Edward de Graffenried

Edward Wadsworth de Graffenried (1899-1974) represented Alabama's Sixth Congressional District from 1949 until 1953. An attorney, de Graffenried had previously been elected to several terms as solicitor of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court.  

De Graffenried was born on June 30, 1899, in Eutaw, Greene County, to Mary Alice Meriwether de Graffenried and Edward de Graffenried, a judge in the Court of Appeals. He was an only child. The couple was married by William C. Oliver, father of William Bacon Oliver (1867-1948) who held the Sixth District seat from 1915-1937. Edward was raised in Greensboro, Hale County. Edward Sr. wrote several articles on common and constitutional law and served as president of the Alabama State Bar in 1904. Additionally, Edward Sr. was a member of the 1901 Constitutional Convention, which disenfranchised most African American men and some poor white men. He also served as a legal advisor to Gov. Emmet O'Neal, who had chaired the convention's Committee on Suffrage and Elections. The de Graffenrieds were related to Baron Christoph de Graffenried, a Swiss-born investor who founded New Bern, North Carolina, in 1710. Edward De Graffenried attended the Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he edited the school's Portlight and Conch Shell publications and served as chairman of the Honors Committee and as president of the Literary Society.

After graduating in 1917, de Graffenried enrolled at the University of Alabama and joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC). During World War I, he served as a private in the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged at Camp Pike, Arkansas. Offered an appointment at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he declined to instead pursue a law degree at the University of Alabama Law School. In 1919, de Graffenried married Margaret Grace Ryan, with whom he would have four sons and one daughter. Three sons served in the military during the World War II, and one, William Jr., later died in a 1966 plane crash while running for governor of Alabama. The couple divorced sometime in the early 1930s, and he married Margaret Porter in 1934, and later, Motie Gay Homan.

In 1921, de Graffenried received his law degree and was admitted to the Alabama State Bar. He then began practicing law with his father in Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County. From 1927 until 1934, de Graffenried served as solicitor of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Alabama but then lost subsequent races in 1934 and 1938 but was becoming active in Democratic politics during that decade. In 1943, he was reelected to the office and served from January 1943 to January 1947. In 1946, de Graffenried unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination to represent Alabama's Sixth Congressional District, losing to incumbent Peterson "Pete" Jarman, a veteran of World War I. In 1948, de Graffenried defeated Jarman and served from January 3, 1949, until January 3, 1953. The district then represented Bibb, Chilton, Greene, Hale, Perry, Shelby, Sumter, and Tuscaloosa Counties. He served on the Armed Services Committee.

As a Democratic, de Graffenried generally voted along party lines during his two terms, which occurred as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and China was taking shape. He supported policies that permitted donating surplus food commodities to friendly countries as development aid and another that replaced the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Western Europe. Following the North Korean invasion of South Korea, he supported the Defense Production Act that provided Pres. Harry Truman broad authorities to put the U.S. economy on a war footing. De Graffenried also joined with most lawmakers to tighten oversight of and restrictions on Communist organizations in the United States as well as on alien immigration and deportation policies in response to the many persons displaced during World War II and seeking entrance into the United States. He also voted to eliminate exclusions aimed at Asians, but continue quotas on non-Europeans, especially Asians, and prioritized allowing in people with skills and reuniting families. Concerning domestic legislation, de Graffenried voted for important legislation providing federal support for improving public housing, one of Truman's main goals as president. Like the rest of the Alabama delegation, and much of the former Confederacy, he opposed a measure that would have prohibited imposing poll taxes and voter registration fees for presidential and congressional elections and an effort to offer a constitutional amendment as a substitute.

De Graffenried lost his renomination bid in 1952 to World War II veteran and Alabama House legislator Armistead Selden Jr. Upon leaving Congress, he returned to practicing law in Tuscaloosa with his two sons, William Ryan de Graffenried and Jeffries Blunt de Graffenried. De Graffenried died on November 5, 1974, and was interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Tuscaloosa.