Byrnes, James F.

James F. Byrnes

Born May 2, 1879

Charleston, South Carolina

Died April 9, 1972

Columbia, South Carolina

Secretary of state, U.S. senator, Supreme Court justice, governor

One of the few Americans to serve in all three branches of the federal government—as U.S. congressman and senator, Supreme Court justice, and secretary of state—James F. Byrnes became known as "assistant president on the home front" during World War II (1939–45). To guide wartime home front economic activities, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45; see entry) assigned Byrnes more powers than ever held by a public official. He was clearly one of the most powerful men in Washington through much of the 1940s.

Humble beginnings

James Francis Byrnes was born in Charleston, South Carolina, to Irish immigrants. His official birth date is listed as May 2, 1879, though he was actually born on May 2, 1882. He changed his birth date so he could apply for work early in life. His father, a city clerk, died weeks before he was born, of tuberculosis at age twenty-six. His mother, Elizabeth McSweeney Byrnes, worked hard as a dressmaker to provide for Jimmy, as he was known throughout his life. The family made do and young Jimmy attended private Catholic school. However, Jimmy left school at age fourteen and found work as a messenger and later law clerk for a law office for the next seven years to help support the family. The circuit court in Aiken, South Carolina, hired Jimmy Byrnes at the age of twenty-one as a court stenographer (reporter). Judge James Aldrich and others in the court took personal interest in Byrnes and guided him through law studies. In only three years, in 1903, Byrnes successfully passed the South Carolina bar exam and began a private law practice in Aiken while remaining a court reporter.

In 1906 Byrnes married Maude Perkins Busch of Aiken. They would have no children. Byrnes quickly jumped into politics. He won his first public office in 1908 as a public prosecutor. Just two years later, in 1910, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democratic candidate in a very close race.

Congressman Byrnes

Byrnes served as a U.S. congressman for the next fourteen years. He struck a very distinctive presence in the Washington power circles. He was short, thin, very energetic, and had sharp eyes. Though living modestly, he dressed well. Byrnes quickly gained the respect of other congressmen for his shrewd dealings in seeking compromises on issues to get legislation passed.

Byrnes had interests in several domestic issues. He was also a strong supporter of the newly created federal highway system. After his reelection in 1912, he became a member of the important House Appropriations Committee that oversees government funding. While working on naval funding issues, Byrnes formed a close friendship with a young Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was assistant secretary of the navy at the time, stationed in Washington, D.C. Typical of a white American from South Carolina in the 1910s, Byrnes believed in racial segregation (separation of races in public places) and worked to defeat anti-lynching bills introduced in Congress. (Lynching is the unlawful murder of black Americans by mob action.) Byrnes also fought women's right to vote, which was finally granted by constitutional amendment in 1920.

Having gained substantial prestige in the House, Byrnes ran for the U.S. Senate in 1924 but lost to a longstanding popular political figure in South Carolina. Byrnes suddenly found himself out of public office. He returned to a private law practice for the next six years in Spartanburg, South Carolina. During this time he kept his name before the South Carolina public through active participation in various civic affairs.

A rising political force

In 1930 the economic downturn of the Great Depression (1929–41) struck South Carolina hard. Unemployment rose as business activity slowed down. The door was opened for new political leaders. Seizing on this opportunity, Byrnes ran for the U.S. Senate again and won by a slim vote margin thanks to the support of wealthy financier and fellow South Carolinian Bernard Baruch. As he had earlier in the House, Byrnes quickly rose in the Senate to positions of power, becoming a member of various important committees.

Roosevelt was nominated the Democratic candidate for president in 1932, and Byrnes campaigned hard for his friend. After winning the election, Roosevelt used Byrnes as a key Democratic Senate leader to push New Deal legislation through Congress. The New Deal was President Roosevelt's program of economic relief and reform to help those most affected by the Great Depression. They successfully steered numerous programs through into reality. With their public popularity running high, both Roosevelt and Byrnes easily won reelection in 1936.

Byrnes had great ambitions for higher office given his successes in Congress and numerous friends in powerful positions. When Roosevelt decided to run for an unprecedented third term in 1940, Byrnes expected to be the president's running mate. Roosevelt selected Henry A. Wallace instead. However, Roosevelt soon turned to Byrnes for another important role. The president sought to have a Supreme Court more sympathetic to his New Deal programs when deciding legal challenges. When a position on the bench opened, Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1941.

Donald Nelson

Within a month after the December 7, 1941, Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and nine months before the Office of Economic Stabilization was created with Jimmy Byrnes its head, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945; served 1933–45) created the War Production Board (WPB) to guide the war industry mobilization on the home front. The president turned to Donald Nelson (1888–1959) to lead this very important task.

Born in Hannibal, Missouri, Nelson graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in chemical engineering. Hired as a chemist by Sears, Roebuck and Company in 1912, Nelson rose through the company ranks to become executive vice president in 1939. As the German military swept through Western Europe in early 1940, Roosevelt became increasingly eager to assist Great Britain and France in their effort to stop Germany. He appointed Nelson in May 1940 to a Treasury Department post in charge of handling requests from foreign nations for raw materials and war materials. After France fell to German forces in June 1940 and Britain came under relentless intense aerial bombing, concern increased about preparing the nation for possible war. In January 1941 Roosevelt created the Office of Production Management (OPM) with Nelson responsible for purchasing billions of dollars of materials for the defense industries. In July, to spur the flow of needed materials to military and war industries, Roosevelt created the Supply, Priorities, and Allocations Board (SPAB) with Nelson its director.

