“NEW DEAL REPUBLICAN:” JAMES A. RHODES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 1933-1983 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By William Russell Coil, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2005 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Warren Van Tine, Adviser Professor David Stebenne __________________________ Professor Andrew Cayton Adviser Graduate Program in History Copyright by William Russell Coil 2005 ABSTRACT Ohio governor James Allen Rhodes (1909-2001) lived both an authentic American success story and an embellished populist myth. The son of a coal miner, Rhodes survived the insecurity that characterized the lives of early twentieth-century working-class Americans, matured after an extended adolescent aimlessness, and became Ohio's most powerful governor. He also exaggerated key parts of his biography and omitted other events in order to authenticate his credentials as a champion of the common man. From this odd mix of fact and fiction emerges a story of an important but overlooked politician. This dissertation is the first full length investigation into Rhodes’ life and political career, placing him in a larger context of regional political change, the rise of the consumer culture, and the working-class origins of populist economic security. Before Rhodes, Midwestern Republicans opposed the New Deal and saw nothing more than slavery in Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s promise to deliver economic security to American voters. As Ohio’s longest serving governor (1963-1971 and 1975-1983), as a child of the insecure working class, and as a young politician maturing in the 1930s, Rhodes made security the central part of his Republican philosophy. That concern led him to challenge Midwestern Republican orthodoxy, pioneer Republican Party efforts to ii capture the working-class vote, and attempt to radically alter the Rustbelt economy of the Midwest. iii Dedicated to my parents iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my friends in graduate school, especially Jonathan Silva and Kenneth Wheeler. This dissertation began in our many conversations – in class and out. They have offered their friendship and help without hesitation. Richard Groening, too, has encouraged me to finish and has been the model of a curious student. Thanks are due as well to Steven George and the Ohio Bicentennial Commission. A generous grant from them allowed me to research much of this dissertation. I am grateful as well for the efforts of my dissertation committee. David Stebenne, of The Ohio State University, and Andrew Cayton, of Miami University in Oxford Ohio, gave of their time and made important suggestions that will improve this manuscript. My dear friends the Pfeiffers of Columbus helped me in so many countless ways. My family, especially my parents, did what good families do. They put up with me. Above all else, thank you Warren Van Tine, advisor and friend. Without your patience, I would not have finished. v VITA December 4, 1966 ………………………………………Born, Bowling Green, Ohio 1996……………………………………………………….M.A., American History, The Ohio State University. 1989…………….…………………………………………BA, Ball State University. 1992-95, 1997-2005 …………………………………….Teaching Assistant, Department of History, The Ohio State University. 2002-2003……………………………………………….. Research Assistant, Ohio and the World Lecture Series. PUBLICATIONS Parker, Geoffrey, Richard Sisson, and William Russell Coil, eds., Ohio and the World, 1753-2053: Essays toward a New History of Ohio (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2005). “James Rhodes and the 1960s Origins of Contemporary Ohio,” in Van Tine, Warren and Michael Pierce, eds., Builders of Ohio: A Biographical History (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2003). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Minor Fields: U.S. History before 1877; Latin American History vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………...ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..v Vita……………………………………………………………………………………….vi Introduction: “Not Fit to Sleep with the Hogs:” Rhodes, Region, and Republicanism…………………………………………………………………………...1 Chapters 1. The Lincoln Ideal in the Era of Producerism: Freedom and Security, 1865-1920……………………………………………………………………………...11 2. The Lincoln Ideal and Consumerism: Freedom and Security, 1920- 1952…………………………………………………………………………………….36 3. Born to Insecurity: From Jackson, to Jasonville, and Back Again, 1909-1920………...……………………………………………………………………78 4. “Oh, God, help me be somebody:” From Springfield to Columbus, 1920s- 1940s………………………………………………………………………………..…113 5. The “Price of Bacon” and a “Degree of Security:” Ray Bliss Changes the Ohio G.O.P., 1949-1962…………………………………..