George W. Norris

George W. Norris
United States Senator
from Nebraska
In office
March 4, 1913 – January 3, 1943
Preceded byNorris Brown
Succeeded byKenneth S. Wherry
Member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
from Nebraska's 5th district
In office
March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1913
Preceded byAshton C. Shallenberger
Succeeded bySilas Reynolds Barton
Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary
In office
August 1926 – March 3, 1933
Preceded byAlbert B. Cummins
Succeeded byHenry F. Ashurst
Personal details
Born
George William Norris

(1861-07-11)July 11, 1861
York Township, Sandusky County, Ohio, U.S.
DiedSeptember 2, 1944(1944-09-02) (aged 83)
McCook, Nebraska, U.S.
Political partyRepublican (until 1936)
Independent (1936–1944)
Spouses
Pluma Lashley
(m. 1889; died 1901)
Ellie Leonard
(m. 1903)
Children3
Alma materBaldwin University
Northern Indiana Normal School
ProfessionLawyer

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]

  1. ^ Fred Greenbaum (2000). Men Against Myths: The Progressive Response. Greenwood. p. 7. ISBN 9780275968885.
  2. ^ Robert Muccigrosso, ed., Research Guide to American Historical Biography (1988) 3:1165
  3. ^ "Traditions of the senate". Styles Bridges opposed recommending him.

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