Young: Norma Lundeen is going all spouse-proud and, "My husband was not a Nazi," saying things like that to the press. One reason is: adversity has a clarifying effect. Lundeen served in the United States Army during the SpanishAmerican War. Speech before Congress by US Senator Ernest Lundeen, (Farmer-Labor, Minnesota) Senator Lundeen gave this speech detailing the history of the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party on In 1941 in New York, a big academic study was done of Germany's propaganda efforts here to try to figure out why the Hitler government was putting so much effort, so much money, into propaganda targeting americans. Thanks to that raid on that D.C. apartment, he now had names and literal receipts of the other members of Congress who had been involved. Senate. That picture of Ernest Lundeen, standing under that giant swastika? [11], "Senator Lundeen" redirects here. Note that he may make real-time changes to some of the exact language. The German agent would provide speeches to Senator Lundeen, Lundeen would then deliver on the Senate floor, theyd get tons of copies made, then the publicist would run logistics on getting those copies mailed out to the public. The senator would not say why. Lundeen might have added a comma, or changed the spelling of a word, but Lundeen did not do any significant, or even mild editing to the prose provided to him by Viereck. They were mostly Republicans, but also some Democrats. The handwritten note at the top was added by his widow, Norma. Senator Ernest Lundeen: I have never heard a German, or a German born American, with the gall to ask that we help Germany, but red, yellow, brown, black and white races all are expected to die for the British Empire. We face challenges too big to ignore and opportunities too important to fumble. The letter reads: "May I be a senator after Wash [ington] and box 4, folder 4-5. Like the people of Colorado do every day, we must all lean forward and strain toward the prize of a better Colorado for ourselves, our children and our posterity. Have a news tip, press release, or another story that you think we should cover? But for this scheme to be truly successful, Viereck needed his propaganda to go beyond Senator Lundeens reach with his constituents in Minnesota. What she was there to do really was, as she put it, something unprecedented in radio broadcasting. Maddow: In the wake of the plane crash that killed Minnesota U.S. She told the staff that she wanted the Viereck files. All accusations of this nature are emphatically denied in the letters of the Attorney General Jackson and J. Edgar Hoover. Those of us charged with the burden of representing the peoples interests face a dilemma. Images: Telephone; U.S. Constitution; Senate leaders Byrd & Baker; John Glenn receives medal; Appropriations Committee Contact Leadership & Officers Former Senators Qualifications & Terms of Service Facts & Milestones States The answer rings clear. It is a tradition in this building to claim that this policy or that piece of legislation is bi-partisan. That was classic Viereck. The application of one, or sometimes two members names, from the second party has been the accepted measure of that claim. Just as she failed to find justice in the courtroom, the soft-spoken and attractive Lundeen found little fondness and impartiality for her husbands memory at the ballot box as Benson, still enormously popular among Farmer-Laborites in the Twin Cities and with miners on Minnesotas Iron Range, easily captured the partys U.S. Senate nomination, garnering 66,051 votes to Lundeens 24,019 and 17,163 for Arens. My Republican colleagues elected me as Senate Republican Minority Whip to ensure that Republican ideals like freedom and independence will not be cancelled in the culture war we Occupation. It should literally be free to send their constituents mail about any government business. Covering Third Parties and Independent Candidates Since 2008. In 1940, FDR was running for an unprecedented third term as US president. Jared Poliss office. Republican. Senator. Nancy Beck Young: This group of people, if they were anything first, it was their own political success and careers first. But Senator Lundeen was also someone who always had money on the mind. Norma Lundeen: A number of photographs of my husband were taken while he was speaking. Hed never lost a case. It's really a scheme of genius in some ways, I think we would say evil genius. We wont be able to fix every problem this state faces during these next 119 days. How many members of Congress were in on this thing? Radio Reporter: Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, a leader of the America First Committee, has threatened to demand a Congressional investigation of the way the Justice Department has been handling the prosecution of Nazi sympathizers. Probably too big a lift but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. When wheat is fed into the thresher the chaff blows away. Ernest Lundeen of the Minnesota Senate in the 76 congress. Not so much when we talk common sense. When you find yourself challenged, the extraneous, the minutia, the distraction, falls away. But he remained isolationist and was later denounced by the party as a reactionary. Declaring her candidacy shortly before the states filing deadline, Lundeens last-minute entry created a three-way race for the Farmer-Labor Partys U.S. Senate nomination, forcing former Gov. Maddow: Once George Viereck was arrested, the members of Congress who had participated in this scheme, they knew that prosecutors were onto them. He supplied high-profile and low-profile members of the America First movement coast-to-coast. This episode was written by myself, Mike Yarvitz, and Kelsey Desiderio. These difficult conversations can be noisy. Maddow: The widow of Senator Ernest Lundeen. The word senator has been used He had close ties to George Sylvester Viereck, a leading Nazi agent in the U.S. Viereck often used Lundeen's office, and "sometimes dictated speeches for Lundeen, openly