Sen. Thomas Dodd a true servant- The friars at Providence College are mentioned in this article by JULIE SHERMAN For the Norwich Bulletin

“Since Tom (Dodd) shared the Catholic faith with the priests, he was stimulated by the opportunity to blend academic work with continuous personal exposure to the spiritual outlook that underlay the pedagogy of his instructors. He sought them out for conversation outside of class. These relationships would be of lasting help to him later, as he strove to achieve a balance between spirituality, free inquiry and practicality.”

Happily for his life and legacy, Norwich-born and raised Tom Dodd was an early bloomer. His many years in Congress, as a U.S. representative and senator, are better known than the impressive record of career public service that preceded them.

He was born to an Irish family 100 years ago, on May 15, 1907. Theodore Roosevelt was president and sent a fleet of American ships around the world to serve notice on the world that American power was ascending. In the same year, construction of the Panama Canal was begun, and Guglielmo Marconi was achieving his breakthrough in wireless communication, establishing capability for transatlantic radio telegraph service. In 1908, Henry Ford designed the Model T.

In his Norwich youth, Tom Dodd saw people labor to put food on the table and provide their children with a foundation to achieve prosperity. They worked in the mills of Eastern Connecticut and in quarries where men in overalls wielded sledge hammers. In the country, hay was gathered and piled with long poles onto wagons pulled by horses. Men laid trolley tracks in grassy undeveloped territories that eventually would become busy towns. During hard-earned time off, amusement and relaxation could be obtained at village fairs and carnivals, picnic grounds, parades or maybe the beach.

Tom’s father wanted his children to make something of themselves, his daughters as schoolteachers and his only son as a lawyer. Eventually complying by obtaining his higher education in philosophy and the law,

Tom grew up in a Catholic home that valued moral lessons learned in a spiritual context.

Childhood gave him his first exposure to local politics. His immigrant grandfather, also Thomas J. Dodd, became an important member of the Norwich Democrats. He was a “teamster” in the old sense, and his livery doubled as a gathering place for local Democrats who discussed the needs and problems of the working people of Norwich in the presence of an impressionable young boy. The company of political friends, with their ideas and lively expression of them, was an important formative experience for young Tom. It would be natural for him to identify with immigrants who had been pouring into Connecticut in the late 1800s and placing their hopes in the Democratic Party.

After Norwich Free Academy, Tom entered St. Anselm College as a prep school student in September 1925. Situated on a hilltop near Manchester, N.H., St. Anselm’s is still a local landmark.

Run by monks of the Benedictine Order of the Roman Catholic Church, St. Anselm was on the strict side when Tom Dodd began his studies there in 1925. Students, all male, were required to be on campus grounds for the night by 7:30 p.m. On Saturdays being off campus was permitted only between 3 and 6 p.m. Understandably, school authorities considered the brilliant possibilities of a Saturday night date rich in potential for seducing God-fearing young men.

Opportunities for relief existed in the form of dramatics, choir, orchestra, glee club, intramural sports and contributing to college publications. A socially outgoing student with little interest in athletics, Dodd welcomed the creative outlet of writing for The Anselmian and was on the Board of Editors. His own contributions to The Anselmian reflected his faith, which was encouraged by a religious regimen at the school that helped bring out spirituality in students.

Although Tom’s religious appreciation enabled him to use his time at St. Anselm to scholarly advantage, the school rules proved too restrictive. He was not a contemplative, monkish student. Politically and socially minded, he rose to a natural position of dominance in groups and cared about attaining worldly success.

After one well-spent year at St. Anselm’s, he and several friends left, without bad feeling or bridge burning, boarding a bus bound for Providence. On arrival they got themselves accepted for transfer admission to Providence College in a casual process that would be unthinkable today.

Providence College was for male students; it did not become co-educational until 1971. Tuition was not prohibitive so the college was within the means of many working-class families. Students were predominantly Roman Catholic, although boys of all faiths could attend, a provision enshrined in the college’s charter.

Dominican friars performed almost all of the academic instruction at Providence. Since Tom shared the Catholic faith with the priests, he was stimulated by the opportunity to blend academic work with continuous personal exposure to the spiritual outlook that underlay the pedagogy of his instructors. He sought them out for conversation outside of class. These relationships would be of lasting help to him later, as he strove to achieve a balance between spirituality, free inquiry and practicality.

Tom joined the debating club — popular with students who were smart, social and ambitious. He contributed to The Alembic, the official school bulletin, and became class president in his junior and senior years.

In spring 1930, Tom Dodd graduated with a degree in philosophy and entered Yale Law School that fall — a culture shock after his years in distinctly religious academic institutions.

