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Maas, Melvin (1898–1964)

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Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas, 1931.

Melvin Maas, 1931.

Though he lived in a Democratic city and a Democratic political era—the Great Depression and World War II—the conservative Republican Melvin Maas represented St. Paul in Congress from 1927 to 1945, with one short interruption. He also received two World War II combat decorations, was awarded a Carnegie Hero Fund medal, and served the public for two decades after leaving politics.

When the U.S. entered World War I, nineteen-year-old Duluth native Melvin J. Maas joined the Marines, learned to fly, and flew reconnaissance missions over the Atlantic. In St. Paul after the war he joined one of his brothers in the insurance and bonding business.

Maas first ran for Congress in 1926 on an anti-Prohibition platform. In the Republican primary that year he defeated incumbent Oscar Keller, then won the general election easily. When he entered Congress in March 1927 he became its youngest member at age twenty-eight.

Maas won re-election in the Herbert Hoover Republican landslide of 1928. Then, however, the world changed. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed threw scores of Republicans out of Congress and nearly crushed the party. While Maas prospered in the 1930 election, winning with his biggest majority ever (66% of the vote), harder times awaited him.

Maas lost his seat in 1932. Minnesota’s failure to redistrict after the 1930 census led to a statewide, at-large primary. Only nine candidates could go on to the general election; Maas did not make the cut. One of his final acts in that Congressional session was to talk an unbalanced young man in the House gallery into dropping—into Maas’s waiting hands—the loaded pistol he had been waving. For this, Maas received a Carnegie Hero Fund Commission award and medal.

By 1934, when Maas presented himself as a candidate for Congress once again, Congressional Republicans had been reduced to just over one hundred, and St. Paul loved the arch-Democrat Franklin Roosevelt. Maas still won, though not by much. He received only 36% of the vote, but his two main opponents split the vote against him. In 1936 Roosevelt won every ward in St. Paul, and handily. Maas won just three wards of twelve but was sent back to Congress by a margin of 360 votes—thanks once again to the divided Farmer-Labor and Democratic opposition.

In Congress Maas had always focused on military issues, advocating especially for a bigger Navy. The threat and later the onset of World War II vindicated his position and may have helped him at home. He won easily in 1938, 1940, and 1942.

In Congress and out, Maas kept his Marine officer commission and his pilot’s license. He flew all over the country. After war with Japan began, he flew in the South Pacific. He volunteered for combat in the summer of 1942 and won a Silver Star for action over New Guinea.

This did not help him in politics. He lost in 1944 when the Democrats and Farmer-Laborites united behind a single candidate, Frank Starkey. Though only forty-six at the time, Maas never ran for office again. He returned to active Marine duty in 1945 as an airbase commander on Okinawa. While there, he suffered shrapnel wounds to the face and won another combat medal, the Legion of Merit.

After the war, having been promoted to general, Maas stayed on active military duty. In 1949 President Truman appointed him to the President’s Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped. The appointment proved prophetic. Over the course of a few weeks in August 1951 Maas lost his eyesight—a delayed response to his injuries on Okinawa.

In 1954 President Eisenhower appointed Maas chairman of the Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. For his energetic work there he won many certificates and commendations, including the Migel Medal, the highest award of the American Foundation for the Blind, presented to him by Helen Keller. In 1955 he was elected national commander of the Disabled American Veterans.

Maas died in April 1964 of heart disease and diabetes.

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Eisele, Albert. “Melvin Maas: A Hero in Congress from Minnesota.” MinnPost, December 20, 2011.
http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2011/12/melvin-maas-hero-congress-minnesota

El-Hai, Jack. “A Disarming Congressman.” Minnesota Monthly, March 2006.

Guill, Timothy A. A Leatherneck in Congress: Melvin Maas’s Fight for a Modern Marine Corps Reserve. Master's thesis, Boise State University, May 2014.

Maas, Melvin, as told to P.F. Healy. “Don’t Pity Us Handicapped.” Saturday Evening Post 252, no. 50 (September 5, 1959): 30.