using the Senator's telephones to obtain material from Hans Thomsen at the [German] embassy. In 1934, during the 73rd Congress, Lundeen sponsored the Workers' Unemployment Insurance Bill. Maddow: The scale of this operation, it kind of takes your breath away. Young: Republicans are just feeling very defeated as if theres nothing that they can do to stop Roosevelt. What George Sylvester Viereck figured out was that he could weaponize that against the American people. Laws & Agency Rules. He should write books or something! box 4, folder 6-8. Together we face some persistent problems and it is likely that new challenges will arise. In 1896, Lundeen and his family moved to Harcourt, Iowa, and then to Minnesota. Lundeen cited a 2022 bill Polis signed that, he said, allowed for restrictive environmental building codes that raise housing costs. How far did it go? Lundeens secretary arrived at the senators office on that fateful morning and found Lundeen slumped over on his desk: Hes got his head down on his desk, his head is One of those photographs was taken at such an angle as to convey the impression that my husband was standing beneath the swastika. She complained to the radio stations who carried his reporting, trying to get him taken off the air; she threatened the sponsors who advertised on the broadcasts in which he appeared. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. We care about the quality and flexibility of your childs education that is so important to their future success. It hadnt even been a year since her husband had died in that terrible, mysterious plane crash. And so, newly appointed by the Attorney General, William Power Maloney decided to move quickly. Maddow: And that right there, that is where Norma Lundeen slipped up. So, though in many cases, misguided policies have created or exacerbated the problems of today, I am optimistic that when we more fully embrace the principles and values that have made this country and this state exceptional we change our future for the better. Each state in the US elects two senators who serve six-year terms in Washington, DC, where they pass laws and vote on policies. The speech Young: Viereck is a spy for the German government, part of his responsibility being cozying up to those in power in U.S. politics to gather as much information as possible and to try to get them to do things that will forestall U.S. entry into the war. The previous 12 months had shown that the federal government, time and again, was behind the eight ball when it came to this gathering threat at home from the ultra-right the plotting and planning of extremists in this country who were inclined towards violence and, in many cases, hooked up with the Hitler government. IE 11 is not supported. He was criminally charged for his role in the scheme that he ran through Congress, which was a shot across the bow to all the members of Congress who had helped Viereck carry out the scheme. Archival radio material is from NBC Newsvia the Library of Congress, which you really should visit. The history books remember the senators widow as a tall, confident, well-spoken woman. ( sent) noun. Here are historians Nancy Beck Young and Bradley Hart. Maddow: After the plane crash that killed her husband, Norma Lundeen traveled to Washington D.C. But when she turned up at his office, she wasnt there to comfort his staff, or to speak with his colleagues, or collect his personal effects. senator ( plural senators ) A member, normally elected, in the house or chamber of a legislature called a senate, as, for instance, the legislatures of the United States and Canada. Because what had really ticked her off was not just the reporting that her husband was being tailed by the FBI, or that he was under investigation for being in cahoots with a Nazi agent, or that he made a practice of standing under a big swastika banner. And that Viereck file that the Senator's wife was looking for and that she took away so soon after her husband died, that file contained more than a decade's-worth of correspondence between Lundeen and Viereck. Viereck wrote speeches and articles for Lundeen about how our supposed allies were weak and hypocritical and corrupt and doomed, how American democracy was corrupt and rigged, how the fascist government in Germany was strong, how the United States government should stay out of Germanys way. Dec 13, 2022 DENVER Today, Senator Paul Lundeen (R - Monument) announced committee assignments for the Senate Republican Caucus during the 74th General Assembly of the State of Colorado. Maddow: Do you remember Francis Moran, the leader of the Christian Front in Boston? Hart: This is a man who is a fairly known quantity. senate. Our Senior Executive Producers are Cory Gnazzo and Laura Conaway. A letter Sen. Ernest Lundeen wrote to himself on the eve before he was sworn in to the United States Senate. [10] Norma tried to prevent that narrative by claiming that "no one wrote [her] husband's speeches" and threatening to sue one of the journalists who was reporting on it. View all links. All eyes were briefly on Lundeen. No, the thing that Norma was really set on denying first and foremost was the allegation that someone other than her husband had been writing his speeches. All of us face a season of rising crime that will continue to expand unless we commit to a culture that honors law and law enforcement. DENVER Below is the transcript of Colorado Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeens (R-Monument) speech on the opening day of the First Regular Session of the 74th General Assembly. He said a lot of aspirational things about making Colorado better," said Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen. Viereck was not some kind of code word. A - Agriculture. He needed more pre-paid envelopes. Norma then proceeded to falsely testify that she indeed took the Viereck files, but the files are gone due to a burglary that has taken place at their residence. Maddow: It was just a bad angle. 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