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Patrick Anthony McCarran
by Yolande Jacobson
Pat McCarran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Patrick Anthony McCarran (August 8, 1876 – September 28, 1954) was a Democratic United States Senator from Nevada from 1933 until 1954. McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, attended the Nevada State University, and was a farmer and rancher. In 1902 he won election to the Nevada Assembly, but in 1904 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Nevada State Senate. He completed private law studies and was admitted to the bar in 1905; in 1906 he won election as Nye County's district attorney. He served a two-year term, after which he relocated to Reno.
From 1913 to 1917, McCarran was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, and he served as chief justice from 1917 to 1919. In 1932 McCarran defeated Republican incumbent Tasker Oddie for Nevada's Class 3 Senate seat to become the state's first U.S. Senator born in Nevada; he was reelected three times, and served from 1933 until his death. In his Senate career, McCarran served as chairman of the District of Columbia, Judiciary, and Joint Foreign Economic Cooperation Committees. He died in Hawthorne, Nevada and was buried in Reno.
McCarran is remembered as one of the few Democrats to reject the New Deal. In addition, he was a proponent of the aviation industry; he was a sponsor of the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, and was a proponent of establishing the United States Air Force as a separate entity from the Army. McCarran was also an ardent anti-Communist, to the point of supporting fascists including Francisco Franco as a way to prevent its spread. |