Margaret Madeline (Chase) Smith (1897 - 1995)

Born 14 Dec 1897 in Skowhegan, Somerset, Maine, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Clyde Harold Smith — married 14 May 1930 in Skowhegan, Somerset, Maine, United States

Died 29 May 1995 at age 97 in Skowhegan, Somerset, Maine, United States

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Chrissy Locke [send private message]

Preceded by Wallace H. White Jr.

Margaret Chase Smith US Senator (Class 2) from Maine 1949—1973

Succeeded by William Hathaway

Biography

Margaret Chase (Chase) Smith was a Mainer.

Margaret Chase (Chase) Smith is Notable.

Margaret Madeline Chase Smith (December 14, 1897 – May 29, 1995) served as a U.S Representative (1940–49) and a U.S. Senator (1949–73) from Maine.

She was born 14 December 1897 in Skowgegan, Maine, the daughter of George Chase and Carrie Murray. ^[1]

She married Clyde H. Smith 14 May 1930 in Skowhegan, Maine.^[2]

In 1973, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame ^[3].

She died 29 May 1995 in Skowhegan, Maine, at the age of 97. ^[4] She was cremated; her ashes located at the Margaret Chase Smith Library, Skowhegan, Maine. ^[5]

In 2007, the US Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor. ^[6]

Obituary: The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) - Tuesday, May 30, 1995 ^[7]
"Margaret Chase Smith, congressional pioneer, dies"

Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman to serve in both the House and Senate and a voice of conscience for fellow Republicans when she spoke out against the anti-Communist witch hunts of the 1950s, died Monday. She was 97.

Smith died at her home from complications from a recent stroke, said a spokesman from the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan.

The Lady from Maine, known by her trademark red rose, emerged as one of the most powerful and respected figures in Congress in her three decades there. She sought the Republican nomination for president in 1964.

Smith's knack of mirroring the views of the common people endeared her to voters of both parties. Until her defeat in 1972 by Democrat William Hathaway, voters returned her to Washington with solid majorities.

She got into politics as secretary to her husband, Clyde H. Smith, and won election to his House seat after he died. She served four terms in the House, 1941-49, and four in the Senate, 1949-73.

Smith, a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1967 to 1973, was the first woman elected to the Senate without having been appointed to fill a vacancy and the first Republican woman senator.

In speeches two decades apart, she warned of the threat of extremism from both the left and the right.

Her 1950 declaration of conscience was a repudiation of the smear tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis). Though she didn't mention the anti-Communism crusader by name, she told the Senate it was time to stop character assassination behind the cloak of congressional immunity. Twenty years later, as the nation was being jolted by often-violent student protests against the Vietnam War, Smith delivered a Senate speech updating her declaration.

Extremists, fomenting divisions in American society, are forcing the great center of our people to make a narrow choice between anarchy and repression, she said.

And make no mistake about it, she said, if that narrow choice has to be made, the American people, even if with reluctance and misgiving, will choose repression.

Plain-spoken by nature, Smith also had a wit. In 1952, when asked what she would do if she woke up in the White House, she replied: I'd go straight to Mrs. Truman and apologize. Then I'd go home.

Smith, born in Skowhegan, a central Maine mill town, was the eldest of six children of a barber.

In 1930, she married Clyde Smith, a local businessman 23 years her senior. She became his executive secretary after his election to Congress.

After serving three years, Smith suffered a heart attack. The day before his death in 1940, he asked his constituents to elect his wife as his successor.

Sources

1. ↑ "Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921," database with images, FamilySearch (4 April 2020), Margaret Madeline Chase, 14 Dec 1897; citing Skowhegan, , Maine, United States, multiple sources, Maine; FHL microfilm.
2. ↑ "Maine, Marriage Index, 1892-1966, 1977-1996," database, FamilySearch (27 November 2014), Clyde H Smith and Margaret M Chase, 14 May 1930; citing Marriage, Maine, United States, State Archives, Augusta.
3. ↑ National Women's Hall of Fame, Seneca Falls, N.Y.
4. ↑ Margaret Chase Smith on Wikipedia
5. ↑ Find A Grave: Memorial #7232890.
6. ↑ Women on Stamps: Part 1 / Margaret Chase Smith, Smithsonian National Postal Museum.
7. ↑ Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, Tennessee) 30 May 1995, obit for Margaret Chase Smith, congressional pioneer, dies, GenealogyBank.com (accessed 29 July 2020)

• Margaret Chase Smith on Wikipedia
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• National Park Service, Margaret Chase Smith.