Bronson M. Cutting - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Bronson Murray Cutting (June 23, 1888 May 6, 1935) was a United States Senator from New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, publisher, and military attaché

Military attaché

A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission . This post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer who retains the commission while serving in an embassy...

Biography

Bronson Cutting was born in Great River

Great River, New York

Great River is a hamlet and census-designated place in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The name derives from "Connetquot", an Algonquian word for "great river". It was formerly known as Youngsport and was once home to many aristocratic families...

, Long Island, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, on June 23, 1888 at his family's country seat of Westbrook. He was the third of four children born to William Bayard Cutting

William Bayard Cutting

William Bayard Cutting, Esq. , a member of New York's merchant aristocracy, was an attorney, financier, real estate developer, sugar beet refiner and philanthropist. He was born to Fulton Cutting and Elise Justine Bayard...

(1850–1912) and Olivia Peyton Murray (1855–1949). He attended the common schools and Groton School

Groton School

Groton School is a private, Episcopal, college preparatory boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts, U.S. It enrolls approximately 375 boys and girls, from the eighth through twelfth grades...

and graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

in 1910. Shortly after graduation, he became an invalid

Invalid

Invalid may refer to:* Patient, a sick person* A person with a disability* .invalid, a top-level Internet domain not intended for real useAs the opposite of valid:* Validity, in logic, true premises cannot lead to a false conclusion...

and moved to Santa Fe

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

at the advice of his doctors to restore his health. He became a newspaper publisher in 1912 and published the Santa Fe New Mexican and El Nuevo Mexicano. From 1912 to 1918 he served as president of the New Mexican Printing Company, and of the Santa Fe New Mexican Publishing Corporation from 1920 until his death.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Cutting was commissioned a captain and served as an assistant Military Attaché of the American Embassy in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

1917-1918. He was regent of the New Mexico Military Institute

New Mexico Military Institute

New Mexico Military Institute is a state-supported educational institution. NMMI is located in Roswell, New Mexico, United States. It is sometimes referred to as the West Point of the West and it is the only state-supported military college located in the western United States. NMMI includes a...

in 1920 and served as chairman of the board of commissioners of the New Mexican State Penitentiary in 1925.

U.S. Senator

On December 29, 1927, he was appointed as a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

to the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Andrieus A. Jones

Andrieus A. Jones

Andrieus Aristieus Jones was a Democratic Party politician from New Mexico who represented the state in the United States Senate from 1917 until his death.-Biography:...

and served from December 29, 1927, until December 6, 1928, when a duly elected successor (Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo

Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo

Octavio Ambrosio Larrazolo served as the fourth Governor of New Mexico and a United States Senator. He was the first United States Senator of Mexican-American heritage....

) qualified. He was not a candidate for election to this vacancy. However, his successor did not seek re-election, and Cutting was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican on November 6, 1928, and won reelection in 1934, winning an extremely close race (Cutting had 76,226 votes to Democrat Dennis Chavez

Dennis Chavez

Dionisio "Dennis" Chavez was a Democratic politician from the U.S. State of New Mexico who served in the United States House of Representatives, and in the United States Senate from 1935 to 1962.-Early life:...

's 74,944) in a failed year for Republicans.

He was a co-sponsor of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Independence Act

Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act

The Hare–Hawes–Cutting Act was the first US law passed for the decolonization of the Philippines.By 1932, forces for the creation of this law coalesced around US farmers who were hit by the Great Depression and feared Filipino imports of sugar and coconut oil that were not subject to US tariff...

which aimed to grant the Philippine Islands a ten year commonwealth status with virtually full autonomy, to be followed by the recognition of Filipino independence. The bill was enacted over President Hoover's veto

Veto

A veto, Latin for "I forbid", is the power of an officer of the state to unilaterally stop an official action, especially enactment of a piece of legislation...

. However, the law was rejected by the Philippine legislature, and the Tydings-McDuffie Act

Tydings-McDuffie Act

The Tydings-McDuffie Act approved on March 24, 1934 was a United States federal law which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence after a period of ten years. It was authored by Maryland Senator Millard E...

