Arthur Vandenberg is best known for leading the Republican Party from a foreign policy of isolationism to one of internationalism, and supporting the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.
32 Facts About Arthur Vandenberg
2.
Arthur Vandenberg served as president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1947 to 1949.
3.
Arthur Vandenberg won election to a full term later that year and remained in the Senate until his death in 1951.
4.
Arthur Vandenberg supported the early New Deal programs but came to oppose most of President Franklin D Roosevelt's domestic policies.
5.
Arthur Vandenberg abandoned his isolationism after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
6.
Arthur Vandenberg unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president in 1940 and 1948.
7.
Arthur Vandenberg was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Alpha and Aaron Arthur Vandenberg, of mostly Dutch heritage.
8.
Arthur Vandenberg attended the public schools of Grand Rapids and graduated from Grand Rapids Central High School in June 1900 ranked first in his class.
9.
Arthur Vandenberg then studied law at the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
10.
Arthur Vandenberg died in 1917, and in 1918 Vandenberg married Hazel Whitaker.
11.
Arthur Vandenberg wrote most of the editorials, many of which called for more Progressivism in the spirit of his hero Theodore Roosevelt.
12.
Arthur Vandenberg supported incumbent President William Howard Taft over Roosevelt in the 1912 election.
13.
In 1915 Arthur Vandenberg coined the term "loon ship" for Henry Ford's Peace Ship in reaction to Ford's more outlandish ideas.
14.
Arthur Vandenberg attended numerous local, county and state Republican conventions as a delegate, and gave several convention keynote addresses.
15.
Arthur Vandenberg gained national attention for his 1921 biography The Greatest American: Alexander Hamilton.
16.
Arthur Vandenberg followed this in 1923 with If Hamilton Were Here Today: American Fundamentals Applied to Modern Problems; and, in 1926, The Trail of a Tradition, a study of American nationalism and US foreign policy.
17.
Arthur Vandenberg considered several other candidates, including former Governors Albert Sleeper and Chase Osborn.
18.
Arthur Vandenberg became the fifth former journalist then serving in the US Senate.
19.
Arthur Vandenberg was at first an ardent supporter of Republican President Herbert Hoover but he became discouraged by Hoover's intransigence, and failures in dealing with the Great Depression.
20.
Arthur Vandenberg voted against most Roosevelt-sponsored measures, notable exceptions being the Banking Act of 1935 and the Social Security Act.
21.
Arthur Vandenberg pursued a policy of what he called fiscal responsibility, a balanced budget, states' rights, and reduced taxation.
22.
Arthur Vandenberg felt that Franklin Roosevelt had usurped the powers of Congress, and he spoke of the dictatorship of Roosevelt.
23.
Arthur Vandenberg helped defeat the Passamaquoddy Bay tidal power and Florida Canal projects, voted against the National Labor Relations Act, various New Deal tax measures, and the Hours and Wages Act.
24.
Arthur Vandenberg became a member of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1929.
25.
Arthur Vandenberg supported the isolationist Neutrality Acts of the 1930s but wanted and sponsored more severe bills designed to renounce all traditional neutral "rights" and restrict and prevent any action by the president that might cause the United States to be drawn into war.
26.
Arthur Vandenberg was one of the most effective of the diehard isolationists in the Senate.
27.
Arthur Vandenberg has perennial presidential ambitions, and is grooming himself into a position of elder statesman.
28.
Arthur Vandenberg is something of a snob, not at all Anglophobe, and is a fairly frequent visitor at the White House and the State Department.
29.
Arthur Vandenberg denies that he is or ever was an Isolationist, and describes himself as a Nationalist.
30.
In 1947, at the start of the Cold War, Arthur Vandenberg became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
31.
In 1940 and 1948 Arthur Vandenberg was a "favorite son" candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
32.
Arthur Vandenberg died on April 18,1951, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids.