he will be a “conscientious” congressman…<\/p>\n