George W. Norris | |
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United States Senator from Nebraska | |
In office March 4, 1913 – January 3, 1943 | |
Preceded by | Norris Brown |
Succeeded by | Kenneth S. Wherry |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nebraska's 5th district | |
In office March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1913 | |
Preceded by | Ashton C. Shallenberger |
Succeeded by | Silas Reynolds Barton |
Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary | |
In office August 1926 – March 3, 1933 | |
Preceded by | Albert B. Cummins |
Succeeded by | Henry F. Ashurst |
Personal details | |
Born | George William Norris July 11, 1861 York Township, Sandusky County, Ohio, U.S. |
Died | September 2, 1944 McCook, Nebraska, U.S. | (aged 83)
Political party | Republican (until 1936) Independent (1936–1944) |
Spouses | Pluma Lashley
(m. 1889; died 1901)Ellie Leonard (m. 1903) |
Children | 3 |
Alma mater | Baldwin University Northern Indiana Normal School |
Profession | Lawyer |
George William Norris (July 11, 1861 – September 2, 1944) was an American politician from the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. He served five terms in the United States House of Representatives as a Republican, from 1903 until 1913, and five terms in the United States Senate, from 1913 until 1943. He served four terms as a Republican and his final term as an Independent. Norris was defeated for re-election in 1942.
Norris was a leader of progressive and liberal causes in Congress. He is best known for his sponsorship of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933 during the Great Depression. It became a major development agency in the Upper South that constructed dams for flood control and electricity generation for a wide rural area. In addition, Norris was known for his liberalism, his insurgency against party leaders, his non-interventionist foreign policy, his support for labor unions, and his intense crusades against what he characterized as "wrong and evil".[1]
President Franklin D. Roosevelt called him "the very perfect, gentle knight of American progressive ideals", and this has been the theme of all his biographers.[2] A 1957 advisory panel of 160 scholars recommended that Norris was the top choice for the five best Senators in U.S. history.[3]
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