Frank Kent

Frank Richardson Kent (1877–1958) was an American journalist and political theorist of the 1920s and 1930s whose Baltimore Sun column "The Great Game of Politics" was syndicated nationally.

Background

Frank Richardson Kent was born in 1877 in Baltimore, Maryland. His uncle was Frank Richardson, also a prominent journalist.

But by 1934 Kent, a lifelong Democrat, turned against the New Deal. He criticized FDR and liberals who tried to disrupt his cherished Jeffersonian principles - the balanced budget, limited spending by the federal government, and a limited government. As his criticism became more severe, he charged that the Democrats no longer stood for states' rights. Kent pronounced the New Deal's AAA farm program a failure and was astonished that the Roosevelt administration did not propose to abandon it, but intended, instead, "to proceed from one experiment that has failed to a more drastic experiment along the same line" in the direction of greater control over agricultural production. As for the centerpiece of New Deal efforts to promote economic recovery, NRA, Kent found no enthusiasm for it any longer. People no longer looked to see if there was an NRA Blue Eagle in the windows of the stores where they shopped. But the principal objection to the NRA was the growing conviction that the Roosevelt administration had ceased to consider the NRA and AAA as "merely temporary devices for the duration of the emergency". Kent rejoiced when the Supreme Court invalidated the National Recovery Act. Desiring Roosevelt's defeat in the 1936 election, Kent was crushed by the election results.

In 1938, Kent quoted FDR aide Harry Hopkins saying, "We are going to spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax, elect, elect and elect", leading to the phrase he coined, "tax-and-spend Democrat".

On February 27, 1949, Kent wrote on "Labor Bill Facts" for his "Great Game of Politics" column. Kent stated that the "multitudinous arguments and allegations" for and against repeal of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act were too detailed for the "average citizen to grasp". However, Kent had four major points that any reader could understand. First, he explained, "the real force behind the drive to repeal are the CIO bosses and their publicity agencies", although supported by the AFL, UMW, and Railroad Brotherhood. Second, the CIO's "anti-Taft-Harley propaganda" vastly outweighed the act's supporters in terms of "violence, volume and in cost ... Literally, millions of dollars have been spent", more by the CIO than any other group. Third, labor unions care only for themselves, not the general public, while President Truman last year "used not only the arguments of Mr. Lee Pressman assailing the Taft-Hartley bill but much of his actual language. Fourth, the Truman administration owes labor so much for his 1948 election that he will sacrifice all others for them.

Over the years, Kent's column went from daily to twice-weekly to thrice-weekly and finally to Sunday weekly. In 1916, he married Elizabeth Thomas.

Legacy

"The Great Game of Politics"

The start of Kent's daily column "The Great Game of Politics" was of such note that weekly news magazine Time covered it with its own article.

Memorial lecture

The Johns Hopkins University sponsors a Frank R. Kent Memorial Lecture in Journalism. Speakers have included: Russell Baker, Walter Cronkite, Sam Donaldson, David Halberstam, Ted Koppel, Jane Bryant Quinn, James Reston, and Marvin Kalb.

The Story of Maryland Politics (1911) The Great Game of Politics (1924) History of the Democratic Party (1925) Political Behavior (1928)