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Bricker & Eckler

U.S. Politician from Ohio

John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 1947 to 1959, as well as the 54th governor of Ohio from 1939 to 1945. He was also the Republican Party vice presidential nominee in the 1944 presidential election. Born in Madison County, Ohio, Bricker attended Ohio State University and began a legal practice in Columbus, Ohio.2 It was founded by John W. Bricker.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1945Founded1

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John William Bricker (September 6, 1893 – March 22, 1986) was an American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 1947 to 1959, as well as the 54th governor of Ohio from 1939 to 1945. He was also the Republican Party vice presidential nominee in the 1944 presidential election.2

The story

Founded by John W. Bricker in 1945.1

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During World War I, Bricker served as first lieutenant and chaplain in the United States Army in 1917 and 1918. He was subsequently the solicitor for Grandview Heights, Ohio, from 1920 to 1928, assistant Attorney General of Ohio from 1923 to 1927, a member of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio from 1929 to 1932, and Attorney General of Ohio from 1933 to 1937.

He was elected governor for three two-year terms, serving from 1939 to 1945, each time winning with a greater margin of victory. Bricker espoused a stance against centralized government, preferring to increase involvement in state and local governments, and made this known in his inaugural address as Governor:

There must be a revitalization of state and local governments throughout the nation. The individual citizen must again be conscious of his responsibility to his government and alert to the preservation of his rights as a citizen under it. That cannot be done by taking government further away, but by keeping it at home.

Bricker was the 1944 Republican nominee for vice president, running with presidential nominee Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York who was nine years Bricker's junior. The Republicans lost handily to the Democratic ticket of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. In that campaign, Bricker proved to be a tireless campaigner, visiting thirty-one states and making 173 speeches, including 28 over a six-day period. His final remarks came on radio on election eve from the governor's office in Columbus, when he declared: "Not only has the New Deal depleted our resources, recklessly spent our money, but it has undermined the very spiritual foundations of our government." Though most of his campaigning was in New England, the Midwest, and the West, Bricker even visited the then-historically and -heavily Democratic state of Texas, where in Dallas, he called Franklin Roosevelt "a front for the Hillman-Browder Communist Party," referring to the respective leaders of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Communist Party of the United States of America.

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In 1946, Bricker was elected to the United States Senate. He was re-elected in 1952, serving from January 3, 1947, to January 3, 1959.

Governor Dewey was the Republican presidential nominee again in 1948, but Senator Bricker was not his running mate. Dewey chose instead Governor Earl Warren of California in the hope that the 1948 ticket would carry California, which the Dewey-Bricker ticket had failed to do. The Dewey-Warren ticket also lost California, and the absence of Bricker on the second ticket may have been a factor in Dewey's failure to win Bricker's home state of Ohio again. Bricker campaigned with Warren in 1944 in Sacramento, where Bricker attacked the politics of war-time rationing; then in San Francisco Bricker charged that Roosevelt had packed the U.S. judiciary with liberal jurists hostile to the Constitution. However, even if Dewey had carried both California and Ohio in 1948, the two large states would have been insufficient to elect him president in that second campaign.

Bricker's Senate service is best remembered for his attempts to amend the United States Constitution to limit the President's treaty-making powers (the Bricker Amendment). He was the chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce during the 83rd Congress.

On July 12, 1947, a former Capitol police officer, William Louis Kaiser, fired shots at Senator Bricker as he boarded the underground subway from the Senate office building to the Capitol. The two shots, fired at close range, narrowly missed their target. Kaiser stated he was "trying to refresh" Bricker's memory. Kaiser had served on the police force as a protege of Bricker's predecessor in the Senate and had complained of losing substantial money on Columbus real estate. An investigation concluded that Kaiser may have fired blanks or else purposely missed Bricker.

Bricker intervened in the 1956 deportation of Dr. Peter Tchen, father of Tina Tchen, former Time's Up CEO and Chief of Staff to Michelle Obama, by introducing a bill to grant him permanent residency.

Bricker voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1958, former U.S. representative Stephen M. Young ran against Bricker. Bricker seemed invincible, but Young capitalized on widespread public opposition to the proposed "right to work" amendment to Ohio's constitution, which Bricker had endorsed. Few thought that Young, 69 at the time, could win; even members of his own party had doubts, particularly Ohio's other senator, Democrat Frank J. Lausche. In an upset amid a national Democratic trend, Young defeated Bricker 52% to 48%. Bricker then retired from public life.

From Wikipedia’s article on Bricker & Eckler, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Timeline

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Sources

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