Harold Hughes
Harold Everett Hughes was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Iowa from 1963 until 1969, and as a U.S. Senator from Iowa from 1969 until 1975. He began his political career as a Republican but changed his affiliation to the Democratic Party in 1960.
Early years
Hughes was born in 1922 in Ida Grove, Iowa, to Lewis C. Hughes and Etta Estelle Hughes. He attended the University of Iowa on a football scholarship in 1940, but left after marrying Eva Mercer in August 1941. They had 3 daughters.On June 1, 1942, his brother Jesse was killed in a car accident when their vehicle struck a concrete bridge and fell into a river 15 feet below. Jesse, along with Leroy Conrad, were going to be inducted into the Army the following week, due to Selective Service. Two girls, along with Leroy and Jesse, died in the crash as well. Jesse's death was attributed as a leading cause of Hughes's alcoholism and his renunciation of his Methodist faith.
Military
He was drafted in 1942.He served in the United States Army, fighting in the North African campaign, and was court-martialed for assaulting an officer. The trial resulted in Hughes's being sent to fight, with the 16th Infantry of the 1st Division, in Sicily in 1943. He became ill and another soldier took his place on a landing craft at Anzio. The craft exploded, killing his replacement and many others. He was sent stateside for the rest of the war after contracting jaundice and malaria.
Marriages
Hughes and his first wife, Eva, divorced in 1987. Six weeks after the divorce, he married his former secretary, Julie Holm, with whom he had been living with for a year while he was separated from Eva. Hughes moved to Arizona and lived in a single-family home with his second wife, while his first wife lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Iowa.Hughes and his former wife got into bitter alimony and child support battles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Hughes's former wife claimed that he had completely cut off her annuities and health insurance, while Hughes claimed that he himself did not have money. Ultimately, Hughes was ordered to pay back over $10,000 to his former wife, which she successfully collected from his estate. Because of the Harold Hughes Center's declining fortunes, Hughes owed approximately $80,000 to creditors in the 1990s. Combined with increasing medical expenses and the court-ordered alimony payments, Hughes's debts increased dramatically during his last years, and he died virtually bankrupt.
Political career
Hughes's interest in politics was stirred by involvement in the trucking industry. He became a manager of a local trucking business, and then began organizing independent truckers. Hughes started the Iowa Better Trucking Bureau and was eventually elected to the State Commerce Commission board, which he served from 1958 to 1962, including a term as its chairman.In 1952, after years as an alcoholic, Hughes attempted suicide. He described in his book how he climbed into a bathtub with a shotgun, ready to pull the trigger, when he cried out to God for help. He had a spiritual experience that changed the course of his life. He began to pray and study the Bible diligently, and even considered a career in the ministry. He also embraced the Alcoholics Anonymous program of recovery and started an AA group in Ida Grove in 1955.
Governor of Iowa
1960 gubernatorial campaign
Hughes grew up as a Republican in a heavily Republican area, but was persuaded to switch parties. His service on the State Commerce Commission also brought him in contact with the Interstate Commerce Commission and national politics.He then ran for Governor of Iowa on the Democratic ticket in 1960 but lost the Democratic primary to Edward McManus by 28,448 votes. McManus then lost the general election to Norman A. Erbe.
1962 gubernatorial campaign and first term
Hughes ran again for governor in 1962, beating Lewis E. Lint in the Democratic primary by 48,854 votes. Hughes ran again and defeated incumbent Republican Norman Erbe by 41,944 votes.A major issue in that campaign was legalization of liquor-by-the-drink. Iowa allowed only beer to be consumed over the bar. Liquor and wine could be purchased only in state liquor stores and private clubs. Hughes became a proponent of liquor-by-the-drink. A short time after he was elected, the state adopted a new system of alcohol control.
Hughes served as governor from 1963 to 1969. During this time, he continued to reach out, as a Christian and an alcoholic in recovery, to people still suffering. He established a treatment program in the state and was an effective spokesman for a more enlightened view of the role of alcohol in society. The new treatment program was viewed as an alternative to the state mental hospitals. Hughes wrote that the goal was to reach alcoholics "before they reach rock bottom."
