A senator's suicide

[TransitJohn]

This is a very good article.


A senator's suicide

By Tamara Linse
Special to the Star-Tribune Monday, November 01, 2004




In 1954, one of Wyoming's U.S. senators committed suicide rather than face re-election.

On June 19, 1954, Democratic Sen. Lester Hunt drove from his Washington, D.C., apartment to the Capitol. He hid a .22-caliber rifle under his coat as he walked to his office, and once there he shot himself in the head and died a few hours later.

"There are some similarities between 1954 and 2004. Then, as now, the U.S. Senate was evenly divided and every seat hotly contested, which led to the use of win-at-all-cost tactics," said Rick Ewig, author of "McCarthy Era Politics: The Ordeal of Senator Lester Hunt" and associate director of the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center, where Hunt's papers are archived.

Today, there are 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and 1 independent in the Senate; in 1954, there were 48 Republicans, 47 Democrats and 1 independent.

"Hunt fell victim to that atmosphere of intimidation and threats," Ewig said. If Hunt resigned, Wyoming's Republican Gov. C.J. Rogers could appoint a Republican senator to finish Hunt's term, giving the Republicans an immediate advantage.

Republicans threatened to publicize the arrest and conviction of Hunt's son for soliciting homosexual prostitution.

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