In his Yale Class of 1933, Tom Dodd was in the company of other future notables. Abe Fortas, who taught for a few years at Yale after he graduated, was nominated to the Supreme Court. Hugh Meade Alcorn became Republican national chairman under President Eisenhower, whose run for the presidency had been encouraged by Alcorn. Robert F. Wagner Jr. became mayor of New York City. With Wagner, Tom stumped for FDR and helped organize the “Flying Wedge,” a group of debaters who served as entertaining advance men for political candidates on speaking tours.

In his book, “Above the Law,” James Boyd described how Tom, a natural orator, learned how to deal with crowds, hecklers and the discontent of spectators who were suffering Depression conditions and did not make a secret of it. At an age when idealism is likely to be strong, he found himself amidst the onset of widespread economic catastrophe. College political activity also gave him an outlet for performing, something he knew he was good at and enjoyed.

In June 1933, Dodd received the degree of bachelor of laws at Yale University’s 232nd Commencement. His years as a politically active student at Yale Law School and the Depression of the 1930s had given him an indelible impression of what happened to people when an economic system failed them, and also of what politicians and government could do to help.
The FBI, John Dillinger

Dodd had made such an impression with his political activities at Yale that Attorney General Homer Cummings had heard of him. Cummings talked Dodd into joining the “Bureau of Investigation” after graduation. The Bureau would not be known as the FBI for another two years.

He was introduced to J. Edgar Hoover, who sized him up as good agent material and was impressed with his accomplishments. With about 400 agents in those days, a new agent could become acquainted with the national chief. Also, Hoover’s desire to have his finger on the pulse of everything in his domain meant he would want to know who was who.

Meanwhile Tom had met the love of his life, Grace Murphy, whom he reluctantly left back east when he boarded a train bound for St. Paul, Minn., a Mississippi River port and old industrial city settled by fur traders and missionaries. He took rooms in the city, his first residence outside of New England.

It was a highly auspicious time to become a special agent. In 1933, an audacious young bank robber named John Dillinger would begin his crime sweep through the Midwest. Dodd was assigned to the bureau’s office in St. Paul and wanted to be a player. Eventually he would satisfy a desire to play a role in the pursuit of Dillinger. The Dillinger gang did not at first interest the Bureau of Investigation in terms of jurisdiction. This changed when Dillinger inadvertently committed a federal offense by driving a stolen car across a state line.

St. Paul figured quite prominently in John Dillinger’s connections. On the lam and pleased with his success in evading the law, Dillinger holed up with pals in a St. Paul apartment house in early 1934. Aided by a tip, federal agents, in cooperation with the St. Paul police, routed the gang. Escaping with a bullet wound, Dillinger soon had himself treated by a local doctor. On a charge of abetting the escape of a known criminal, the doctor was soon taken into custody by a group of federal agents that included Tom Dodd.

It was springtime and Dodd had made plans to go back east and marry Grace. With Dodd now established in gainful employment, the couple did not want to wait to marry. But Hoover, incensed and frustrated that Dillinger and other leading desperadoes had not yet been brought down, called for an all-out effort and canceled all personal leave until further notice. So, as her fiancé had done the previous year, Grace traveled by train to the Midwest. In a simple ceremony, she and Tom were married by a Catholic priest in St. Paul.

Dodd was by this time was having misgivings about being a special agent. He had not actually sought the job himself. Many unemployed young men languishing in the depths of the Depression would have given much for such a position, but Dodd had already boosted himself up out of their disadvantaged ranks. He was politically connected and had prospects. It was not easy to work for Hoover. Dodd was not temperamentally suited to laboring under a controlling, self-centered ego like Hoover. The FBI boss was insecurely jealous of his domain and distinctly unfriendly to the ambitions of other men, something that Chicago office chief Melvin Purvis (the man who got Dillinger) would learn to his frustration.

A particular incident that may have made up Dodd’s mind was the tragedy at Little Bohemia, a rustic complex of cabins about 50 miles from Rhinelander, Wis. The Dillinger gang had gone there to regroup. Under the command of Purvis, agents from Chicago and St. Paul arranged to meet at Rhinelander’s primitive country airfield. The night was bitter cold and windy and the aircraft at Purvis’ disposal was not the most flight-worthy. The shaky little plane suffered a collapse of landing gear and cars had to be commandeered for the snowy trip to the secluded lodge in the woods. On the way one of the cars broke down, forcing shivering young agents from the disabled vehicle to balance on the running board of another car as its driver went as fast as possible in the conditions. By the time they got within a mile of the lodge, they were frozen as the whole posse crept forward with headlights out. In spite of efforts to be stealthy, the agents aroused suspicion when the lodge proprietor’s dogs commenced barking. Suddenly, the agents espied three men emerging from the lodge, heading for their own cars. Two were workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program. A voice in the darkness called out, “We’re government agents!” This prompted a frantic “Don’t shoot!” reply from inside the lodge, but Purvis ordered his men to shoot. Seconds later one of the innocent CCC workers was dead. Dillinger pal George “Baby Face” Nelson appeared in the semi-darkness and fired savagely on a government car, killing a Chicago agent. Dillinger and friends simply ducked out a back window and disappeared into the woods.

