A Bill to Recognize the Service of Lester C. Hunt

A bill has been introduced in the legislature to recognize former Governor and Senator Lester Hunt.  Given Dr. Hunt's historic place in Wyoming, and national, history, it's worth visiting the topic here.

The bill states:

2023

State of Wyoming

23LSO-0301

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. SJ0002

Recognizing the service of Lester C. Hunt.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Case and Rothfuss and Representative(s) Stith and Yin

A JOINT RESOLUTION

for

A JOINT RESOLUTION recognizing United States Senator and Wyoming Governor and Secretary of State Lester Calloway Hunt as a consummate model to public servants for his distinguished career, his commendable civility and courage and his service to Wyoming and the United States of America.

WHEREAS, after first coming to Wyoming as a recruit to play semi-professional baseball for a Lander team, Lester C. Hunt moved permanently to Wyoming to start his family and dental practice after working full-time on the railroad to fund his attendance at dental school; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt served actively during World War I as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army Dental Corps from 1917 to 1919 and as a Major in the Army Reserve from 1919 to 1954; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt started his distinguished career in public service by serving in the Wyoming House of Representatives, as a Representative from Fremont County, from 1933 to 1934; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt served as Wyoming's Secretary of State from 1935 to 1943 where among his many accomplishments were obtaining a copyright to preserve the mark of the Bucking Horse and Rider and developing and implementing plans for the Bucking Horse and Rider license plate first issued in 1936; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt became the first person to serve for two consecutive terms as Governor of Wyoming, holding office during and after World War II. Among Governor Hunt's many accomplishments in addition to managing wartime concerns, he oversaw the creation of a pension system for teachers and advocated for a pension system for state employees as well as expanded systems of health benefits; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt served as Wyoming's accomplished junior United States Senator from 1949 until his untimely death by suicide, June 19, 1954; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt supported a number of federal social programs and advocated for federal support of low-cost health and dental insurance policies. He also supported a variety of programs proposed by the Eisenhower administration following the Republican landslide in the 1952 elections, including the abolition of racial segregation in the District of Columbia and the expansion of Social Security; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt served on Congressional committees including the Senate Armed Services Committee, a special Senate committee investigating war crimes and the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce; and

WHEREAS, through Senate hearings, Lester C. Hunt was introduced to the bullying and false accusation tactics of Senator Eugene Joseph McCarthy and followers of the charismatic McCarthy, where many considered McCarthy a hero and the people who knew better stayed silent and attempted to stay on his good side; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt became a victim of this extremely polarized era in public thinking that hurt our nation and ruined the lives of many who found themselves on the other side of the boisterous "majority." During this time, Senator Hunt was a brave critic of the excesses of the McCarthyism era, even introducing legislation allowing private citizens to sue members of Congress who libeled them; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt endured threats and intimidation, to which his untimely death can be directly attributed, during this dark and harsh period of our nation's political journey characterized by incivility, irrational political dogma and unfounded beliefs; and

WHEREAS, while Lester C. Hunt was cruelly harmed by this movement, thousands of others also had their lives shattered when they were blacklisted by false accusations without credible evidence. Anyone who challenged the methods employed by the McCarthyists was labeled a communist sympathizer in a widespread chilling of free speech; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt was a victim of blackmail whereby his opponents used despicable means to obtain control of a deeply divided United States Senate; and

WHEREAS, Lester C. Hunt remained true to Wyoming and to our nation but succumbed to the overwhelming pressure and took his own life, adding to the tragic legacy of Wyoming's suicide prominence; and

WHEREAS, in 1954, within a few months after Lester C. Hunt's suicide, the Senate voted to censure Joseph McCarthy and our nation began to heal; and

WHEREAS, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson said decades later that what happened to Lester C. Hunt "passed all boundaries of decency and exposed an evil side of politics;" and

WHEREAS, Wyoming's Lester C. Hunt with decency and courage contributed to the survival and preservation of a principled system of participatory government that has carried this nation through the darkest of times.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  That the members of the Wyoming Legislature commit to respect each member and support our democracy and the right of every citizen to be heard and respected. With this resolution, the Wyoming Legislature remembers and joins with the people of Wyoming and all our nation to rededicate ourselves to democracy, civility, decency and truth.

