Arthur Edson Blair Moody (February 13, 1902 – July 20, 1954), known as Blair Moody, was a journalist and Democratic U.S. senator from the state of Michigan.

Background

Moody was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Arthur Edson Blair Moody and Julia Downey Moody. and attended the public schools in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in economics in 1922. a newspaper owned by his uncle, William Scripps. He was a correspondent for Barron's Financial Weekly from 1934 to 1948 and wrote for the North American Newspaper Alliance and the Bell Syndicate. The committee's purview included the perceived problem of steel cutbacks and unemployment in the auto industry. Moody also is remembered for his proposal for presidential debates, an idea that did not take hold until the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon televised debates. An unsuccessful candidate for election in 1952 (to the remainder of the unexpired Senate term), Moody lost to Republican Charles E. Potter in the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential landslide. was the son of Mary Blair Moody.

Moody married his first wife Mary Ann in 1930 and they had a son, Blair Jr. They were divorced in 1940 and Blair Sr. married his second wife, Ruth, in 1941; the marriage lasted until his death in 1954. Blair and Ruth Moody had two sons, Christopher and Robin.

From 1946 until 1954, Blair Moody is reported to have had an affair with Helen Knowland, the wife of his friend Republican Senator William Knowland. William Knowland is said to have later begun an affair with Ruth Moody.

Moody died age 52 on July 20, 1954, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for the other U.S. Senate seat from Michigan, of a heart attack following complications of viral pneumonia.

Legacy

An elementary school in Taylor, Michigan, was named for Senator Blair Moody. The school is in its original location with its original name and continues to educate students. A second elementary school was built adjacent to it in the 1960s.

Works

In 1941, Moody authored Boom or Bust, a book charting his post-World War II vision for American democracy. His focus was on transitioning to full employment, reducing the national debt, and identifying a strategy for "how the national budget may actually be balanced."

  • Boom or Bust (1941)

See also

  • Blair Moody Jr.

References

  • Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress
  • University of Michigan