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Senate Years of Service: 1941-1959 Party: Republican
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LANGER, William, a Senator from North Dakota; born on a farm in Everest Township, near Casselton,
Cass County, N.Dak., September 30, 1886; attended the rural schools; graduated from the law
department of the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks in 1906 and from Columbia University,
New York City in 1910; admitted to the bar in 1911 and began practice in Mandan, N.Dak.; States
attorney of Morton County, N.Dak., 1914-1916; moved to Bismarck, N.Dak., in 1916 and
continued the practice of law; attorney general of North Dakota 1916-1920; legal adviser for Council
of Defense during the First World War; unsuccessful candidate for Governor in 1920; Governor of
North Dakota January 1933 to July 1934, when he was removed by the State supreme court; again
Governor 1937-1939; unsuccessful candidate for nomination for United States Senator in 1938;
elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1940; though there was an attempt to block his
seating, Langer took his seat in the Senate in 1941; reelected in 1946, 1952, and again in 1958, and
served from January 3, 1941, until his death in Washington, D.C., November 8, 1959; chairman,
Committee on the Post Office and Civil Service (Eightieth Congress), Committee on the Judiciary
(Eighty-third Congress); interment in St. Leos Catholic Cemetery, Casselton, N.Dak.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Barber, Charles M. A Diamond in the Rough: William
Langer Reexamined. North Dakota History 64 (Fall 1998): 2-18; Smith, Glenn H. Langer of North Dakota: A Study in Isolationism, 1940-1959. New York: Garland
Press, 1979.
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