Reece served as a delegate to the
Republican National Conventions in
1928,
1932,
1936,
1940,
1944, and
1948. He was a member of the Board of Regents of the
Smithsonian Institution in 1945 and 1946. According to a 1981 pamphlet by
Stephen Alan Sampson of
Anti-Communist Crusade, republished by
Liberty University, Reece was a conservative derided by intraparty moderates as an "Old Guard reactionary".
Denying renomination of Sam R. Sells and winning election to the U.S. House Reece first successfully ran for the House of Representatives in 1920, challenging incumbent Republican Sam R. Sells. Although supporters of Sells initially dismissed Reece's candidacy as a joke, the political newcomer ran on his military service as Sells campaigned on his personality rather than his congressional voting record. During the campaign, Reece, who went to all counties in the district, promised to serve only up to ten years, a vow he eventually broke. He would later recount his first interaction with his predecessor:
1930 defeat, 1932 comeback Following his first election, Reece was re-elected four consecutive times. He lost in the 1930 midterms to Independent Republican
Oscar Lovette following backlash from constituents over the
George W. Norris Muscle Shoals bill (the Senate version, which is considered a forerunner to the
Tennessee Valley Authority) being vetoed by President
Herbert Hoover as well as having failed to ensure the Cove Creek Dam being built. Many of Reece's constituents turned against him due to his siding with private enterprise in his support of Muscle Shoals development over the government initiative to provide nitrates for farmers, which Lovette emphasized his support for. The incumbent congressman, who President Hoover offered to help in his sinking re-election bid, claimed that the Muscle Shoals bill introduced by Norris which emphasized a larger size and scope of the federal government "originated in Red Russia." During this period, although he was out of office during the time, his favorability among President Hoover ensured that patronage and significant influence went through his hands rather than Lovette's. Reece narrowly re-emerged successfully and defeated Lovette, who in turn claimed
voter fraud. An investigation by a House subcommittee uncovered some "questionable" election procedures practices, though Reece was ultimately seated. However, the landslide defeats the GOP suffered nationally that year would mark the start of solid Democratic control in the federal government as the
Great Depression continued.
Return to the House Reece thus returned to Congress, serving until 1947, when he stepped down to devote his full energies to serving as chairman of the
Republican National Committee, a position he had held since 1946. An adamant conservative, Reece generally opposed the
New Deal during the presidency of
Franklin D. Roosevelt along with Progressive initiatives such as Federal wage and price controls. prior to
World War II and voted against the
Lend-Lease Act. A supporter of civil rights, he advocated the passage of federal anti-lynching legislation and anti-poll tax measures. In 1948 and 1952 Reece was a leading supporter of Taft's candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination; however, Taft lost the nomination both times to moderate Republicans from New York. Reece was the Republican nominee for an open
Senate seat in
1948, but lost to
Democratic Congressman
Estes Kefauver, who had unseated incumbent Democrat
Tom Stewart in the party primary. Kefauver carried the support of the influential editor
Edward J. Meeman of the
Memphis Press-Scimitar, who had for years fought to topple the
Edward "Boss" Crump political machine in
Memphis. Crump supported Stewart.
Republican Party leadership Allied with
Ohio senator Taft, Reece succeeded
Herbert Brownell, Jr. (later
United States Attorney General under president
Dwight D. Eisenhower), as the chair of the
Republican National Committee in early April 1946 and presided over
GOP victories in the 1946 midterms. Due to his independent wealth inherited from his father-in-law, In February 1948, Reece called for purging
communists from the
United States, asserting: Reece also opposed President Truman's use of "public funds" for his Western trip, calling it a "pre-nomination campaign tour."
Defeating Phillips, returning to the U.S. House In 1950, Reece ran against the man who succeeded him in the House,
Dayton Phillips, and defeated him in the Republican
primary. This all but assured him of a return to Congress in the heavily Republican district. He was reelected five more times. When the Republicans gained control of the House after the
1952 elections, Reece served as chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations, losing this post after the Democrats regained control in
1955. In the
1952 United States presidential election, Reece threw support to
Robert A. Taft, who he predicted the GOP delegations in Southern and border states would support. Taft ultimately lost in the Republican primaries to the more moderate
Dwight D. Eisenhower, an
internationalist. During his time in Congress, he was a social and fiscal conservative who supported
isolationism and
civil rights legislation, being one of the few Southern Congressmen who declined to sign the 1956 anti-desegregation
Southern Manifesto and voted in favor of the
Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and
1960. He was a rarity in politics at the time—a truly senior Republican congressman from a former Confederate state.
International controversy During the
Cold War, Reece's statement that "The citizens of
Danzig are
German as they always had been" caused a reply from
Jędrzej Giertych, a leading Polish emigrant in London and writer, publicist, and publisher of
National Democratic background. Danzig was separated from Germany and had been established as the
Free City of Danzig in accordance with the
Treaty of Versailles following
World War I. It was annexed by
Nazi Germany in 1939 and subsequently grouped with
Poland in the
Potsdam Agreement. Reece was opposed to the
Oder-Neisse line, advocating the return to Germany of its
former Eastern territories.
Cox Committee Reece was a member of the 1952
Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations, established by the House in April that year to probe major foundations for subversive activities. It was known during the congressional session as the
Cox Committee, named after its chair
Eugene "Goober" Cox, a Democratic segregationist from Georgia. Due to family illnesses, Reece was absent for most of the hearings the Cox Committee conducted. Cox suddenly died in December 1952, and the final report which was soon released cleared the investigated foundations of any wrongdoing. Reece asserted the following, as listed in the Cox Committee report: Among the remaining committee members, only Reece sought a do-over, believing that the scope of the investigations were insufficient. He in addition stated in a long, detailed House speech: The Cox Committee report recommended a possible investigation of whether major foundations used their privileges for the purpose of
tax evasion, as stated in page 12 of the report: Reece ignored this aspect and only focused on subversive activities. Texas liberal populist Democrat
Wright Patman later took up the report's particular suggestion in the 1960s as chairman of the Select Committee on Small Business, also known as the Patman Committee.
Reece Committee Reece led the
House Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations which investigated the use of funds by tax-exempt non-profit organizations, and in particular
foundations, to determine if they were using their funds to support communism in educational institutions. Reece selected attorney
Norman Dodd to lead the investigation, which lasted eighteen months. Reece would later declare that "The evidence that has been gathered by the staff pointed to one simple underlying situation, namely that the major foundations, by subsidizing collectivistic-minded educators, had financed a socialist trend in American government." ==Death and legacy==