Leverett Saltonstall

Leverett Atholville Saltonstall (September 1, 1892 – June 17, 1979) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He served three two-year terms as the 55th Governor of Massachusetts, and for more than twenty years as a United States senator (1945–1967). Saltonstall was internationalist in foreign policy and moderate on domestic policy, serving as a well-liked mediating force in the Republican Party. He was the only member of the Republican Senate leadership to vote for the censure of Joseph McCarthy.

Leverett Saltonstall was born on September 1, 1892 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts to Richard Middlecott Saltonstall, an attorney, and Eleanor Brooks Saltonstall, an heiress to the Peter Chardon Brooks fortune. Saltenstall's parent had a circle of friends which included future President Theodore Roosevelt.

The Saltonstall family had deep colonial roots, as did the Brooks family of his mother. Saltonstall was able to trace his ancestral roots to the Mayflower; his grandfather and great-grandfather were both also named Leverett Saltonstall.

Saltonstall was educated at the private Noble and Greenough School in Dedham and the Evans School for Boys in Mesa, Arizona, an upper-crust ranch school where his classmates included Nicholas Roosevelt.

He attended Harvard College, graduating in 1914. He was active in varsity sports at Harvard, notably captaining the first American crew to win the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta in 1914. He also played football and hockey, scoring a dramatic overtime goal in a 1914 win over Hobey Baker's Princeton team. He coached Harvard's freshman football team in 1915.

He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1917. While at Harvard Law, he married Alice Wesselhoeft of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. They had six children.

After graduation, Saltonstall entered the United States Army. He served as a first lieutenant in the 301st Field Artillery Regiment in the 76th Division in World War I, spending six months in France. He was discharged in 1919, and then entered the law firm of his uncle.

Saltonstall, a socially progressive Republican, entered politics as an alderman in Newton, Massachusetts, serving from 1920 to 1922, while simultaneously serving as second assistant district attorney of Middlesex County under his uncle, Endicott Peabody Saltonstall, from 1921 to 1922. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives that same year; there he rose to the position of Speaker of the House, which he held from 1929 to 1937.