………………………...149 vii 6. Have a Little Class: James Rhodes and the Construction of the Working Man’s G.O.P., 1940s-1960s………………………………………………188 7. Rhodes, Rust, and Revolution: The Possibilities and Limits of Security, 1940-1960s……………………………………………….…………………………. 234 8. “A Bright Thread of Rage Ran through It:” The Decline of Security, 1970- 1974……………………………………..…………..………………………………...275 Conclusion: James Allen Rhodes: Tumor or Transition?....................................................................………………………….320 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..326 viii INTRODUCTION “NOT FIT TO SLEEP WITH THE HOGS:”1 RHODES, REGION, AND REPUBLICANISM Ohio governor James Allen Rhodes (1909-2001) lived both an authentic American success story and an embellished populist myth. The son of a coal miner, Rhodes survived the insecurity that characterized the lives of early twentieth-century working-class Americans, matured after an extended adolescent aimlessness, and became Ohio’s most powerful governor. He also exaggerated key parts of his biography and omitted other events in order to authenticate his credentials as a champion of the common man. From this odd mix of fact and fiction emerges a story of an important but overlooked American politician. Journalists have published the only histories of Rhodes. These essay length overviews cover his sixteen years as Ohio’s governor from1963-1971 and 1975-1983. They recall his engaging personality, appreciate his political talents, and criticize him for being a short-sighted politician. When most people remember Rhodes – and increasingly that number is fewer and fewer -- they 1 James Rhodes summarizing how Democrats described him. Republicans, Rhodes said, defended him and said he was in fact fit to sleep with the hogs. Stanley Aronoff and Vernal G. Riffe, eds., James Rhodes at Eighty (Columbus, OH: n.p., 1989), p. 39. 1 remember specific, unrelated actions rather than complex, long-term patterns. Positive stories include his crisis leadership during a blizzard in 1978 and Rhodes’ Raiders, the development team he sent to other states and nations to attract business to Ohio. The most important negative event was the May 4, 1970 tragedy at Kent State University. Rhodes sent the Ohio National Guard there to quell campus unrest. Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters and bystanders. Four were killed, nine wounded. As these specific events recede from memory, Rhodes becomes less than real, distorted even, much like the statue that stands outside of the downtown Columbus state office building that bears his name. Affecting a too-trim physique, a button-down business suit, and an ever-present briefcase, the statue subdues his spontaneous, earthy vitality and his forceful, constant motion. Just as the statue hides the real Rhodes, the most commonly repeated anecdotes and published essays fail to suggest his subtle legacy.2 This dissertation will contribute to our understanding of Rhodes by placing him in the larger context of regional political change, the rise of the consumer culture, and the working-class origins of the populism of security. Chapters One and Two analyze the major strains of Midwestern Republicanism that Rhodes encountered when he started in politics in the 1930s and 1940s. When he first began in local Republican politics, the party was struggling with the legacy of nineteenth-century Republicanism. It was rooted in 2 The only published works on Rhodes to date are Richard G. Zimmerman, “Rhodes’ First Eight Years, 1963-1971,” and Lee Leonard, “Rhodes’ Second Eight Years, 1975-1983,” in Alexander P. Lamis, ed., Ohio Politics (Kent, OH: The Kent State University, 1994), pp. 59-83 and 101-135. 2 a producer culture worldview, one that emphasized hard work, thrift, delayed gratification, and character. Material scarcity rather than abundance shaped the reality of most American’s circumstances. A religious impulse animated Midwestern Republicans. They sought to pursue their own self-interest even as they served others. Many Midwesterners turned to various crusades to enact that moral spirit: anti-slavery, temperance, and Progressive era political, economic, and social reforms. Their activity in the public sphere stemmed from the private beliefs. As historian Andrew Cayton wrote, middle class “morality was to the Middle West what racism was to the South, the central, defining issue in people’s lives.”3 And yet in the late nineteenth century a new impulse began to challenge that middle class morality. Working class people started to agitate not for moral reform but for material security. Instead of freedom through opportunity and dignity through free labor, working class people pushed for a “living wage,” defining their freedom