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24 CURRENT BIOGRAPHY [[image: photo of a man in suit and tie sitting a desk]] [[caption: HARRY F. BYRD]] [[photo credit: Wide World]] early critic of the... New Deal" (Saturday Evening Post, January 7, 1950). Between 1933 and 1940, when he was re-elected without opposition to a second full term in the Senate, Byrd opposed a number of measures urged by Roosevelt such as the National Recovery Act and the agricultural aid program. In October 1941 he was named chairman of the Rules Committee and of the new Joint Committee on Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures and has remained in the latter post during his entire career in the Senate under both Democratic and Republican control. In an article in the Reader's Digest (November 1941) Byrd assailed Roosevelt's defense program as a "failure" and recommended the banning of all strikes in defense industries and a complete reorganization of "administration defense machinery." At the Democratic National Convention of 1944 Byrd was a candidate for the Democratic nomination and received eighty-nine votes. In the first session of the Seventy-ninth Congress (1945) Senator Byrd opposed the confirmation of Henry A. Wallace as Secretary of Commerce (March), a $250,000 appropriation for the Fair Employment Practice Committee (June) and easing the excess profits tax (July). He voted for extending the Trade Agreements Act to 1948 (June), the Bretton Woods Agreement Bill (July) and ratification of the United Nations Charter (July). During the 1946 session Byrd voted "yea" in regard to the Case strike control bill (May), making labor unions legally responsible for breach of contract May) and subjecting labor activities to the provisions of the antiracketeering law (May). He voted "nay" on the following issues: raising the minimum wage (April) and a $3.7 billion loan to Great Britain (May). When Senator Byrd sought nomination for a third full Senate term in 1946, he was confronted with his first opposition in the Virginia Democratic primaries in twenty-four years. However, he was able to defeat his labor-endorsed adversary, Martin A. Hutchinson, by 140,000 to 81,000 votes. He was re-elected in the general election of November 5, 1946. In the following session (1947) he voted for banning portal-to-portal pay suits (March), limiting the Presidency to two terms (March), and overriding the Presidential veto of the Taft-Hartley bill (June). In foreign affairs he cast his vote against the Greek-Turkish aid bill (April). The Senator was appointed in 1947 to assist the Hoover Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government. During the 1948 session Byrd was against the European Recovery Program (Marshall Plan) in March. He opposed a motion providing that no Federal funds should be disbursed in any state for the support of any sectarian school (March), the Federal aid to education bill (May), and admitting 200,000 displaced persons (May). He favored overriding the Presidential veto on exempting the railroads from antitrust laws (June). On December 8, 1949 Byrd proposed that the fiscal 1951 budget be held to $36 billion to avert "national insolvency," and suggested discharging about 250,000 of the Government's 1,000,000 civilian employees. His 1949 roll call votes indicate that he favored school aid for low income states only (May) and the North Atlantic Security Pact (July). However, he was one of twenty-one Senators who were for a reservation denying any pledge to give military supplies, including the atom bomb, to NATO nations (July). He was against forbidding segregation in public housing (April), using Economic Cooperation Administration funds to absorb farm surpluses (August), the foreign military aid bill (September), and extending 90 per cent farm price supports indefinitely (October). Senator Byrd in 1950 was recorded against a $45,000,000 appropriation for the Point IV program (May) and a $100,000,000 loan to Spain (August). He was in favor of overriding the President's veto of the Communist control bill (September). In the 1951 session he cast affirmative votes to forbid the sending of further troops to Europe without the consent of Congress (April) and to prohibit assistance to any country allowing shipments of arms or ammunition to the Soviet bloc (August). In the 1952 session he endorsed the offshore oil bill (April), abolition of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (April), extension of the Defense Production Act (June), overriding the Presidential veto of the Walter-McCarran immigration bill (June), and the fair trade bill (July). The Senate adopted by a vote of 49 to 30 on June 10, 1952 a proposal by Byrd requesting the President to use the national-emergency provisions of the Taft-Hartley act to halt the strike of the United Steelworkers of America. The House joined the request by a vote of 288 to 164 on June 26. Running for a fourth full Senate term in 1952, Byrd defeated Colonel Francis Pickens Miller in the Democratic primary election of