The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor and declaration of war led Roosevelt to create the WPB in January 1942. U.S. war production was placed under the guidance of one person, Nelson. Immediately Nelson began taking such dramatic actions as converting the automobile industry to the production of war planes, tanks, and military vehicles. Nelson also oversaw the allocation of such critical materials as steel and production of synthetic rubber. Nelson remained head of WPB until he resigned in August 1944. Nelson became Roosevelt's special representative on a trip to the Soviet Union and China before returning to private industry, where he served as chairman of the board for several mining and chemical companies until his death in September 1959.

Assistant president

Following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, Byrnes quickly became restless hearing cases on the Supreme Court. He wanted an active part in the war effort. His opportunity came in October 1942 when Roosevelt selected him to serve as head of the newly created Office of Economic Stabilization (OES), with his office located in the White House. As head of OES, Byrnes was responsible for keeping prices of consumer goods in check, developing a new tax plan to finance the war, and overseeing a new complex rationing program. It was a controversial position that he handled well. Most notably, he adopted the Controlled Materials Plan (CMP) that strictly controlled the distribution of aluminum, copper, and steel—three materials critical to war industries. The success of the CMP played a major role in getting war production underway.

As the war industries continued to gear up to full speed, disputes arose between industries and the War Production Board (WPB) over access to manpower and raw materials. The WPB had been created in January 1942, with Donald Nelson its head, to oversee the war mobilization of industry on the home front. Numerous disputes arose over access to raw materials and to workers as shortages began appearing by early 1943. In May 1943 Roosevelt created the Office of War Mobilization (OWM) with Byrnes its head to guide the WPB and resolve disputes. Byrnes now had responsibility for both the home front economy and industrial mobilization.

Byrnes, through these roles, became the second most powerful person in government next to Roosevelt, even referred to as "assistant president." While Roosevelt concentrated on the war and foreign diplomacy, Byrnes set domestic policies and coordinated all the federal agencies and the production, purchase, and distribution of all war materials. He oversaw everything from rationing to the scheduling of sporting events. This included control of prices for consumer goods, rent prices, wages, services, food production, and profits of war industries. He even controlled the availability of shoes to the public. Among these duties he also oversaw the Manhattan Project, the top secret program to develop the atomic bomb. He met with project scientists to discuss government policies toward the use of the atomic bomb. Some one hundred thousand people were involved in the Manhattan Project.

Once again Byrnes wanted to be Roosevelt's running mate for the 1944 elections and eventually become the real president. However, the Democratic Party selected Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; served 1945–53) instead because of

Byrnes's segregationist views and because labor did not like the restrictions on wages he imposed during the war.

In late 1944, in anticipation of the war's end, OWM was revamped into the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion (OWMR) to oversee the transition back from industrial production of war materials to consumer goods. Byrnes remained its head. Businesses and government were eager to dispose of the now unneeded large manufacturing plants used for war production. Businesses were also eager to end the longstanding government contracts they had received to produce war materials.

Cold War negotiator

By 1945, with the home front war efforts winding down, Byrnes began applying his strong negotiating skills to assist President Roosevelt in foreign affairs. Through 1945 and 1946, Byrnes was a central figure in the developing Cold War (1945–91) political and military rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. In February 1945 the president invited Byrnes to accompany him to a meeting with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) and British prime minister Winston Churchill (1874–1965) at Yalta in the Soviet Union. The three world leaders discussed what postwar Europe should be like, particularly what to do about Germany. While at Yalta, Byrnes lunched daily with Roosevelt and took detailed notes of Roosevelt's accounts of his meetings with Stalin. Only two months later, President Roosevelt died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. Vice President Truman became president and immediately called for Byrnes and his notes. The new president wanted to be consistent with Roosevelt's thoughts and private commitments made at Yalta. Truman also asked Byrnes to organize Roosevelt's funeral and appointed him secretary of state.

Byrnes accompanied Truman to the next meeting with leaders of Great Britain and the Soviet Union at Potsdam, Germany, in June 1945. Throughout the remainder of 1945, Byrnes was the key U.S. official at various high-level international meetings including a December meeting in Moscow. He remained confident his seasoned negotiating skills would lead to a productive relationship with the Soviets.

In Moscow, Byrnes made a last all-out effort to establish friendly relations with the Soviets. He made several deals concerning international control of atomic energy and the kinds of postwar governments that would exist in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Japan. The deals proved very unpopular when he returned to the United States. Many in Congress and the public charged that Byrnes gave in to the Communists. His political influence on the national stage would not recover.

Byrnes toughened his position toward the Soviets through 1946. He was even named Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1946. However, he could not overcome a growing personality conflict with Truman. Byrnes finally resigned as secretary of state in January 1947.

Governor Byrnes

Returning to South Carolina, Byrnes won election as governor of South Carolina in 1950, receiving 85 percent of the vote. Disagreeing with Truman's and the Democratic Party's opposition to racial segregation, like many Southerners in the early 1950s Byrnes switched political party membership to the Republican Party. Byrnes was particularly interested in improving public education in South Carolina for both white and black Americans as well as establishing programs for mentally handicapped black children. However, he remained resistant to public school integration, which directly led to the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The case combined a South Carolina case with several other cases. The decision banned racial segregation in public schools. Byrnes retired from office in 1955 and died on April 9, 1972, in Columbia, South Carolina. In January 1982 Byrnes became the twenty-fourth person inducted to the South Carolina Hall of Fame.

For More Information

Books

Brown, Walter J. James F. Byrnes of South Carolina: A Remembrance. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1991.

Byrnes, James F. All in One Lifetime. New York: Harper, 1958.

Curry, George F. James F. Byrnes. New York: Cooper Square, 1965.

Robertson, David. Sly and Able: A Political Biography of James F. Byrnes. New York: Norton, 1994.

Periodicals

"Nelson, the Coordinator." Business Week (January 31, 1942): p. 18.

Web sites

The Byrnes Scholarships. http://www.byrnesscholars.org (accessed on July 18, 2004).