Hugh Burton Mitchell was a liberal Democrat who represented Washington state in the United States Senate and House of Representatives during the 1940s and 1950s. His Congressional career was intermittent due to election defeats, but during these decades when he was not in Congress he stayed involved in public policy through lobbying, economic research, and public relations. Mitchell spent much of his time, both in Congress and independently, campaigning for a federal Columbia Valley Authority to manage hydroelectric power, and was heavily involved in other Pacific Northwest development issues.
Mitchell was born in 1907 in Great Falls, Montana, where he grew up, then attended Dartmouth College from 1926 to 1929. After graduation, Mitchell worked as a reporter, first for the Great Falls Ledger, then for the Everett News in 1931.
Mitchell’s Congressional career began in 1933 when he became the executive assistant to Representative Monrad C. Wallgren, whom he stayed with until 1944 when Wallgren became Governor of Washington. When Wallgren resigned from the Senate in January of 1945, Mitchell was appointed to take his place and served for two years, but lost in his 1946 Democratic campaign to retain his seat. As a Senator, Mitchell was involved in legislative attempts to ease the transition to a peacetime economy, and introduced legislation to create a Columbia Valley Authority, modeled on the New Deal’s Tennessee Valley Authority, that would build a series of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River to produce public power. Mitchell’s desire to develop public, rather than private power also manifested itself in his campaign to develop hydroelectric facilities at Hell’s Canyon. Here he pushed for a higher, public dam instead of smaller, private dams. To fund public investment, he advocated a graduated net income tax at State Development. During his Senate tenure, Mitchell served on the following committees: Interstate Commerce, Banking and Currency, National Defense, Investigating, and Mines and Mining.
After losing his Senate election, Mitchell organized the League for Columbia Valley Authority and served as its president, conducting economic research and public relations. During the period from 1947 to 1948 while he served the League, Mitchell also founded Hugh B. Mitchell, Inc., Northwest Development Counsel, which was an industrial development and political consulting firm.
In 1948, Mitchell re-entered Congress when Washington’s first Congressional district (which at the time included most of Kitsap and King counties, including Seattle) elected him to the House of Representatives, then re-elected him in 1950. In the House Mitchell became known as a prolific bill writer, and in 1948, 1949, and 1950 campaigned for a Marshall Plan for Asia. Liberty Magazine cited him as one of its “Ten Honest Politicians” from the 82nd Congress. In the House he was a member of the Rules, Banking and Currency, and Labor and Education committees.
In 1952, Mitchell campaigned unsuccessfully for governor, then lost Congressional races in 1954 and 1958. Smear attacks on Mitchell during the McCarthy era began in 1950 when during the primary campaign a Seattle city council member suggested he was a Communist. His opponent in the 1952 gubernatorial election, Arthur Langlie, also leveled the same charge in what many observers called a dirty campaign. After his Congressional election loss in 1954 which featured more campaign smear tactics, Mitchell sued his opponent, Tom Pelly, for conspiracy to libel. The two settled out of court for $7,500 in what Mitchell called a “moral victory.”
In 1953, after losing his campaign for governor, Mitchell began working for Alaska Van and Storage Company, which was affiliated with Martin Van Lines of Seattle. He also served as a director of two Seattle manufacturing companies, and was the director of the Hell’s Canyon Association. He died in 1996 at the age of 89.
From the guide to the Hugh B. Mitchell papers, 1937-1967, 1945-1952, (University of Washington Libraries Special Collections)