He played a role in the enactment of several amendments to the Iowa Constitution: two providing for legislative reapportionment and Iowa Supreme Court review of reapportionment, one initiating an annual session of the General Assembly, and finally another to give the governor a line item veto.
During Hughes's tenure, he oversaw the institution of a state scholarship program, issued an agricultural tax credit, created a state civil rights commission, and passed a property tax replacement bill. Hughes implemented an educational radio television system and helped improved workmen’s and unemployment compensation laws. Hughes sanctioned additional state funding for school aid and authorized a consumer safeguard bill. Hughes also helped eliminate the death penalty in Iowa.
A death penalty opponent, Hughes reached out to President John F. Kennedy to request he commute the death sentence of Victor Feguer, who had been convicted on federal murder charges. The President was the only one who could commute the sentence, but Kennedy thought the crime was so brutal that he denied the request.
Meanwhile, Hughes's political career continued to gain strength. He made a speech seconding the nomination of Lyndon B. Johnson at the 1964 Democratic convention—a decision he would eventually regret—and gained national recognition as a liberal governor as well as a promising national figure in the Democratic Party. Trade missions abroad, and a tour of Vietnam with other governors, provided him with foreign policy experience.
1964 gubernatorial election second term
In his 1964 bid for reelection as governor, Hughes's opponent, Evan Hultman, called attention to Hughes's brief relapse into alcoholism in 1954. In a debate, Hultman charged that Hughes's failure to acknowledge the relapse publicly showed that Hughes lacked integrity. Hughes responded, "I am an alcoholic and will be until the day I die.... But with God's help I'll never touch a drop of alcohol again. Now, can we talk about the issues of this campaign?" According to the Des Moines Register', "The reaction of the crowd was immediate and nearly unanimous." Later, the Register editorialized, "In our opinion, any man or woman who wins that battle and successfully puts the pieces of his or her life back together again deserves commendation, not censure." Hughes defeated Hultman in a landslide, winning all but two of the state's 99 counties.1966 Iowa gubernatorial election and third term
In 1966, Hughes won the Democratic primary without opposition. He then defeated William G. Murray in the general election by 99,741 votes.He resigned as governor on January 1, 1969, just two days before being sworn in as U.S. Senator. He was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Robert D. Fulton.
U.S. Senator from Iowa
Elections
In 1966, his friendship with Robert F. Kennedy started, and it was Kennedy who encouraged him to run for a Senate seat. The next years were difficult, in the wake of the 1968 assassinations of Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Jr., racial unrest in Iowa, and his increasing disappointment with American policy in Vietnam and the leadership of the Johnson administration.At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Hughes was giving a nominating speech for anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy when violent demonstrations erupted on the streets of Chicago. In the general election in 1968, Hughes was a heavy favorite to defeat Republican candidate David M. Stanley, a state senator from Muscatine, for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Bourke Hickenlooper. Hughes narrowly defeated Stanley, and took his seat on January 3, 1969.
Leader on alcoholism and narcotics addiction
As a U.S. Senator, Hughes persuaded the chairman of the Senate's Labor and Public Welfare Committee to establish a Special Sub-committee on Alcoholism and Narcotics, chaired by Hughes himself. This subcommittee, which gave unprecedented attention to the subject, held public hearings on July 23–25, 1969. A number of people in recovery testified, including Academy Award-winning actress Mercedes McCambridge, National Council on Alcoholism founder Marty Mann, and AA co-founder Bill W. In his autobiography, The Man from Ida Grove: A Senator's Personal Story, Hughes writes that he asked a dozen other well-known people in recovery to present public testimony, but all declined. The hearings were considered by some in AA a threat to anonymity and sobriety.Hughes also talked about the need for treatment of drug addiction. He stated that "treatment is virtually nonexistent because addiction is not recognized as an illness." The hearings, and subsequent events related to alcoholism and addiction, were not given much press attention because the press was more interested in the Vietnam War, poverty, and other critical issues. Legislation creating the National Institute on Drug Abuse was not passed until 1974.
The goal of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, considered a "major milestone" in the nation's efforts to deal with alcohol abuse and alcoholism, was "to help millions of alcoholics recover and save thousands of lives on highways, reduce crime, decrease the welfare rolls, and cut down the appalling economic waste from alcoholism." It also established the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He also created the Society of Americans for Recovery.