Martin Dies, Jr.

Many Texans played prominent roles in national political events of the twentieth century. From Edward M. House, chief advisor to President Woodrow Wilson, and continuing with John Nance Garner, Sam Rayburn, Lyndon Johnson, Barbara Jordan, and others, right up to and including George W. Bush, the influence of Texas politicians has been immense. East Texas' own Martin Dies, Jr., was another such influential figure in American political history.

Martin Dies, Jr., was born on November 5, 1900, in Colorado City in West Texas, to Olive and Martin Dies, Sr., who soon thereafter was elected to congress from Texas' Second District. Martin, Jr., attended school in Virginia while his father served in Washington, then graduated from Beaumont High School after the family returned to Texas. After receiving a law degree from National University (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., he joined his father in practicing law in Texas, first in Marshall and then in Orange.

In 1930 young Dies was himself elected to represent the Second Congressional District of Texas in Congress. At age thirty he was the youngest member of the House of Representatives. A Democrat like his father, Dies was an early supporter of the New Deal before turning against the program-as did the majority of Texas Democrats-in 1937.

Dies achieved notoriety in 1938 when he became the first chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, a new body organized to investigate and expose communist subversion in the United States. The Dies Committee, as it was called, invited testimony from anyone with accusations to make, and soon both the committee and its chairman earned reputations for overzealousness and extremism.

After a failed campaign for the United States Senate in 1941, Dies returned to his committee chairmanship and led an investigation into the allegedly subversive practices of labor unions. After attracting coordinated opposition to his reelection in 1944 from these same unions, Dies retired from politics and established a law practice in Lufkin, where he and his wife, Myrtle Adams Dies, and their three sons then lived.

Dies returned to politics in 1952 amid a fresh wave of anti-communist hysteria. The McCarthy years were in full flower, and accusations of communist infiltration throughout all levels of government ran rampant. Dies wished to assume once again his chairmanship of the HUAC, but was rebuffed by party leaders who believed him to be too ardent in his pursuit of subversives. In 1957 he again ran for a Senate seat, but failed in the face of concerted opposition from Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, both of whom believed Dies to be too conservative to win.

In 1958 Dies retired from politics permanently. He never stopped trying to convince Americans that danger loomed in the form of communism, however. After resuming his law practice in Lufkin, Dies wrote an autobiography as well as numerous articles warning Americans that communism remained a threat to the welfare of our nation. Many of these articles were published in American Opinion, a conservative periodical of the 1960s, and were popular among Cold War conservatives.

Martin Dies, Jr., died in Lufkin on November 14, 1972, and was buried in Garden of Memories Mausoleum. To get there, take Hwy. 59 to Lufkin to East Loop 287 and exit at Chestnut. Go north toward town; the cemetery is on the left side about three blocks down.

For more information about Martin Dies, Jr., see his autobiography, Martin Dies' Story (New York, 1963), or The New Handbook of Texas. To learn more about East Texas history, contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.