Raymond Baldwin

Born: Rye, New York; August 31, 1893

Entry by Herbert F. Janick

The Depression brought hard times to the Republican party in Connecticut. After having enjoyed majority status in the state for almost half a century, the GOP lost control in 1930 to Wilbur Cross and the Democrats. It was Raymond Baldwin, a forty-five-year-old lawyer from Stratford, who restored a youthful, more liberal Republican party to power when he was elected governor in 1938. Baldwin subsequently became the only person in history to serve Connecticut as governor, United States senator, and chief justice of the State Supreme Court.

Baldwin entered politics by a traditional path. He was graduated from Wesleyan University and served as a naval officer in World War I before earning a law degree from the Yale Law School. During the early 1930s he mixed a flourishing legal practice with two terms in the General Assembly. Along with other businessmen and lawyers in their thirties and forties, he wrested control of the Republican party from the conservative Old Guard, and in 1938, thanks in part to the presence of a Socialist candidate in the field, was elected governor by a mere 2,688 votes.

As governor, Baldwin was far from traditional in his approach. His friendly, direct personality made him extremely popular. While he opposed the New Deal because of his dislike of power centralized in Washington, Baldwin sought to make state government play a more positive, activist role. From 1943 to 1946, as wartime governor, he insisted that Connecticut's rights be balanced by its responsibility. Baldwin attempted to reverse the trend toward subordination to Federal authority by exerting some control over wartime decisions, especially industrial production and rationing, affecting Connecticut. He insisted that the state take the lead in dealing with such issues as housing, postwar planning, and civil rights.

Baldwin's progressive reputation brought him national prominence. In 1940 he delivered a rousing seconding speech for Wendell Willkie at the Republican National Convention and was an ardent backer of the Midwesterner during the presidential campaign. Four years later Baldwin was given Connecticut's "favorite son" nomination for the office. At that time he was midway through a four-year term in the United States Senate. Elected in 1946, he found that life in Washington put severe strains on his family and finances. In 1950 he was therefore eager to accept an appointment from Democratic Governor Chester Bowles to the Connecticut Supreme Court—even though his decision made him vulnerable to sharp criticism for suspected opportunism.

From 1950 to 1963 (by his own admission the happiest period of his life) Baldwin sat on the Connecticut Supreme Court, eventually becoming chief justice. In retirement he continued to be active in public life, serving as chairman of the Constitutional Convention of 1965.

For Further Reading

Curtiss S. Johnson, Raymond E. Baldwin: Connecticut Statesman (Chester, Connecticut, 1972, is an uncritical, adoring biography by a personal friend.

John W. Jeffries, Testing the Roosevelt Coalition: Connecticut Society and Politics in the Era of World War II (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1979), illuminates the success of the "New Era" Republican.

* Entry under revision.