Pattangall lost, but Brewster was also accused of Klan sympathies from within his own party, most notably by former Maine governor and fellow Republican Percival P. Baxter.

Republican Arthur R. Gould won anyway after running on an anti-Klan campaign, signaling the limits of the Klan's power in Maine politics.

In 1932, he was defeated for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, after a bitterly fought campaign against Democrat John G. Utterback from Bangor where Brewster also had a law office.

During his time in Congress, Brewster worked on legislation to provide old-age pensions (the forerunner of Social Security) although he was a prominent opponent of welfare and spending programs in President Roosevelt's New Deal.

Brewster played a role in defeating the signature New Deal project in his own district of Maine, a multibillion-dollar tidal power development planned for Passamaquoddy Bay.

In 1935, however, he publicly accused a New Deal attorney, Thomas Corcoran, of threatening to kill the project unless Brewster favored the administration on a related vote reining in private utilities.

In the town of Lubec, adjacent to the development site, a crowd of over 200 hung Brewster in effigy with a sign around his neck reading "our double-crossing Congressman.

Brewster came to national attention due to his opposition to the commercial interests of Howard Hughes, America's wealthiest person at the time.

Memoirs by Hughes's right-hand man Noah Dietrich and syndicated newspaper columnist Jack Anderson each sketched Brewster as, in Dietrich's words, "an errand boy for Juan Trippe and Pan American World Airways," who pushed for legislation that would give Pan Am the single-carrier international air monopoly for the U.S.

The Martin Scorsese movie The Aviator portrays Brewster (played by Alan Alda) similarly, as corrupt and in the pocket of Pan Am, the rival of Hughes' TWA.

"[8][9] In 1952, Hughes worked hard to ensure Brewster's political demise, persuading the then-Governor of Maine, Frederick G. Payne, to challenge him in the Republican primary.

He was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Dexter, Maine where his home, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was converted to the Brewster Inn, a bed and breakfast.

Alda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, but lost to Morgan Freeman for Million Dollar Baby.