The agent’s violent death brought home to Tom Dodd how risky the work could be. Why risk his life in pursuit of criminal losers who were destined for brief existences in the course of which there would be no stints as school newspaper editor. He decided in favor of some other field of public service.
Youth administration

Like many elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Connecticut’s Francis Maloney, a Democrat from Meriden, wanted to move up to the Senate. Tom Dodd quit the Bureau of Investigation in the summer of 1934, returned to Connecticut and signed on as a Maloney campaign staffer. Soon, he and Grace would become the parents of their first of six children, who was named after his father.

Maloney had entered the 73rd Congress in March 1933, a few months before Tom Dodd entered the FBI. After one House term, he executed an enviably quick jump to the Senate, joining Connecticut’s senior senator, Augustine Lonergan. By 1934 it was becoming easier for a Democrat to become a U.S. senator from Connecticut. All Connecticut U.S. senators between 1879 and 1933 had been Republicans. In the Senate, Maloney concerned himself with securities industry practices and, in 1939, the Maloney Act would lead to establishment of the National Association of Securities Dealers.

Tom Dodd threw himself into his new job with characteristic enthusiasm. Newly invested with the patronage power of a U.S. senator early in 1935, Maloney was able to reward people for their campaign zest and labors. Franklin Roosevelt’s administration had been busy establishing federal agencies as part of FDR’s affectionately remembered New Deal for the American People. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was established under the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act. Each U.S. state had its own WPA, and Tom Dodd was made Connecticut state deputy director.

The WPA would alter the landscape in many American places and provide good work for many thousands of people. It was a flagship New Deal agency headed nationally by Roosevelt’s famous administrator, Harry L. Hopkins. The magnificent infrastructure and works of art created under the WPA made it almost as beloved and famous as the entire New Deal itself. The WPA is also remembered for sheer quantity of projects. The WPA building program eventually constructed 116,000 buildings, 78,000 bridges and 651,000 miles of road.

World War II arrived for Americans in 1941. The burgeoning wartime build-up of private sector employment ended the Depression, as well as the WPA in 1943. The agency entered history as a stellar example of the good that government can do and of the creativity and productivity humans are capable of when the threat to satisfaction of their basic economic need is removed.

Sub-agencies had been created under the WPA administrative umbrella. One of the most significant and successful was the National Youth Administration, established by Executive Order on June 26, 1935. As the name implied, the National Youth Administration was charged with helping American youth. In its eight-year existence it provided apprenticeship training for 2.7 million unemployed youth and work-study aid for many others. Some National Youth Administration aid recipients went on to great things. The program helped future Texas governor John Connally Jr. and future president Richard Nixon get through college.

Dodd’s WPA work led to his being made National Youth Administration state director for Connecticut, a gratifying appointment that delighted and inspired him. He and Grace moved to New Haven, a pleasant homecoming of sorts. He settled into his modest office at 125 Munson St., New Haven. With his usual zest, he looked forward to having his own enterprise. Individual state directors were given wide latitude. Since the success of a state program was only in very small measure determined from Washington, much depended on the talents, energies and enthusiasm of state directors. The state directorships tended to be political appointments, so it was well within possibility that a state’s program would languish under the uninspired direction of a mere hack. Fortunately, this was not the fate of the Nutmeg State’s program, to which Tom Dodd brought an effective combination of a young man’s energy and a strong, mature sense of rightness and mission that was to characterize so much of his future work.

The National Youth Administration got $50 million in funding the first year, of which Connecticut was allocated $417,000. Qualified members of three target groups received aid: youths not in school and from families on relief, students, and young people trying to find work through the state employment agency.

Like its WPA parent, the National Youth Administration was effective during its years of operation and is remembered with affection. Not only did the NYA bring financial assistance, dignity and satisfaction to the lives of its beneficiaries. It brought joy to its administrators if they put their best instincts and energies into the job. Interestingly, Lyndon Johnson had the same job, state director, for the Texas youth administration office.

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