Fred A. Hartley, Jr.
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Fred Allan Hartley, Jr. (February 22, 1902–May 11, 1969) was a New Jersey Republican politician who served ten terms in the United States House of Representatives. He is by far best-known as the House sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act.
Hartley was born in Hudson County, New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. In 1924 he was named as police and fire commissioner for Kearney, New Jersey, a position he held until 1928. In that year, he was nominated as a Republican to run for the U.S. House, and won election to the seat in November of that year.
Hartley was sworn in on March 4, 1929. He was one of a relatively small number of Republicans to hold their seats throughout the Great Depression and World War II. Hartley found the level of postwar labor unrest to be very disturbing, and felt that it threatened both economic and political stability. In 1946 the Republicans returned their first majority in both houses of Congress since the 1928 election in which Hartley was first elected. Along with United States Senator Robert Taft, the next year he introduced legislation to curb what he felt were the worst of labor's excesses. The resultant Taft-Hartley Act provided counter-balance to the 1935 Wagner Act (officially, the National Labor Relations Act), providing limits on labor tactics such as the secondary boycott, and gave each state the option to enact right-to-work laws if it so chose (which all states in the Deep South and others in the Midwest and Mountain West have done). This provision, known as Section 14 (b), was one of the most controversial. President Harry S. Truman vetoed the Act, but enough Democrats joined with the Republicans to override the Presidential veto. It is in the platform of all major U.S. labor unions to call for the repeal of the Act, especially Section 14 (b), and at times this has been reflected in the platform of the Democratic Party. However, the only time this has ever seemed likely was when the Democrats had huge majorities in both houses of Congress following the Republican electoral disaster of 1964, and even then it did not occur, so the possiblity of it occurring in the foreseeable future appears to be extremely remote.
Hartley did not seek any further election to Congress following the term in which the Act which bears his name was passed, and his service concluded on January 3, 1949. He returned to New Jersey and lived for twenty more years in relative obscurity, seeing the Act withstand its toughest test and remain intact.
This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
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