This university is the second oldest campus and the california system. , inside with us to learn about the life and career of former u. S. Congressman john. John was republican congressman from the columbus, ohio, area for 20 years from 19391958. Andy was within the house of representatives the most influential congressman, republican congressman tom when it came to foreignpolicy matters before, during and particularly after world war ii. John was like physically a big guy. He played football in high school and in college. He was a forceful speaker, something of a table founder. I would imagine from time to time. Table founder. He apparently was an eloquent speaker publicly. People, they talk about his speech patterns in interesting ways. When he was talking to you one on one, or maybe any small to medium setting, he would often start one sentence before he had finished another and it could be hard to follow him. But on the house floor onetime colleague said he had never seen him speak with notes. And he was able to speak not in complete sentences but incomplete paragraphs. He came into congress in 1939 and he was what was known as an isolationist. The states and gone in 1979, three years into the war. President Woodrow Wilson promised we would make the world safe for democracy and 20 years after that war, world war ii started. So for glories of the big lesson from world war ii is we avoid that kind of thing in the future. That is, the lesson prior to world war ii. He gets a seat almost immediately on something called the House Foreign Affairs committee, which was not a highly sought after Committee Assignment prior to world war ii. After world war ii, it will be the most highly sought, the second most highly sought committee for a number of years. But people initially thought he is getting a little prestige Committee Assignment. Within a few months, after he begins his first congressional term, world war ii breaks out in europe. And suddenly the Foreign Affairs committee seems in the middle of everything. And he was one of the leading people in the house of representatives that led the fight against policies of president Franklin D Roosevelt that many people thought would inch the United States into world war ii. In the mid1930s, Congress Passed a series of laws known as the neutrality laws which were designed to keep the United States from blundering into another european war. One of those laws was an arms embargo act. As soon as two nations went to war in europe, the United States would not sell arms or anything related to war to those countries. In early summer of 1939, just as boyd is getting his feet wet in congress, roosevelt asks for a repeal of the arms embargo and he led the fight in the house of representatives against that repeal and one. To the astonishment of everybody. And so thats when the press, the new york times, the coverage starts. He was named in an informal poll by correspondents who covered congress as the outstanding freshman congressman april 19, 1939. The attack on pearl harbor shook him up. It was not something that he had foreseen. And very quickly, within just a few months after pearl harbor, flores and some other conservative republicans start arguing we have to begin to think about the post world war ii period because they were confident the allies would depend and we have to begin thinking about what sort of postwar Foreign Policy could most benefit the United States. And the guiding principle in all that was okay, weve inadvertently, weve gotten involved in two world wars. How do we prevent that from happening . In 1943 he helped to sponsor a congressional resolution known as the fulbright resolution. After senator William Albright of arkansas. This was passed by congress in 1943 and it advocated the United States joining some kind of International Organization either late in the war or right after that would be organized very much like the United Nations after world war i. So here you have this isolationist, or former isolationist now whos arguing basically we need to do league of nations and the United States has to take the lead in organizing that. The other big step that comes to mind is late in the war, at the United States government starts thinking about how do we reconstruct europe after all the damage that has been done to it by world war ii , as a member of the House Foreign Affairs committee he gets very involved in that postwar plan. After the war, in the late 1940s, for these becomes in the house of representatives the most important republican advocate for things like the Marshall Plan which was implemented in 1948 and helped to get western europe back on its feet economically. And he was a very important advocate for membership in the nato, nato. Theres a better way to put that. The cold war started right after the end of world war ii. The Truman Administration adopts something called the truman doctrine in which truman pledged to oppose the spread of communism, really all around the world, particularly in your and 40s again, the former isolationist was a leading republican advocate for that even though truman was a democratic president and they didnt have a lot in common politically, they came to domestic policy but on that he was very important. Voorhees was a house of representatives version of senator Arthur Vandenberg who underwent a similar kind of conversion and became a powerful advocate for a strong and aggressive anticommunist Foreign Policy after world war ii. And so voorhees very much admired vandenberg, they often conferred at times almost on a daily basis when particular important pieces of legislation were being considered so voorhees is the point guy if you will for the Republican Party in the house on those matters. For hes had a very active and influential retirement, i would argue for five or six years after he retired, he went back to dc, to washington, once or twice a year to testify before congressional committees. A number of sitting congressman corresponded with him. At least through the mid1960s. Theres less of that the last two or three years of his life. He also taught parttime at ohio state university, capitaluniversity. He taught Political Science courses, graduate courses i believe. And had none of the luminous correspondence but a business correspondence with a former colleague and political leaders around the country. In particular, newspaperfour. One of the interesting things about voorhees, he was pretty progressive when it came to africanamerican civil rights. He worked with the naacp in the 40s and wrote a couple of antilynching bills area and wrote a bill that would have outlawed the poll tax. None of thats stuff passed at that time but it would eventually. Voorhees died august 25, 1968. He was 72 years old, he had been retired for some 10 years and he suffered from emphysema, was somewhat overweight and i think the accumulation of those things finally caught up with him. I think the way we see the work of 40s when we think of conservatives today, we tend to think of them as very nationalistic. Every flag waving. They tend to be pretty aggressive and in terms of american Foreign Policy. They tend to believe in american exceptionalism. And that wasnt always the case but with conservatives. You know, there was a time before world war ii when conservatives tended to be reluctant to become involved in Foreign Affairs. Isolationism. And i think voorhees contributed to that shift. Its a paradox. Its a very different from what it was a couple of generations ago. I would paired for Something Like the south used to be solidly democratic and now the white house is mostly republican. One of those big shifts that you kind of scratch your head at and do some research to figure out why it happened. Globalism comes from i guess a statement in my conclusion where i talk about 40s, the one time isolationist worried so much about the United States becoming overextended, spending too much money. Exhausting its resources. By the 50s, he was advocating intervention virtually all over the world. He might have wanted to do it in a cheaper way than a lot of democrats who might have been more reluctant to intervene at times but globalism caught up with him. This is book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Heres a look at our primetime lineup. Coming up first at 6 20 p. M. Eastern Craig Shirley recalls Ronald Reagans path to the presidency. At 7 45 eastern, historian and activist Rebecca Feldman officer thoughts on changes occurring within the feminist movement. At 9 pm on the book tvs afterwards, Sheldon Whitehouse weighs in on how corporate money impact the white house. At 10 pm brought pilot reports on some of the us lesserknown Space Operations in the creation of nasa. And at 11 we wrap up our sunday primetime lineup with tom biden and a history of dodge city kansas, once considered one of the most violent towns in the west. It all happens tonight on cspan2s book tv. Our visit to chico california continues with local author