Horace Jeremiah "Jerry" Voorhis (April 6, 1901 – September 11, 1984) was an American politician and educator from California who served five terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1947.

After being re-elected by comfortable margins four times, he faced Nixon in 1946 in a bitter campaign in which Voorhis's supposed endorsement by groups linked to the Communist Party was made into a major issue.

[1] Voorhis was elected as a member of Phi Beta Kappa,[5] was president of the Christian Association, and was greatly influenced by the Social Gospel movement.

[7] While attending Yale, he came to believe that "the Christian Gospel is to be taken seriously, and that needless poverty and suffering on the one hand and special privilege and inordinate power on the other are entirely contrary to its precepts".

[8] He later stated that he lacked the faith in his own judgment to leave Yale and get a job in "the real world [which] lay beyond the college walls".

[9] However, once he graduated, Voorhis engaged a room at a boarding house and went to work as a receiving clerk, a job he soon exchanged for one as a freight handler.

In Kenosha, he met a social worker named Alice Louise Livingston and married her on November 27, 1924, in her hometown of Washington, Iowa.

[12] Resuming his blue-collar career after his marriage, Voorhis moved to North Carolina with his wife and went to work in a Ford plant in Charlotte until being offered work as a teacher in an Illinois school for underprivileged boys, teaching three grades, coaching sports, and giving religious talks in the school's chapel each morning.

[14] In 1928, he founded and became headmaster of the Voorhis School for Boys in San Dimas, California, a post he retained after his election to Congress.

[1] In addition to academic tutelage, the Voorhis School's boys received training in farming, mechanical work, and other manual vocations.

[23] While this effort was unsuccessful,[24] Congress, faced with an economic downturn the following year, increased WPA spending beyond the level which Voorhis had sought.

[30] In early November 1939, however, Voorhis announced his support for repealing the arms embargo mandated by the Act, at the same time urging that the country remain neutral.

[33] Once war was declared, Voorhis supported the internment of Japanese-Americans, though he suggested that the evacuations be done in as voluntary a manner as possible and that officials be appointed to administer their property to avoid forced sales at bargain prices.

The Washington Post hailed him as a hero, and House Naval Affairs Committee Chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia stated that Voorhis had performed "the greatest kind of service".

[36] However, the Los Angeles Times suggested that Voorhis had harmed the war effort by depriving the people of California of gasoline.

[39] He sponsored the Voorhis Act of 1940, which required political organizations which were controlled by a foreign power or which engaged in military activities to subvert the American government to register with the Justice Department.

Voorhis also served as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee[22] (HUAC) though Time magazine stated he could be "counted upon ... to temper rightist blasts for leftist lambs".

"[39] Voorhis would make five-minute speeches in the House of Representatives at any opportunity, on matters ranging from local concerns in his district to international monetary issues.

Elected as part of the Roosevelt landslide of 1936, in 1938 he faced an opponent so shy that Voorhis had to introduce him to the crowd at a joint appearance.

In 1940, he faced a military school principal, and his 1942 opponent, radio preacher and former Prohibition Party gubernatorial candidate Robert P. Shuler, "even embarrassed GOP regulars".

[48] Voorhis's time was further limited when, while en route to California from Washington D.C. in August, he was forced to have surgery for hemorrhoids in Ogden, Utah.

Political Action Committee, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), its Communist principles, and its gigantic slush fund.

"[51] Voorhis's supposed involvement with and endorsement by the CIO-PAC, which was believed to be a Communist front organization, was a major issue in the campaign.

[54] Nixon defeated Voorhis by over 15,000 votes, and Time magazine praised the future president for "politely avoid[ing] personal attacks on his opponent".

"[55] In his 1947 book, Confessions of a Congressman, Voorhis attributed his defeat to tremendous amounts of money supposedly spent by the Nixon forces.

Voorhis's final letter as a congressman, on December 31, was to his father, who had been his political adviser throughout his congressional career, "It has been primarily due to your help, your confidence, your advice ... above all to a feeling I have always had that your hand was on my shoulder.

[61] Nixon, facing no opposition in the Republican primary, entered and won the Democratic poll, eliminating Zetterberg from the race and ensuring his re-election.

[61] In 1954, the former congressman led the U.S. delegation to the International Cooperative Alliance congress in Paris, successfully opposing Soviet plans to give greater representation to Eastern European countries, which was seen as a means of eventual communist control of the organization.

Hiss's participation led to such an uproar that sponsors pulled back from underwriting the program, and News and Comment left the air in the spring of 1963.

[15] His activities ranged from the California Commission on Aging (appointed by Governor Jerry Brown) to working as a teacher's aide to Tom Hayden's Campaign for Economic Democracy.