Born in
Hull, Massachusetts, Stearns attended public schools. He graduated from
Amherst College in 1903,
Harvard University in 1906, and
Boston College in 1915. He was Librarian of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 1913 to 1917, and State Librarian of
Massachusetts in 1917. During the
First World War, Stearns served as a
first lieutenant with the Sixteenth Infantry, First Division, and at the General Headquarters of the
American Expeditionary Forces in France, where he served as assistant
military attaché from November 27, 1917, until discharged August 5, 1919. He received the
Silver Star and
Purple Heart decorations in recognition of his service. He served in the
Department of State,
Washington, D.C., in 1920 and 1921, and was third secretary of the American Embassy, attached to the United States High Commission, in
Constantinople, 1921–1923. He was second secretary of the American Embassy at
Paris in 1923 and 1924. Returning to the United States, Stearns was Librarian of the
College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, Massachusetts, from 1925 to 1930. He moved to
Hancock, New Hampshire, in 1927. He served as member of the
New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1937 and 1938, and served as delegate to the
Republican National Conventions in 1940 and 1948. He was Regent of the
Smithsonian Institution, 1941–1945. In 1941 he became a hereditary member of the New Hampshire
Society of the Cincinnati. Stearns was elected as a Republican to the
Seventy-sixth,
Seventy-seventh, and
Seventy-eighth Congresses (January 3, 1939 – January 3, 1945). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1944, but was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for
United States Senator. A confidential 1943 analysis of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee by
Isaiah Berlin for the British
Foreign Office described Stearns as In 1942, Stearns became a director of the Rumford Printing Co. of
Concord, New Hampshire. He moved to
Exeter in 1948, where he died June 4, 1956. He was interred in Exeter Cemetery. ==References==