James Paine Wolfenden (July 25, 1889 – April 8, 1949) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
He was born in Cardington, Pennsylvania. He attended Friends' Central School and Penn Charter Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was engaged in the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods in Cardington, Pennsylvania.
He was elected to the 70th United States Congress as a Republican to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas S. Butler. He was reelected to the 71st United States Congress in 1928 and the eight succeeding Congresses. He did not run in 1946. He died in Philadelphia.
Biography On May 26, 1928, Congressman Thomas S. Butler of West Chester, Pennsylvania, died at age of 73, after having represented the Delaware/Chester County 8th congressional district for an unprecedented thirty-one years. He was eulogized by various Delaware County leaders, who referred to him kindly as "Uncle Tom" and with whom he had developed a good rapport. Now, however, it was the more populous Delaware County's turn for the two-county congressional seat. By the 1920 census, Delaware County had led Chester County in population by about 173,000 to 115,000, but a gentlemen's agreement between the Republican leaders of each county had allowed the popular Butler to continue his service.
Vacancy At a meeting on July 31, attended by forty-two Republican conferees from Delaware County and twenty-two from Chester County, thirty-nine-year-old James Wolfenden of Upper Darby was nominated to fill the unexpired term without opposition. Born on July 25, 1889, in Cardington, Delaware County, Wolfenden was an Upper Darby Township Commissioner for nine years and had run his father's cotton and woolen goods manufacturing firm, Wolfenden-Shore, for seven years. He also was a vice president of the Citizen's Bank of Lansdowne and vice president of the Delaware County Hospital, besides being the Republican leader of Upper Darby and later would be named by John J. McClure to the then-young Delaware County Board of Republican Supervisors (War Board). McClure, himself a candidate for the state senate district, which encompassed all of Delaware County, offered a resolution recognizing Butler's passing as the "loss of a great statesman and national leader." The Chester Times heavily praised the choice of Wolfenden, stating that he "will make a good representative" with his "business training" and that he was "progressive", a "leader" and a "booster".
Much excitement was generated in Delaware County and around the nation in the contest for the presidency between Republican Herbert Hoover, President Coolidge's secretary of commerce, and New York Governor Al Smith, a Democrat. Since Smith was a Catholic and, in that era, religious prejudices were then very pronounced, there was a lively debate nationwide.
When the dust had settled election day, Hoover carried staunchly Republican Delaware County by about 83,000 to 29,000. Likewise, Wolfenden defeated his Democratic opponent, Henry Davis, by a 116,266 to 34,607. McClure was also elected to the state senate. The Republicans, having been the dominant party nationally since the turn of the 20th century, had a commanding 267 U.S. House seats to the Democrats 163, with a similar lead in the Senate, 56 to 39. Having also won the special election to fill the remainder of Butler's term, several weeks earlier, against token opposition, Wolfenden was able to take his seat in the House of Representatives on November 6, 1928. He would be the tenth person since 1852 to represent the district in Washington.
1st term During his tenure in Congress, he served on the following committees: Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Accounts, Interstate and Foreign Commerce and the Joint Committee on Printing. Some of his activities during his first two terms included serving on a funeral committee for fellow Pennsylvania representative W.W. Griest and introducing bills to increase the pensions of Civil War and Spanish–American War veterans, build an addition to the Veterans Bureau Hospital in Coatesville, remodel a public building in Phoenixville, and survey the Darby River, as Darby Creek was called then. He also had received and noted in the Congressional Record petitions from the West Chester Farmers' Club, Dilworthtown Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and New Century Club of West Chester: all opposing any change in Prohibition.
Congressman Wolfenden generally kept a low profile, in line with McClure's wishes that War Board members keep out of the public spotlight. Less than a year after he took office, the stock market crash occurred in October 1929 and the protracted misery of the Great Depression began for the American people.
One notable vote was his in favor of the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which helped erect a protectionist trade barrier for the United States and was retaliated against by our trading partners, who raised their own tariffs. It is thought by many economists that this tariff helped to worsen the Depression by hurting exports. In 1930, he also cast a pro-labor vote, voting against the Anti-Injunction Act.
As the Great Depression was gaining momentum and Republicans nationally fell out of favor with the public, Wolfenden, bucking the trend, was easily reelected in 1930, beating his Democratic opponent, Harry Wescott by 64,000 votes, 84,521 to 20,443. Widespread discontent, brought on by untold economic suffering and misery, caused the Democrats to make a net gain of 53 House and eight Senate seats. The Republicans clung to a one-vote lead in the Senate, 48 to 47, and two votes in the House, 218 to 216, although the deaths of several GOP members gave the Democrats a majority by the time Congress reorganized several months later.
