Clyde L. Herring

Clyde LaVerne Herring (May 3, 1879 – September 15, 1945) was an American Democratic politician who served as the 26th governor of Iowa, and then one of its U.S. senators, during the last part of the Great Depression and the first part of World War II.

Early life

He was born in 1879 and raised in Jackson County, Michigan. His parents farmed until he was 14 years old, when the Panic of 1893 caused failing finances that made it necessary for them to move to town.

Early career

In 1897, at 18, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and became a jewelry clerk.

Enlisting in the military, he served during the Spanish–American War as a private in Company D of the Third Michigan Regiment. He then ran for the United States Senate in a 1922 special election, caused by the elevation of Senator William S. Kenyon to be a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, losing to Republican Smith W. Brookhart. He held one of Iowa's seats on the Democratic National Committee from 1924 to 1928. Herring and other Democratic candidates in Iowa won an unprecedented number of races that year, and Herring became only the second Democrat to serve as governor of Iowa since the founding of the Republican Party, in 1854. In a 1934 rematch, Herring again defeated Turner this time by 74,287 votes, while he led a Democratic sweep of statewide offices that also kept Democrats in six of Iowa's nine U.S. House seats. Notable accomplishments from Herring’s two terms in office were a budget as well as financial control act that would manage and condense state expenses, halted foreclosures, and a bill that aided financially unstable banks.

United States Senator

In 1936, his fourth year as governor, Herring chose not to run for re-election but instead challenged incumbent Republican U.S. Senator L. J. Dickinson. Herring defeated Dickinson by 35,920 votes. Both senators from Iowa were Democrats for the first time since 1855. His service as senator was slightly delayed to await the end of his term as Iowa's governor.