Fred A. Hartley, Jr.

Infobox Congressman
name=Fred A. Hartley, Jr.


width=
state=New Jersey
district=8th and 10th
party=Republican
term=March 1929 - January 1949
preceded=Paul J. Moore and Frederick R. Lehlbach
succeeded=George N. Seger and Peter W. Rodino, Jr.
date of birth= birth date|1902|2|22|mf=y
place of birth= Harrison, New Jersey
date of death= death date and age|1969|5|11|1902|2|22|mf=y
place of death= Linwood, New Jersey
spouse=
current occupation=

Fred Allan Hartley, Jr. (February 22, 1902 - May 11, 1969) was an American Republican Party politician from New Jersey. Hartley served ten terms in the United States House of Representatives where he represented the New Jersey's 8th and New Jersey's 10th congressional districts.cite web
title = Fred A. Hartley, Jr. Profile
publisher = The Political Graveyard
author = Lawrence Kestenbaum
date =
url = http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/harte-hartling.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] He is by far best known for being the House of Representatives sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.cite web
title = Fred Allen Hartley, Jr. Profile
publisher = United States Congress
author =
date =
url = http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000298
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ]

Background

Hartley was born in Harrison, New Jersey on February 22, 1902. After going through the Harrison public schools and Rutgers Preparatory School for high school, Hartley went on to attend Rutgers University. Following his studies in 1923, he successfully ran for the position of library commissioner for Kearny, New Jersey.cite web
title = Fred A. Hartley Biography
publisher =
author = Peter Kennedy
date = 2001
url = http://www.geocities.com/palmercog/sorrow.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] After holding that position for two years, Hartley was named as the police and fire commissioner for Kearny, a position he held until 1928. In that same year, he was nominated as a Republican to run for the United States House of Representatives seat for New Jersey's 8th congressional district. Hartley defeated the incumbent Paul J. Moore in a close election on November 6, 1928.cite web
title = 1920s New Jersey House of Representatives Elections
publisher = The Political Graveyard
author = Lawrence Kestenbaum
date =
url = http://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/NJ/ofc/usrep1920s.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] The final vote count in the election was 64,915 votes for Hartley and 64,594 for Moore, making the margin of defeat a slim 0.2%. [cite book |editor=John L. Moore |others= |title=Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections|edition= 3rd |year= 1994 |publisher=Congressional Quarterly |location=Washington, D.C. |id=0-87187-996-4 |pages=1543 pg. 1161]

Politics

Hartley was sworn in at age twenty-seven as the youngest member of the 71st United States Congress on March 4, 1929. Hartley was again challenged by Paul J. Moore in the 1930 House elections for the seat in New Jersey's 8th district. In another close race, Hartley beat out Moore, capturing 44,038 votes, or 50.4% of the vote, in comparison to 43,195 votes (or 49.4%) of the vote for Moore. [Moore (1994), pg. 1166]

He was one of a relatively small number of Republicans to hold their seats throughout the Great Depression and World War II. In the 1932 election, he defeated William W. Harrison for the House seat in New Jersey's 10th congressional district. [Moore (1994), pg. 1171] and in the 1934 he beat William Herda Smith [Moore (1994), pg. 1176] . Hartley had another close race in 1936, in which he beat out Democratic challenger Lindsay H. Rudd in a close 50.2%-49.6% race. [Moore (1994), pg. 1181] Hartley soundly defeated Rudd again in 1938, [Moore (1994), pg. 1186] and won re-election in 1940 against William W. Holmwood [Moore (1994), pg. 1191] , in 1942 against Frederic Bigelow, [Moore (1994), pg. 1196] in 1944 against Luke A. Kiernan, Jr., [Moore (1994), pg. 1201] and in 1946 against his future successor Peter W. Rodino, Jr. [Moore (1994), pg. 1206]

Taft-Hartley

Hartley found the level of postwar labor unrest to be very disturbing, and felt that it threatened both economic and political stability. In 1946, the Republicans returned their first majority in both houses of Congress since the 1928 election in which Hartley was first elected. [cite web
title = 1946 Midterm Gives GOP First Majority Since 1928 Elections
publisher = Ashland University
author = Andrew E. Busch
month = June | year = 2006
url = http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/busch/06/1946.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ]

With his party in the majority, Hartley served as the Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor in the 80th United States Congress. Along with United States Senator Robert Taft who was Chairman of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee, [cite web
title = Robert Alphonso Taft Biography
publisher = United States Congress
author =
date =
url = http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=T000009
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] the next year he introduced legislation to curb what he felt were the worst of labor's excesses. The resultant Taft-Hartley Act was a major revision of the 1935 Wagner Act (officially known as the National Labor Relations Act) and represented the first major revision of a New Deal act passed by the post-war Congress.cite web
title = How Did the Taft-Hartley Act Come About?
publisher =
author = Steven Wagner
date = October 14, 2002
url = http://hnn.us/articles/1036.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] The act would provide limits on labor tactics such as the secondary boycott, and gave each state the option to enact right-to-work laws if it so chose (21 states in the Deep South, Midwest and Mountain West have done so [cite web
title = Right to work Under Siege
publisher = "Nevada Journal"
author = D. Dowd Muska
date =
url = http://nj.npri.org/nj97/07/coverstory.htm
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] ). This provision, known as Section 14 (b), was one of the most controversial of the entire act. [cite web
title = Right-to-work law
publisher = The Gale Group, Inc.
author =
year = 1998
url = http://www.answers.com/topic/right-to-work-laws#Legal_Encyclopedia
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ]

President Harry S. Truman vetoed the Act, but enough Democrats joined with the Republicans to override the Presidential veto on June 23, 1947. [cite web
title = How Many Democrats Voted for Taft-Hartley?
publisher = Counterpunch
author = Alexander Cockburn
date = September 6, 2004
url = http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09062004.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] It is in the platform of all major U.S. labor unions to call for the repeal of the Act, especially Section 14 (b), and at times this has been reflected in the platform of the Democratic Party. However, the only time this has ever seemed likely was when the Democrats had a huge majority in both houses of Congress following the Republican electoral disaster of 1964. Even then, the repeal bill passed 221-203 in the House, but 2/3 necessary in the Senate was never achieved because of long filibustering by Republicans like then-Minority leader Everett Dirksen. [cite web
title = Squaring Off Over 14(b)
publisher = "Time Magazine"
author =
date = October 1, 1965
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,834404-1,00.html
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] cite web
title = Right to Work: A Winning Issue
publisher = National Institute for Labor Relations Research
author =
date =
url = http://www.nilrr.org/RTWwinningissue.htm
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ] Labor allies failed to break the filibuster, and the repeal bill was finally put to rest by the Montana Democrat Majority leader, Mike Mansfield, on February 10, 1966.

Hartley did not seek any further election to Congress following the term in which the Act which bears his name was passed, and his service concluded on January 3, 1949.

Later life

Hartley ran unsuccessfully for one of the two New Jersey senatorial seats in 1954 and he returned to New Jersey and lived for fifteen more years as a business consultant, seeing the Act withstand its toughest test and remain intact.

He died in Linwood, New Jersey, and was buried in Fairmount Cemetery, in Newark.

References

External links

*CongBio|H000298
* [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/harte-hartling.html The Political Graveyard on Fred A. Hartley, Jr.]

Persondata
NAME= Hartley, Fred Allan, Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American politician
DATE OF BIRTH=February 22 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH=Harrison, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH=May 11 1969
PLACE OF DEATH=Linwood, New Jersey