2nd term After the census of 1930, Pennsylvania's share of congressional seats was reduced from 36 to 34. Evidently, there was very little controversy in the state legislature regarding reapportionment, with the bill being introduced on April 22, 1931, then passed by the House and Senate and signed by the Governor by June 27. Due to its growth in population, Delaware County was separated from Chester County, which shifted into the Tenth congressional district with Lancaster County. Delaware County in its entirety became Pennsylvania's Seventh Congressional District and would remain so for 36 years.
By dividing Pennsylvania's population by the number of House seats it was entitled to, the ideal district size in 1930 was 283,275. Dividing Philadelphia's population by its seven congressional seats, gave each district an average of 278,709, giving it a slight overrepresentation. Delaware County's population of 278,662 made it slightly over-represented, also. In other words, a vote cast in the neighboring Tenth District, with a population of 326,511, carried less weight that a vote cast in Philadelphia for Congress.
The reason for this was political: county lines were rarely, if ever, crossed when the legislature drew up congressional districts. It would not be until the "one man, one vote" ruling of the Supreme Court some 30 years later that this inequality would be rectified.
3rd term By 1932, as Hoover makes effort to ease the widespread economic crisis. It could not arrest the continuing downturn, it was clear that voters were turning to the Democratic nominee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On November 3, there was a massive pre-election GOP rally in Media, attended by 1,500 of the party faithful, which Senator McClure described as "an inspiration".
Governor Arthur James, himself who is not up for election, defended the Hoover record, comparing the latter to Abraham Lincoln, in whom "people had faith and reelected" against great odds during the Civil War. Congressman Wolfenden, who was up for election, however, was only listed as a "guest" at the rally and did not speak, according to the ChesterTimes.
President Hoover carried Delaware County by 75,291 to FDR's 32,413, including the City of Chester by over two to one. In fact, the GOP machine that dominated Pennsylvania for many years was still able to deliver the state for the unpopular Hoover, 1,453,540 to 1,295,948, making it one of the few major industrial states to swing his way.
Wolfenden won by an even larger majority than Hoover, 70,177 to 32,139, in beating Democrat Matthew Randall. The lopsided county registration figures of 134,038 Republicans to only 8,152 Democrats certainly made the task of winning quite difficult for any Democrat.
But, when Wolfenden returned to Washington to serve his third term, he would find many fewer of his Republican colleagues sitting with him. The GOP's ranks in Congress were decimated, the venerable old party having lost no fewer than 101 House seats and twelve Senate seats, in the FDR landslide. That left the House lineup in favor of the Democrats, 313 to 117, with five independents, and 59 to 36 in the Senate.
In 1933, President Roosevelt, in order to try to relieve the widespread misery due to a now unthinkable unemployment rate of 25% that he inherited from the previous Republican administration, began submitting his New Deal legislation to Congress, which had a top-heavy Democratic majority. From 1933 to 1938, Wolfenden voted against most New Deal proposals, with the exception of several major pieces of legislation, such as the constitutional amendment to repeal Prohibition and allow the purchase of liquor (1933), the Relief Act to allocate money to relieve suffering (1933); the Gold Reserve Act, which devalued the dollar taking the U.S. off the gold standard (1934); the Social Security Act (1935); the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a forty-hour work week along with a minimum wage (1938).
Some of the bills he voted against were: the Agriculture Adjustment Act to raise farm prices and distribute surplus food to the needy (1933); the Tennessee Valley Authority to federally fund power development in an area especially hit hard by the Depression (1933), the NIRA to allow employees to collectively bargain without interference, along with banning child labor (1933); the Securities Act to reform the stock market (1934); the Reciprocal Tariff Act (1934), the Tax Bill to raise revenue, mostly from the wealthy (1934). Other bills he opposed were: the Relief Act (1936), the Holding Company Act (1936), the Guffey-Snyder Coal Act to help raise the price of Pennsylvania's coal (1936); the Soil Conservation and Relief Act to reforest land (1938) and federal Crop Insurance (1938).
He also voted for isolationist neutrality legislation and opposed earlier efforts to build up defenses, which also reflected the view of the majority of his party and a large segment of the public.
During this period, Wolfenden served on the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission and also introduced HR164, which was aimed towards "discouraging, preventing, punishing the crime of lynching", one of the most vile manifestations of racial hatred still occurring in the Deep South. With conservative Southern Democrats generally controlling the major committees, there was little chance of civil rights legislation being passed.
4th term In October 1934, the Chester Times rallied behind Congressmen Wolfenden's reelection bid, running a column showing each of his major votes during his third term. They touted the fact that he had voted against 49 New Deal bills and in favor of only 14. Further, it was stated that "several powerful organizations have thrown their support in the coming election" to Wolfenden, such as the Pennsylvania Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Allied Veterans' Association of the United States and four transportation worker brotherhoods. Both groups based their support on his "good record" in Congress. On October 30, Congressman Wolfenden spoke briefly at the annual GOP rally and made some bland remarks, in keeping with his generally low-profile style.