Nelson, Paul. "When Ramsey County Politics Had an Edge: Maas v. Williams." Ramsey County History 50, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 3–12.

P1530
Melvin J. Maas Papers, 1912–1986
Manuscript Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul
http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00985.xml
Description: Correspondence, photographs, reports, diaries, and professional papers of Melvin J. Maas.

Zehnpfenning, Gladys. Melvin J. Maas: Gallant Man of Action. Minneapolis: T.S. Denison, 1967.

[Editor’s note: Several of these publications, in addition to the St. Paul Pioneer Press and New York Times, repeat the story that in 1929 or 1931 Maas borrowed a plane and flew over the U.S. Capitol to dramatize its lack of defenses. The flight did not take place.]

Related Images

Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas, 1931.
Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas, 1931.
Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas from St. Paul Central High School yearbook, 1916.
Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas from St. Paul Central High School yearbook, 1916.
Black and white photograph of Melvin J. Maas, 1925.
Black and white photograph of Melvin J. Maas, 1925.
Cartoon portrait of Maas from St. Paul Daily News January 9, 1926.
Cartoon portrait of Maas from St. Paul Daily News January 9, 1926.
Black and white photograph of Maas in flight suit, c.1929.
Black and white photograph of Maas in flight suit, c.1929.
Black and white photograph of Congressman Melvin Maas (right) with a disabled constituent, 1930.
Black and white photograph of Congressman Melvin Maas (right) with a disabled constituent, 1930.
Color image of Maas for Congress campaign poster, 1934.
Color image of Maas for Congress campaign poster, 1934.
Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas as a Brigadier General in the Marines, c.1948.
Black and white photograph of Melvin Maas as a Brigadier General in the Marines, c.1948.
Black and white photograph of Melvin J. Maas with daughter Patricia and wife Katherine, 1952.
Black and white photograph of Melvin J. Maas with daughter Patricia and wife Katherine, 1952.

Turning Point

Over the course of four weeks in August 1951, Maas loses his eyesight.

Chronology

1898

Melvin Maas is born in Duluth on May 14. His family moves to St. Paul two months later.

1917

Maas enlists in the Marines in April. He trains as a pilot and spends most of the war flying reconnaissance missions from the Azores.

1925

On January 28 Maas makes his first public splash in a speech calling for the modification of Prohibition to allow beer and wine (but not saloons.)

1926

On June 21 Maas defeats incumbent Congressman Oscar Keller in the Republican primary by more than ten thousand votes.

1926

Maas is elected to Congress on November 2.

1932

On June 20, in a statewide, at-large primary made necessary by Minnesota’s failure to redistrict after the 1930 census, Maas comes in eleventh out of thirty-two candidates. Since only the top nine can advance, he later loses his seat in Congress.

1932

On December 13 Marlin Kemmerer appears in the U.S. House gallery waving a loaded pistol and demanding to speak. While others flee, Maas talks Kemmerer into giving him the gun. Later the two of them, and the gun, are photographed together.

1934

Maas is re-elected to Congress on November 6.

1936

Despite a Democratic landslide, on November 3 Maas retains his seat by 360 votes over Farmer-Labor candidate Howard Y. Williams. This is by far his closest election.

1942

With Congress in summer recess, Maas goes on active Marine duty in the South Pacific. For his role as a volunteer navigator and gunner in a perilous combat mission over New Guinea and the surrounding seas he wins a Silver Star.

1944

Maas loses re-election to DFL candidate Frank Starkey on November 7.

1945

Between April and June Maas serves as an airbase commander during the Battle of Okinawa, suffers shrapnel wounds to the face, and receives a Legion of Merit commendation.

1951

In August Maas loses his eyesight in Washington, D.C.

1954

President Eisenhower appoints Maas chairman of the President’s Council on Employment of the Handicapped.

1964

Maas dies on April 14 in Washington, D.C., at age sixty-five.