Margaret Chase Smith - U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. House of Representatives

In the spring of 1940, Clyde Smith fell seriously ill after suffering a heart attack, and asked his wife to run for his House seat in the general election the following September. He prepared a press release in which he stated, "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." He died on April 8 of that year, and a special election was scheduled on the following June 3 to complete his unexpired term. Facing no Democratic challenger, Smith won the special election and became the first woman elected to Congress from Maine. Three months after the special election, she was elected to a full two-year term in the House in her own right. Smith defeated Edward J. Beauchamp, the Democratic mayor of Lewiston, by a margin of 65%-35%. She was re-elected to three more terms over the course of the next eight years, never receiving less than 60% of the vote.

During her tenure in the House, Smith developed a strong interest in issues concerning the military and national security. After being appointed to the House Naval Affairs Committee in 1943, she was assigned to the investigation of destroyer production, and made a 25,000-mile tour of bases in the South Pacific during the winter of 1944. She also became the first and only civilian woman to sail on a Navy ship during World War II. She became known as "Mother of the WAVES" after introducing legislation to create that organization. A supporter of President Harry S. Truman's foreign policies, she was mentioned as a possible candidate for Under Secretary of the Navy in 1945 and for Assistant Secretary of State in 1947. Smith became a member of the House Armed Services Committee in 1946, also serving as chair of its Subcommittee on Hospitalization and Medicine. In this position, she sponsored and ensured the passage of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, a bill to regularize the status of women in the armed forces that was signed into law by President Truman in June 1948.

Smith also earned a reputation as moderate Republican who often broke ranks with her party. She supported much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, as had her husband while he was in office. She voted in favor of the Selective Service Act in 1940, and voted against the Smith–Connally Act in 1943. In 1945, she voted against making the House Un-American Activities Committee a permanent body.

As a member of the House, Smith began wearing a single red rose that became a daily fixture of her attire throughout her career in public office. She waged a long campaign to have the rose declared the official flower of the United States, which Congress eventually approved in 1987.