Bronson Cutting was born in
Great River,
Long Island, New York, on June 23, 1888, at his family's country seat of
Westbrook. He was the third of four children born to
William Bayard Cutting (1850–1912) and Olivia Peyton Murray (1855–1949). He attended the common schools and
Groton School and graduated from
Harvard University in 1910 where he was a member of the
Delphic Club. Shortly after graduation, he became an
invalid due to recurrent
tuberculosis and moved to
Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the advice of his doctors to restore his health. He became a newspaper publisher in 1912 and published the
Santa Fe New Mexican and
El Nuevo Mexicano. From 1912 to 1918 he served as president of the
New Mexican Printing Company, and of the
Santa Fe New Mexican Publishing Corporation from 1920 until his death. During World War I, Cutting was commissioned a
captain and served as an assistant military attaché of the
American Embassy in London, in 1917 and 1918. He was
regent of the
New Mexico Military Institute in 1920 and served as chairman of the board of commissioners of the
New Mexican State Penitentiary in 1925.
U.S. senator On December 29, 1927, Cutting was appointed as a Republican to the
United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
Andrieus A. Jones. He served until December 6, 1928, when a duly elected successor,
Octaviano Ambrosio Larrazolo, qualified to serve the remainder of the term, which expired March 3, 1929. Cutting was not a candidate in the special election to fill this vacancy, which took place on November 6, 1928, the same day as the general election in which the seat was up for a full six-year term, beginning March 4, 1929. Larrazolo was not a candidate for election to the full term, and Cutting was elected to it, returning to the Senate after only three months away. Cutting was re-elected in 1934, winning a very close race (with 76,226 votes to Democrat
Dennis Chavez's 74,944) in a failed year for Republicans. He was a co-sponsor of the
Hare–Hawes–Cutting Independence Act which aimed to grant the
Philippine Islands a ten-year
commonwealth status with virtually full autonomy, to be followed by the recognition of
Filipino independence. The bill was enacted over President
Herbert Hoover's veto. However, the law was rejected by the Philippines legislature, and the
Tydings–McDuffie Act (authored by
Millard Tydings, a Maryland Democrat), was instead passed by Congress and accepted by the Philippines legislature.
Freedom of the press Cutting raised the debate on the national level about the government's censorship powers. Via tariff bills dating back to the nineteenth century, the U.S. government, through the Customs Service, had the power to confiscate "obscene" materials arriving to the country. A tariff bill introduced in 1929 sought to expand this power by modifying Section 305 to prohibit printed materials suggesting treason or threatening the life of the president. Senator Cutting, inspired by the complaints of a constituent, opposed the change and attacked Section 305 in its entirety as "irrational, unsound, and un-American." Through several impassioned speeches, Cutting suggested eliminating Section 305. Ultimately, he was forced to compromise and introduced an amendment removing the references to treason. The amendment passed by only two votes and Cutting received widespread public praise from publishers, librarians, booksellers, authors and civil liberties organizations. As the tariff bill moved toward final confirmation, various senators, notably
Reed Smoot of Utah, attempted to restore Section 305 to its original state, while others proposed further draconian measures. Ultimately, portions of Smoot's amendments were combined with those of other senators to create a compromise. Cutting's efforts to create a national debate about censorship were successful, but are now forgotten because the 1929 tariff bill became known as the
Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.
Roosevelt's New Deal and the Chicago plan Crossing party lines, Cutting supported
Franklin D. Roosevelt in the
1932 presidential election. Cutting was offered a position in Roosevelt's cabinet as
Secretary of the Interior, which he ultimately declined due to his unstable health and instead went to
Harold L. Ickes. Cutting played a key role in the political struggles over the reform of banking which Roosevelt undertook while dealing with the Great Depression, and which resulted in the Banking Reform Acts of 1933 and 1935. As a supporter of the
Chicago plan proposed by economist
Irving Fisher and others at the University of Chicago, Cutting was among a handful of influential senators who might have been able to remove from the private banks their ability to manipulate the money supply by enforcing a 100 percent reserve requirement for all credit creation, as stipulated in the Chicago plan. His death in an airliner crash cut short what may have been his most enduring legacy to the nation.
Death and legacy On May 6, 1935, on his way from Albuquerque to Washington, D.C., Cutting died in the crash of
TWA Flight 6 (a
Douglas DC-2) in bad weather near
Atlanta, Missouri. Senator Cutting's death had national impact, leading Congress to commission the highly controversial
Copeland Committee report on air traffic safety.
Dennis Chavez, who had been Cutting's Democratic opponent in 1934, was appointed by the governor to fill Cutting's seat in the Senate. Cutting is interred in
Green-Wood Cemetery in
Brooklyn, New York. ==See also==