Harry P. Cain

Harry Pulliam Cain (January 10 1906 – March 3 1979) was an American Senator from Washington who served as a Republican.

Early life

Cain was born in Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee. He moved with his parents to Tacoma, Pierce County Washington in 1911, where he attended the public schools and Hill Military Academy at Portland, Oregon. He graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee in 1929. Afterwards he pursued graduate study in England and Germany, worked in newspapers Portland, Oregon from 1924-1925, and in the banking business at Tacoma, Washington from 1929 to 1939. He was elected mayor of Tacoma, Washington, in 1940, and again in 1942 for a four-year term.

Military life

He took a leave of absence from being mayor in May 1943 to enter the United States Army as a major, in which he served in the European theater of World War II in 1943-1945.

Political life

After the war, he resumed his duties as mayor of Tacoma until June 15, 1946, when he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on November 5, 1946. He was subsequently appointed on December 26, 1946, to fill the vacancy in the term ending January 3, 1947, caused by the resignation of Hugh B. Mitchell, and served from December 26, 1946, to January 3, 1953, when he was unsuccessful in his candidacy for reelection in 1952. He became a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board, Washington, D.C., in 1953-1956. In 1957 he moved to Miami Lakes, Florida where he resumed banking business and civic work. He died in Florida on March 3, 1979. He was cremated, and had his ashes scattered on a golf course in Bethesda, Maryland.

In 1957 he testified at Arthur Miller's trial for contempt of Congress. He was Miller's 'expert witness on communism' and he testified that he 'did not believe' that Miller had written his plays 'under the discipline of the Communist Party'. It was unusual as normally only the government produced 'expert testimony' to demonstrate that the defendant was a Communist.

References

* [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000021 Congressional Biography]
* Timebends by Arthur Miller p. 452

External links

* [http://www.washingtonhistory.org/wshs/research/finding_aids.htm] provides finding aid to article subject from the Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society (WSHS)