John Toussaint Bernard (March 6, 1893August 6, 1983) was a United States representative from Minnesota.
Background
Bernard was born in 1893 in Bastia, Corsica, France. In 1907, he immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled in Eveleth, Minnesota. He went to public schools in both France and in the U.S.
He ran unsuccessfully for reelection in 1938 to the Seventy-Sixth Congress and again unsuccessfully for election in 1940 to the Seventy-Seventh Congress.
Personal life and death
Bernard met Josephine Dinois while working for the Office of Naval Intelligence in France. They married in 1928
Bernard moved to Long Beach, Calif., where he lived until his death there on August 6, 1983.
<blockquote>Minnesota Congressman John T. Bernard fought throughout his life for working people against strong opposition. His outspoken and uncompromising views led him, on his second day in office, to cast the single "no" vote in Congress against the Spanish arms embargo. Bernard's vote proved farsighted as the Spanish Civil War became, in many ways, a "dress rehearsal" for World War II.</blockquote>
Less known years later were his strong support for the Communist-backed Popular Front:
<blockquote>Bernard won election in the Farmer-Labor landslide of 1936 ... and quickly became the most enthusiastic and outspoken advocate of the Popular Front in Congress. Not even other Congressmen who sympathized with the Popular Front underlined their links to the Communist Party by inserting, as Bernard did, articles from the Communist Party's Daily Worker into the Congressional Record.