Irving Ives

Irving McNeil Ives (January 24, 1896 – February 24, 1962) was an American politician and founding dean of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. A Republican, he served as a United States Senator from New York from 1947 to 1959. He was previously a member of the New York State Assembly for sixteen years, serving as Minority Leader, Speaker (1936), and Majority Leader (1937–1946). A liberal Republican, he was known as a specialist in labor and civil rights legislation. Ives voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Early life and education Irving Ives was born in Bainbridge, New York, to George Albert and Lucie Hough (née Keeler) Ives. His ancestors came from England to the United States, where they settled in Boston, Massachusetts in 1635; they later helped found Quinnipiac Colony in 1638, and lived in Vermont before moving to New York in 1795. His father worked in the coal and feed business. During the war, he served with the 5th Division in France and Germany, assigned primarily to the 61st Infantry Regiment. He participated in the Meuse-Argonne and Saint-Mihiel campaigns and was honorably discharged as a first lieutenant in 1919. Ives stepped aside in favor of Oswald D. Heck, who subsequently named Ives Majority Leader. He served in that position from 1937 to 1946.

From 1938 to 1946, Ives was chairman of the State Joint Legislative Committee on Industrial and Labor Conditions. Ives also introduced legislation to create the state Department of Commerce and to establish the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, of which he was dean from 1945 to 1947. Ives was the first Republican to represent New York in the Senate since James W. Wadsworth Jr., who was defeated for reelection in 1926.

Despite his moderate reputation, Ives supported the Taft–Hartley Act in 1947 and voted to override President Harry S. Truman's veto of it; he subsequently lost his longstanding support from labor unions. He received the largest number of votes hitherto ever won by a candidate in New York, carrying all but three of the state's 62 counties. A strong supporter of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, he served as a delegate to the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1954, Ives unsuccessfully ran to succeed Dewey as governor of New York. In one of the closest gubernatorial elections in state history, he lost to Democrat W. Averell Harriman by 11,125 votes. Ives was a delegate to the 1956 Republican National Convention in San Francisco, California. In 1958, he co-sponsored a bill with Senator John F. Kennedy to correct abuses within organized labor as disclosed in hearings before the Rackets Committee.

Later life and death In 1958, Ives declined to seek a third term in the Senate. He died at Chenango Memorial Hospital in Norwich, New York at age 66. He is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Bainbridge, New York.

Legacy Ives is remembered with his desk in the permanent collections of the Chenango County Historical Society. Ives Hall at Cornell University is named for him.