D'Ewart, Wesley Abner, 1889-1973

Wesley A. D'Ewart was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on October 1, 1889. He attended the public schools of Massachusetts and Washington State College in Pullman, Washington. He later moved to the Wilsall, Montana area and worked for the Forest Service and in ranching. In 1936, D'Ewart was elected to the Montana House of Representatives and then to the to the State Senate in 1940. In 1945, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives by special election, representing Montana's Eastern District. He took the seat vacated due to the death of Representative James F. O'Connor. D'Ewart was reelected to 4 succeeding Congresses but failed to win a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1954. D'Ewart was an avowed opponent of Socialism and Communism from his earliest political campaigns. In the early 1950s, he supported U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade. In 1954, D'Ewart unsuccessfully campaigned for the U.S. Senate seat held by Montana's Democratic U.S. Senator, James Murray. D'Ewart delivered speeches linking Sen. Murray with the Communist movement. The Montana for D'Ewart Committee compiled and published a booklet entitled "Senator Murray and the Red Web Over Congress." D'Ewart served as Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. from January 1955 to September 1955. He then took the post of Assistant Secretary of the Interior until July 1956, when the Senate Committee on the Interior declined to re-approve him, largely due to partisan efforts against him. D'Ewart's anti-Communist campaign against Senator James Murray for the U.S. Senate had angered both Murray and the Democratic Party. The controversy over D'Ewart's nomination for Ass. Sec. of the Interior generated a great deal of coverage and correspondence. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson appointed D'Ewart to the position of Special Representative to the Secretary of Agriculture from August 1956 to October 1958. D'Ewart continued to be deeply involved in land and water issues during his retirement from political life. He was a serious follower of Montana elections from 1936 to the 1970s and took an active role in Republican politics, not only as a political candidate, but as a Republican Party activist and strategist.

From the guide to the Wesley A. D'Ewart Papers, 1936-1973, (Montana State University-Bozeman Library, Merrill G Burlingame Special Collections)

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