39 Facts About Paul Douglas

Paul Howard Douglas was an American politician and Georgist economist.

Paul Douglas served as a professor of economics at several schools, most notably the University of Chicago, and earned a reputation as a reformer while a member of the Chicago City Council.

Paul Douglas was married to Emily Taft Douglas, a US representative from Illinois's At-large district.

Paul Douglas was born on March 26,1892, in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of Annie and James Howard Paul Douglas.

Paul Douglas's father was an abusive husband and his stepmother, unable to obtain a divorce, left her husband and took Douglas and his older brother to Onawa, Maine, in Piscataquis County, where her brother and uncle had built a resort in the woods.

Paul Douglas graduated from Bowdoin College with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1913.

Paul Douglas then moved on to Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree in 1915 and a PhD in economics in 1921.

Paul Douglas studied at Harvard University; taught at the University of Illinois and at Oregon's Reed College; served as a mediator of labor disputes for the Emergency Fleet Corporation of Pennsylvania; and taught at the University of Washington.

In 1919, Paul Douglas took a job teaching economics at the University of Chicago.

In 1930 the couple divorced; Dorothy Wolff Paul Douglas began a romantic relationship with Katharine DuPre Lumpkin.

Dorothy took custody of their four children, and Paul Douglas returned to Chicago.

Paul Douglas is probably best known to economics students as the co-author of the 1928 article with Charles Cobb that first laid out the Cobb-Paul Douglas production function.

Paul Douglas served as an economic advisor to Republican Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania and Democratic Governor Franklin D Roosevelt of New York.

Four years later, in 1939, Cusack came up for re-election, and Paul Douglas joined a group of reform-minded Independents that drafted Paul Douglas.

Paul Douglas usually found himself in the minority in the Chicago City Council.

In 1942, Paul Douglas joined the Democratic Party and ran for its nomination for the United States Senate.

Paul Douglas had the support of a cadre of left-wing activists, but the machine supported the state's at-large Congressman Raymond S McKeough for the nomination.

Paul Douglas would go on to lose in the general election to incumbent Republican senator C Wayland Brooks.

Shortly after losing the primary, Paul Douglas resigned from the Chicago City Council.

Paul Douglas earned a Bronze Star for carrying ammunition to the front lines under enemy fire and earned his first Purple Heart when he was grazed by shrapnel while carrying flamethrower ammunition to the front lines.

In that six-week battle, while investigating some random fire shootings, Paul Douglas was shot at as he uncovered a two-foot-wide cave.

Paul Douglas then killed the Japanese soldier inside at which point he wondered whether his enemy might be an economics professor from the University of Tokyo.

Shortly after returning to Pavuvu, Paul Douglas received notice that his wife, Emily Taft Paul Douglas won the election for Illinois's at-large congressional district.

At the outset of the campaign, Paul Douglas' chances looked slim.

Paul Douglas stumped across the state in a Jeep station wagon for the Marshall Plan, civil rights, repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, more public housing, and more social security programs.

When Senator Brooks refused to debate him, Paul Douglas debated an empty chair, switching from seat to seat as he provided both his and Brooks' answers.

On Election Day, Paul Douglas won an upset victory, taking 55 percent of the vote and defeating the incumbent by a margin of more than 407,000 votes.

At the opening of the 85th United States Congress in January 1957, a session that would see the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 in September, Paul Douglas was the only senator to defy custom and vote against the confirmation of racist James Eastland as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Paul Douglas earned fame as an opponent of pork barrel spending.

Paul Douglas refused to be considered as a candidate for president, instead backing the candidacy of Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, a folksy, coonskin cap-wearing populist who had become famous for his televised investigations into organized crime.

Paul Douglas stumped across the country for Kefauver and stood next to him at the 1952 Democratic National Convention when Kefauver was defeated by Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II.

Paul Douglas opposed real estate redlining but was forced to allow a 1949 provision in a public housing bill making it possible for suburbs to reject low-income housing.

Paul Douglas authored the Consumer Credit Protection Act, a bill that forced lenders to state the terms of a loan in plain language and restricted the ability of lenders to discriminate on the basis of gender, race, or income.

Paul Douglas told Mason Gaffney that he even regretted leaving local politics, where he saw more opportunity to implement Georgist ideas.

Paul Douglas was an ardent supporter of the disproven cancer drug Krebiozen, and in the early 1960s sponsored senate hearings in support of the discredited treatment.

Paul Douglas was cremated and his ashes were scattered in Jackson Park near the University of Chicago.

The Paul Douglas Forest Preserve in Hoffman Estates, Illinois is named for him.

Paul Douglas was entitled to campaign participation credit for Capture and Occupation of the Southern Palau Islands, and Assault and Occupation of Okinawa Gunto.

Paul Douglas was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950 and the American Philosophical Society in 1952.