Wilbur Lucius Cross

Born:  Gurleyville; April 10, 1862
Died:  New Haven; October 5, 1948

Entry by Herbert F. Janick

Wilbur Cross, who in 1930 at the age of sixty-eight became the first Democratic governor of Connecticut in fifteen years, was an unusual politician. Behind him lay a distinguished career as a scholar. A graduate of Yale College, he had never really left his alma mater. He received his Ph.D. in English literature and became successively a professor of English, the editor of the Yale Review, and the dean of the Graduate School.

Cross in 1930 was in many ways an ideal candidate. His Yale affiliation pleased intellectuals and complemented his deep family roots in the state. Despite his age, he was energetic and enthusiastic, qualities that were valuable in the depth of the Depression. Born in a tiny hamlet in eastern Connecticut, he appealed to farmers and small-town residents with his unpretentious manner and folksy speech.

Cross was elected governor four times during the 1930s, in each election running ahead of Roosevelt and the national ticket. For the most part he supported the New Deal—but often with scant enthusiasm. His philosophy was that of a Jeffersonian democrat who was suspicious of centralized Federal power. He was reluctant to seek assistance from Washington. In fact, Connecticut was one of the last states to accept Federal funds for unemployment relief. On its own Connecticut did little to combat the Depression. Rather, the Cross priorities were to make sure that state government was run efficiently, that taxes were kept low, and that a balanced budget be preserved, objectives not appreciably different from previous Republican administrations.

Only in his dealing with organized labor did the reform zeal of Cross approximate that of the New Deal. He helped push through the General Assembly bills that eliminated sweatshops in the state, restricted hours of labor for women and children, and outlawed the employment of minors. He was an advocate of unemployment insurance and old age pensions. His sympathetic handling of the strikes that plagued Connecticut in the mid-1930s added to his stature in the eyes of organized labor.

Although in philosophy and temperament Wilbur Cross was closer to his boyhood hero Grover Cleveland than he was to Franklin Roosevelt, much of the credit for the establishment of an urban-ethnic Democratic coalition that is still a dominant force in the politics of Connecticut must go to Cross. His reputation, temperament, and skill in dealing with rural legislators dispelled fears that the Democratic party would be an instrument of radical change and thus made it respectable to a majority of voters in the "Land of Steady Habits."

For Further Reading

The autobiography of Cross, Connecticut Yankee (New Haven, Connecticut, 1943), although surprisingly bland, is informative. Sister Mary Murray, "Connecticut's Depression Governor: Wilbur Cross," Connecticut History, 16 (August 1975), is a distillation of her University of Connecticut dissertation. John W. Jeffries, Testing the Roosevelt Coalition: Connecticut Society and Politics in the Era of World War II (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1979), places the Cross years in a wider framework.

* Entry under revision.