Ernest William McFARLAND, Congress, AZ (1894-1984)

McFARLAND, Ernest William, a Senator from Arizona; born on a farm near Earlsboro, Pottawatomie County, Okla., October 9, 1894; attended the rural schools; graduated from East Central State Teachers’ College, Ada, Okla., in 1914, and from the University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1917; during the First World War served in the United States Navy; after the war moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and was employed as a clerk in a bank; graduated from the law department of Stanford (Calif.) University in 1921; admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Casa Grande, Pinal County, Ariz.; assistant attorney general of Arizona 1923-1924, and county attorney of Pinal County 1925-1930; moved to Florence, Ariz., in 1925; judge of the superior court of Pinal County 1934-1940; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1940; reelected in 1946 and served from January 3, 1941, to January 3, 1953; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1952; majority leader 1951-1953; co-chairman, Joint Committee on Navaho-Hopi Indian Administration (Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses); Governor of Arizona 1955-1959; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1958; resumed the practice of law; elected associate justice, Arizona supreme court, in 1964, becoming chief justice in 1968, and serving until 1970; member, National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence 1968-1969; director, Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco; president of Arizona Television Company; died in Phoenix, Ariz., June 8, 1984; interment in Greenwood Memorial Park, Phoenix, Ariz.

Bibliography

American National Biography; McFarland, Ernest W. Mac: The Autobiography of Ernest W. McFarland. n.p., 1979; McMillan, James E., ed. The Ernest McFarland Papers: The United States Senate Years, 1940-1952. Prescott, Ariz.: Sharlot Hall Museum Press, 1995; McMillan, James E., Ernest W. McFarland: Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Governor and Chief Justice of the State of Arizona. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2006.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present