(authored by Millard Tydings

Millard Tydings

Millard Evelyn Tydings was an attorney, author, soldier, state legislator, and served as a Democratic Representative and Senator in the United States Congress from Maryland.-Early life:...

, a Maryland Democrat), was instead passed by Congress and accepted by the Filipino legislature.

Freedom of the press

Cutting raised the debate on the national level about the government's censorship powers. V ia tariff bills dating back to the nineteenth century, the U.S. government, through the Customs Service, had to power to confiscate "obscene" materials arriving to the country. A tariff bill introduced in 1929 sought to expand this power by modifying Section 305 to prohibit printed materials suggesting treason or threatening the life of the President. Senator Cutting, inspired by the complaints of a constituent, opposed the change and attacked Section 305 it its entirety as "irrational, unsound, and un-American." Through several impassioned speeches, Cutting suggested eliminating Section 305. Ultimately, he was forced to compromise and introduced an amendment removing the references to treason. The amendment passed by only two votes and Cutting received widespread public praise from publishers, librarians, booksellers, authors and civil liberties organizations.

As the tariff bill moved toward final confirmation, various Senators, notably Reed Smoot

Reed Smoot

Reed Owen Smoot was a native-born Utahn who was first elected to the United States Senate from Utah in 1903, and served as a Senator until 1933...

of Utah, attempted to restore Section 305 to its original state, while others proposed further draconian measures. Ultimately, portions of Smoot's amendments were combined with those of other Senators to create a compromise. Cutting's efforts to create a national debate about censorship were successful, but are now forgotten because the 1929 tariff bill became known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act

The Tariff Act of 1930, otherwise known as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was an act, sponsored by United States Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, and signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels.The overall level tariffs...

Death and legacy

On May 6, 1935, on his way from Albuquerque to Washington D.C., Cutting died in the crash of a TWA

Trans World Airlines

Trans World Airlines was an American airline that existed from 1925 until it was bought out by and merged with American Airlines in 2001. It was a major domestic airline in the United States and the main U.S.-based competitor of Pan American World Airways on intercontinental routes from 1946...

Douglas DC-2

The Douglas DC-2 was a 14-seat, twin-engine airliner produced by the American company Douglas Aircraft Corporation starting in 1934. It competed with the Boeing 247...

in bad weather near Atlanta, Missouri

Atlanta, Missouri

Atlanta is a city in Macon County, Missouri, United States. The population was 385 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Atlanta is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all of it land....

.

Senator Cutting's death was to have national impact in that it would lead Congress to commission the highly controversial Copeland Committee

Copeland Committee

The Copeland Committee was organized to investigate air traffic safety and the operations of the Bureau of Air Commerce by Congress. There were a number of factors that prompted Congress to commission this report including the TWA airline crash outside of Kansas City on May 6, 1935 that killed five...

Report on air traffic safety.

Dennis Chavez

Dennis Chavez

, who had been Cutting's Democratic opponent in 1934, was appointed by the governor to fill Cutting's seat in the Senate. Subsequent to his early death, his mother Olivia Bayard Cutting was offered the standard $10,000 appropriation as a statesman’s next of kin, which she refused. As an emblematic proud Republican, she believed it was neither proper nor fair for a family of their affluence and stature to take tax-payers' dollars.

Cutting is perhaps best known as a prominent Anglo who sought to bring Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

voters into the political mainstream prior to the New Deal

New Deal

The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...

, and for maintaining correspondence with the controversial poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

Ezra Pound

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

in the 1930s.

Cutting is interred in Green-Wood Cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery

Green-Wood Cemetery was founded in 1838 as a rural cemetery in Brooklyn, Kings County , New York. It was granted National Historic Landmark status in 2006 by the U.S. Department of the Interior.-History:...

in the borough

Borough

A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....

of Brooklyn.

Biography

U.S. Senator

Freedom of the press

Death and legacy

Sources

Further reading