|
Senate Years of Service: 1941-1952 Party: Republican
 |
BREWSTER, Ralph Owen, a Representative and a Senator from Maine; born in Dexter, Penobscot
County, Maine, February 22, 1888; attended the public schools; graduated from
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, in 1909, and from the law department of
Harvard University 1913; high school principal 1910; admitted to the bar in
1913 and commenced practice in Portland, Maine; member of the Portland school
committee 1915-1923; member, State house of representatives 1917-1918, but
resigned to enter military service; served successively as private, second
lieutenant, captain, and regimental adjutant, Third Infantry, Maine National
Guard; member, State house of representatives 1921-1923; member of the State
senate 1923-1925; Governor of Maine 1925-1929; chairman of the National
Governors Conference 1925-1927; unsuccessful candidate for election to the
Seventy-third Congress in 1932; elected as a Republican to the Seventy-fourth,
Seventy-fifth, and Seventy-sixth Congresses (January 3, 1935-January 3, 1941);
did not seek renomination in 1940, having become a candidate for United States
Senator; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1940; reelected
in 1946 and served from January 3, 1941, until his resignation December 31,
1952; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1952; chairman, Special
Committee on National Defense (Eightieth Congress); died in Boston, Mass.,
December 25, 1961; interment in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Dexter, Maine.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography; Maher, Sister
M. Patrick Ellen. The Role of the Chairman of a Congressional Investigating
Committee: A Case Study of the Special Committee of the Senate to Investigate
the National Defense Program, 1941-1948. Ph.D. dissertation, St. Louis
University, 1962.
|