Hugh Scott

This article is about the Pennsylvanian senator, for the U.S. Army Chief of Staff see Hugh L. Scott

Hugh Doggett Scott, Jr. (November 11, 1900 – July 21, 1994) was an American Republican politician from Pennsylvania who served in both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and who also served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Early life

He was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on November 11, 1900 and attended public and private schools. He graduated from Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Va., in 1919 and the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1922; was admitted to the bar in 1922 and commenced practice in Philadelphia, Pa. He is a brother of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity.

During World War I he enrolled in the Student Reserve Officers Training Corps and the Students’ Army Training Corps.

Early career

Scott served as assistant district attorney of Philadelphia, Pa. from 1926-1941 and was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Reform of the Magistrates System (1938-1940). During the Second World War he was on active duty for two years with the United States Navy, rising to the rank of commander.

Political career

An author, Scott was also vice president of the United States Delegation to the Interparlimentary Union. He was elected as a Republican to the Seventy-seventh United States Congress and reelected to the Seventy-eighth United States Congress (January 3, 1941-January 3, 1945). He failed to be reelected in 1944 to the Seventy-ninth United States Congress and resumed the practice of law, serving as Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1948-1949. He then returned to Congress (the 80th) and was reelected to the five succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1947-January 3, 1959), leaving his seat to run for the Senate.

In 1958 Scott was elected to the United States Senate and was twice reelected, in 1964 and again in 1970, and served from January 3, 1959, to January 3, 1977. He was Republican whip in 1969 and minority leader from 1969-1977, serving as Chairman of the Select Committee on Secret and Confidential Documents (Ninety-second Congress).

He did not run for reelection in 1976.

Scott was a resident of Washington, D.C., and later, Falls Church, VA, until his death there on July 21, 1994.

References

• Kotlowski, Dean J. "Unhappily Yoked? Hugh Scott and Richard Nixon." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 2001 125(3): 233-266. ISSN 0031-4587 Abstract: While their different public personas, political interests, and institutional duties led to occasional disagreement, President Richard Nixon and Senate Minority Leader Scott, Jr. were not always unhappily tethered as evidenced by their stances on domestic and foreign issues throughout Nixon's presidency, during 1968-74. While he jousted with Nixon over racial policies and his Supreme Court nominations, including his choice of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr., of South Carolina, Scott supported much of Nixon's domestic agenda, applauded the president's conduct of foreign affairs, backed his Vietnam policy, praised his invasion of Cambodia, publicly proclaimed Nixon's innocence during the Watergate scandal, and endorsed President Gerald Ford's pardon of his predecessor. The Nixon-Scott relationship is notable because it confirms scholars' assumptions about Nixon's hot-and-cold association with Congress and indicates that sparring between moderate Republicans like Nixon and Scott was on its way out.

External link

• Congress.gov biography of Scott

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