Paul Howard Douglas
(1892-1976)

Paul Douglas was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on March 26,
1892. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College in
1913 and later received a Ph.D. degree in economics from Co-
lumbia University. After serving on several college and university
faculties, he went to the University of Chicago, becoming a full
professor of economics five years later in 1925. He authored sev-
eral books, including Wages and the Family, Real Wages in the United,
States, 1890-1926, The Theory of Wages, and Ethics in Government.
In 1951 he was elected president of the American Economics As-
sociation.

In the 1920s and 1930s Douglas served on state commission on

unemployment in Pennsylvania and New York, and in Illinois he drafted
state legislation on unemployment, public utility regula-
tion, old age pensions, and housing. During the New Deal days he
acted as adviser to the National Recovery Administration.

From 1939 to 1942 he served as a Chicago alderman from the
Fifth Ward while he lived in Hyde Park. He then enlisted as a Ma-
rine private at the age of fifty in 1942, training with a platoon at
Parris Island whose average age was nineteen years. He rose to the
rank of lieutenant colonel, saw action in the South Pacific, and was
discharged after receiving the Bronze Star and being wounded on
Okinawa.

In 1948 Douglas was elected to the U.S. Senate on the Demo-

cratic ticket, serving three terms until 1966, when he was defeated

for re-election by Charles Percy. During his Senate years he fought
continuously for social and economic reforms and was a strong
supporter of civil rights. In 1951 the Washington, D.C., press corps
named him the nation's best senator. As a senator, Douglas was
active and constructive in formulating legislation in the fields of
labor, social security, and banking and currency. His memoir; In

the Fullness of Time, appeared in 1972. He died in Washington,
D.C., on September 24,1976.

Douglas became a member of the Chicago Literary Club in
1939. He presented three papers: Some New Material on Robert
Owen and Robert Dale Owen in 1942, The Future of the Pacific in
1946, and Culture and Character in 1949.

Read before the Club: November 9, 1998