Section 2.  That the members of the Wyoming Legislature commit to work with those with whom we disagree and to strive for pragmatic problem-solving.

Section 3.  That the members of the Wyoming Legislature commit to be ever vigilant to do all they can to prevent suicide and to be diligent in battling against injustices, inequities, discriminative conditions and intolerant practices that can lead to suicide.

Section 4.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit copies of this resolution to the President of the United States, to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress and to the Wyoming Congressional Delegation.

For more on Hunt:

Baseball, Politics, Triumph and Tragedy: The Career of Lester Hunt

We have discussed Hunt here:

1942.  Lester Hunt, DDS, the sitting Wyoming Secretary of State and a Democrat narrowly defeated Governor Nels H. Smith.

Lester C. Hunt.

Hunt would serve as Governor for two terms before going on to becoming Wyoming's Senator.  He killed himself in 1954 after Washington, D. C. police picked up his son in 1953 for soliciting a male prostitute.  The scandal was kept quiet for a while, but political opponents threatened to use it against him as a threat to keep him from engaging in a 1954 bid for office.

In the Senate, Hunt had been an opponent of Joe McCarthy.

It's really interesting that this bill comes up now.

I didn't go into the story in depth, but as noted, Senator Hunt was an opponent of McCarthy and, obviously, tragically involved in a story that he couldn't overcome.

Hunt was a dentist by profession, and entered politics, first becoming, at a state level, the Wyoming Secretary of State.  He was the elected a Democratic Governor, back in the day when Wyoming had a functioning Democratic Party and the state wasn't a one party state.  He later became Wyoming's Senator.

In June 1953, his son, who was attending the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was the student body president, was picked up for solicitation of am ale prostitute.  Normally this was just passed off by the police if it was a first offense, but the arrest became known to Republican Senators, who threatened to break the information if Hunt didn't resign from office.  If that had happened, the Wyoming legislature would have appointed a Republican successor.  

Hunt refused, his son was sentenced and paid the fine, and the Washington Post picked up the story.

Hunt decided to run for reelection anyhow, and the news story received little attention.  Republicans again threatened to use it against him, although the Eisenhower Administration, seeing what was going on, tried to offer him a way out by offering him a position on the U.S. Tariff Commission.  On June 8, 1954, following a medical examination, he declared he was bowing out of elective offices entirely.  On June 19, he shot himself in his Senate office.

Following this, journalist Drew Pearson wrote about the drama and how the Republicans had threatened Hunt.  Pearson noted, however:

Two weeks ago he went to the hospital for a physical check and announced that he would not run again. It was no secret that he had been having kidney trouble for some time, but I am sure that on top of this, Lester Hunt, a much more sensitive soul than his colleagues realized, just could not bear the thought of having his son's misfortunes become the subject of whispers in his re-election campaign.

In private, however, Pearson indicated that Hunt, whom he had been in contact with, had no physical concerns at the time of his suicide.

What the resolution states is completely true.  If there's a black mark against Dr. Hunt in his public story, it would be that he was less than enthusiastic about the presence of Japanese American internees in the state during World War Two and his statements at the time would be hard not to view as racist, although they are not uniformly so.  In our modern era, we tend not to cut anyone any slack at all for transgressions of this type, but perhaps to some degree we should.  Overall, Hunt's service as Secretary of State, Governor, World War One serviceman, and Senator are praiseworthy and no matter what a person might think of McCarthy, his stand at the time was certainly praiseworthy.  The actions by the GOP in persecuting him were vile.

Which is why I suspect that this bill will go nowhere.  In Wyoming of 2023, there's almost no room in the state to praise a Democratic politician, and chances are that anyone supporting a bill condemning McCarthyism will receive pretty stout criticism as well.