Strength and Determination

Margaret Chase was born in Skowhegan, Maine and was the eldest of six children. Both parents were immigrants, her father with English ancestry and her mother was French Canadian. Her family had a sense of civic duty, with both grandfather and great grandfather serving in the military. Her father was the town barber and her mother worked as a waitress, store clerk, and shoe factory worker. 

At age twelve, Margaret worked at a local five and dime store. She shaved her father’s customers in the Barber shop when he was busy or away from the shop. During high school, she played on the girls’ basketball team, becoming a captain in her senior year. Margaret, always industrious, also worked as a telephone operator. It was while working as an operator that she met Clyde Smith, a prominent local politician. Clyde recommended her for a part-time position as the tax assessor’s assistant, and she got the job. 

Following her high school graduation, Margaret taught at a one room school near Skowhegan and she also coached the girls’ basketball team at the local high school. By now, she had moved up in the Maine Telephone and Telegraph Company as a business executive. A few years later, she joined the Independent Reporter’s staff as a circulation manager. This was a weekly newspaper which was owned by Clyde Smith. In 1922 Margaret founded the Skowhegan chapter of the Business and Professional Woman’s Club, where she served as the editor to the club’s magazine. 

More than a working relationship had developed between Margaret and Clyde Smith, and the two were married on May 14, 1930. Clyde was twenty-one years her senior. Margaret soon became involved in Maine politics serving for six years on the Maine Republican State Committee. Voters elected Clyde to the U.S. House of Representatives, Maine’s 2nd congressional district, in 1936. Margaret accompanied her husband to Washington, serving as his secretary and office manager. She handled all his correspondence, did research, and helped with his speech writing. 

Clyde became seriously ill after suffering a heart attach in the spring 1940, and he asked Margaret to run for his House seat in the general election that September. “I know of no one else who has the full knowledge of my ideas and plans or is as well qualified as she is to carry on these ideas and my unfinished work for my district.” Clyde died on April the 8th of that year and on June 3rd there was a special election to fill his unexpired term. Margaret threw her hit into the ring.There was no Democratic challenger and she won the election, making her the first woman elected to Congress from the state of Maine. In the general election three months later, she won the full two-year term, defeating Edward J. Beauchamp, the Democratic mayor of Lewiston, 65-35%. Margaret secured reelection for three more terms over the next eight years, consistently receiving at least 60% of the vote. 

While in the House, Margaret focused on issues concerning the military and national security. In 1943, the House appointed her to the Naval Committee, where she led an investigation of destroyer production. Another first for Margaret, she became the first and only civilian woman to sail on a U.S. Margaret achieved another first by sailing on a U.S. Navy ship during World War II, becoming the first and only civilian woman to do so. Her introduction of a bill supporting WAVES earned her the fond nickname “The Mother of WAVES”. (During World War II, WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, was the women’s branch of the US Navy’s Naval Reserve. Established in 1942, it allowed women to serve in non-combat roles in the Navy, primarily to free up men for combat duty at sea. WAVES members held the same rank and ratings as male personnel and were subject to the same military discipline.)  

In August 1947, after serving three terms, incumbent Wallace H. White, Jr., retired. Margaret announced her candidacy for this seat in the U.S. Senate facing Horace Hildreth and Reverend Albion Beverage in the primary. She ran a grassroots campaign with very little funding. The wife of one of her opponents asked her whether would really be a good idea for a woman to be a senator. Margaret replied, “Women administer the home. They set the rules, enforce them, mete out justice for violations. Thus, like Congress, they legislate; like the Executive they administer; like the courts, they interpret the rules. It is an ideal experience for politics.”

On June 21, 1948, Margaret won the primary election, receiving more votes than all of her opponents combined. In the general election in September, she defeated the Democratic candidate, Adrian Colten by a margin of 71-29%. This making Margaret Chase Smith the first woman to represent Maine in the Senate and the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress. 

On January 3, 1949, Margaret was sworn into the Senate, gaining notoriety in her first year as the first member of Congress to condemn the anti-Communist witch hunt led by fellow Republican, Senator Joseph McCarthy. She opposed the tactics being used by members of her party and spoke out, saying, “As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”

McCarthy responded to her opposition by removing her as a member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and gave her seat to Senator Richard Nixon. McCarthy also helped finance a challenger during Margaret’s campaign for re-election in 1954. She handily won the election saying, “If I am to be remembered in history, it will not be because of legislative accomplishments, but for an act I took as a legislator in the U.S. Senate when on June 1, 1950, I spoke ... in condemnation of McCarthyism, when the junior Senator from Wisconsin had the Senate paralyzed with fear that he would purge any Senator who disagreed with him.” Margaret Chase Smith also voted of McCarthy’s census in 1954.

Among her many other accomplishments, Margaret was commissioned to lieutenant colonel in the Air Force Reserve, mentioned as a vice-presidential candidate under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1957, she was the first woman in Congress to break the sound barrier as a passenger in an F-100 Super Sabre.

On January 27, 1964, Margaret Chase Smith announced her candidacy for President of the United States, declaring,”I have few illusions and no money, but I’m staying for the finish. When people keep telling you you can’t do a thing, you kind of like to try.” She was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for presidency at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

Margaret Chase Smith served her country well over decades and became somewhat of a legend. There is so much more to her illustrative life. Her numerous award and accolades are part of her legacy. We must not forget these strong and determined women who served our country with such dedication and tenacity.