James E. Murray

James Edward Murray (May 3, 1876 – March 23, 1961) was an American politician and United States senator from Montana, and a liberal leader of the Democratic Party. He served in the United States Senate from 1934 until 1961.

Born on a farm near St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada, Murray graduated from St. Jerome's College in Berlin, Ontario, in 1897. That same year his father died and he went to live with a wealthy uncle in Butte, Montana, James Andrew Murray, who owned valuable copper mines. His uncle sent him to New York to study law. He graduated from the law department of New York University in 1900, the same year he became an American citizen. He was admitted to the bar in 1901, and commenced practice in Butte, where he also engaged in banking and the management of his uncle's properties.

He practiced law in Butte and in 1906 was elected to one term as Silver Bow County attorney. Murray feuded with local officials and judges, and returned to private practice. Active in the Democratic Party, Murray worked closely with labor unions to build his political base. In 1921, he and his mother inherited over $10 million from his late uncle. He dabbled in Irish politics, and reentered Montana politics when the Great Depression soured the Montana economy in the 1930s.

Until 1987, his family owned The Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana's downtown historic district.

Murray was county attorney of Silver Bow County, Montana, from 1906 to 1908, and became chairman of the State advisory board of the Public Works Administration from 1933 to 1934.

When Senator Thomas Walsh died in 1933, Democratic Governor John E. Erickson resigned and had himself appointed to the seat, despite his weak political base. Murray defeated Erickson in the 1934 special primary for the remainder of Walsh's term, and won the special general election that November; he was elected on the platform of "one hundred per-cent support" of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Murray was elected to a full term in 1936, and re-elected in 1942, 1948 and 1954.

Murray was a staunch liberal and aggressive supporter of the New Deal Coalition. He broke with Montana's senior senator, Burton K. Wheeler, when Murray backed Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937; unlike Wheeler, Murray gave up his isolationism in foreign affairs, and backed Roosevelt's aggressive foreign policy against Germany and Japan in 1939-1941.

In April 1943 a confidential analysis of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by British scholar Isaiah Berlin for the British Foreign Office succinctly characterized Murray as: