William E. Dodd Jr.
William Edward Dodd Jr. (August 8, 1905 – October 18, 1952) was an American political activist who ran unsuccessfully for Congress during the 1930s.
While working for the Federal Communications Commission in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1940s, he became the target of an early congressional crusade against alleged communist sympathizers and subversives.
Three years later, his father joined the faculty at the University of Chicago, while retaining his farm in Loudoun County, Virginia.
[9] In 1936, he testified in London in favor of protecting Spain's republican government against attacks from fascist-backed rebels,[10] and in 1937 raised money on behalf of homeless Spanish children of the Basque region.
[13] In 1938, at age 32, Dodd sought the Democratic nomination for Virginia's 8th congressional district, which was directly across the Potomac River from Washington.
[14] The seat was held by four-term incumbent Howard W. Smith, a conservative Democrat on the United States House Committee on Rules who used his position to obstruct parts of the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal agenda.
Senator Harry F. Byrd, who questioned many aspects of the New Deal, from its fiscal policies to support for racial integration.
It was intended to advance his father's Jeffersonian ideals, but it soon came under fire for financing U.S. Week, a periodical written and edited by leftists.
[8] On February 1, 1943, Congressman Martin Dies, then chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, made a speech on the floor of the House that "attacked thirty-nine named government employees as 'irresponsible, unrepresentative, crackpot, radical bureaucrats,' and affiliates of 'Communist front organizations,'"[1] and urged that Congress refuse to appropriate money for their salaries.
Taking testimony in secret, the subcommittee declared that Dodd and two other officials – Robert Morss Lovett and Goodwin B. Watson – were guilty of having engaged in "subversive activity within the definition adopted by the committee," and were therefore "unfit for the present to continue in Government employment."
After several days of debate, the House passed an amendment to the Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act of 1943 providing that, after November 15, 1943, no salary or compensation should be paid to Dodd, Watson or Lovett "out of any monies then or thereafter appropriated except for services as jurors or members of the armed forces, unless they were, prior to November 15, 1943, again appointed to jobs by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.".
Writing for the court, Justice Hugo Black viewed the amendment as more than an appropriations measure, but as one that prohibited the officials from ever holding a government job.
[1] The court held that the amendment was unconstitutional as a bill of attainder, because it took away the life, liberty or property of particularly named persons because Congress thought them guilty of conduct which deserved punishment.
