John E. Rankin

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John E. Rankin bigraphy, stories - Lawyer and politician

John E. Rankin : biography

March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960

John Elliott Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a Democratic congressman from the U.S. State of Mississippi who supported racial segregation and, on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, voiced racist views on African Americans, Jews, and the Japanese, even accusing Albert Einstein of being a communist agitator.

In 1944, following the Port Chicago disaster, the U.S. Navy asked Congress to give $5,000 to the victim’s families. However Rankin insisted the amount be reduced to $2,000 when he learned most of the dead were black sailors, which caused the amount to be negotiated at $3,000.Allen, The Port Chicago Mutiny, 67.

Political career

Election to Congress

In 1920, he was elected to the House as a Democrat. He served sixteen consecutive terms (March 4, 1921 – January 3, 1953) as Mississippi’s First District Representative.

Rankin co-authored the bill to create the Tennessee Valley Authority and was a supporter of the Rural Electrification Administration. He was a sponsor of Edith Nourse Rogers’ Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (also known as the G. I. Bill of Rights). He was a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and advocated economic intervention in poor rural communities. He opposed the creation of the UN, stating "The United Nations is the greatest fraud in all History. Its purpose is to destroy the United States." He supported racial segregation and opposed civil rights legislation.Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson & His Times, 1908-1960 Dallek, R (OUP, 1991) ISBN 0-19-505435-0 p. 505. During World War II, Rankin alleged that the US Army’s loss of a certain battle was due to the cowardice of black soldiers. Fellow Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas replied that many black soldiers had been decorated for bravery despite serving in a segregated Army.Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate Caro, R (New York, Knopf, 2002) ISBN 0-394-52836-0 p. 346. When African American Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was elected to Congress in 1945, Rankin vowed to never sit next to him.

Chairmanships

Rankin chaired the Committee on World War Veterans’ Legislation (Seventy-second through Seventy-ninth Congresses1931 to 1947: Encyclopaedia Britannica 1955 Vol 22 p. 845.) and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses1949 to 1953 Britannia (Ibid)).

House Un-American Activities Committee

Rankin was a leading member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He was active in probing the Communist Party, USA and the German-American Bund, but was criticized for failing to investigate violence and murder perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan. After HUAC’s chief counsel Ernest Adamson announced: "The committee has decided that it lacks sufficient data on which to base a probe," Rankin added: "After all, the KKK is an old American institution.".Inside U.S.A. Gunther, J (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1947 p. 789)

Bigotry

American Jews

Rankin was anti-Semitic. William L. Strickland, professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Amherst says "Rankin was an equal opportunity bigot", he once called the Jewish newspaper columnist Walter Winchell ‘the little kike’."Black Commentator March 26, 2009 Issue 317http://blackcommentator.com/317/317_cover_du_boiss_revenge_strictland_ed_bd_printer_friendly.html The moment was referenced in the 1947 Academy Award winning film, Gentleman’s Agreement, which focuses on the topic of antisemitism.

Rankin claimed that the Immigration and Nationality Act was opposed solely by American Jews:

They whine about discrimination. Do you know who is being discriminated against? The white Christian people of America, the ones who created this nation… I am talking about the white Christian people of the North as well as the South… Communism is racial. A racial minority seized control in Russia and in all her satellite countries, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and many other countries I could name. They have been run out of practically every country in Europe in the years gone by, and if they keep stirring race trouble in this country and trying to force their communistic program on the Christian people of America, there is no telling what will happen to them here.(Cong. Rec., April 23, 1952, p. 4320).