Paul Douglas

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This article is about the economist and senator; Paul Douglas is also the name of an actor.

Template:Infobox Senator Paul Howard Douglas (March 26, 1892 - September 24, 1976) was a University of Chicago economist and Democratic United States Senator, 1949–1967, representing the State of Illinois. He was married to Emily Taft Douglas, another Illinois politician who served in the House of Representatives.

Despite being a Quaker, Douglas left the University of Chicago faculty to enlist in the United States Marine Corps at the U.S. entry into World War II. Despite his advanced age upon entering service he talked his way out of a desk job and onto the front lines. In the war, Douglas was decorated for gallantry and lost the use of one arm.

In 1948, the Chicago Democratic machine faced a blow-up of scandals. Machine leader Jacob Arvey made Douglas the party's Senate nominee in hope that the professor's sterling reputation for honesty would benefit the rest of the party.

As a Senator, Douglas was one of the most passionate, though not most effective, crusaders for civil rights, and would occasionally resort to trickery to achieve his goals. In an attempt to cut short Senator Strom Thurmond's 1957 filibuster on a civil rights bill, Douglas famously offered the parched Senator orange juice, so that Thurmond would need to use the bathroom and thus leave the Senate floor, ending the filibuster. Realizing what Douglas was doing, Thurmond's aide seized the pitcher of juice out of the filibustering Thurmond's hands.

He was an advocate for fair lending and was chairman of the [1]Joint Economic Committee and was responsible for getting passed the Truth-in-Lending bill which became "The Consumer Credit Protection Act of 1968 -- which launched Truth in Lending -- was a landmark piece of legislation. For the first time, creditors had to state the cost of borrowing in a common language so that the customer could figure out exactly what the actual charges would be, compare costs, and shop around for the credit deal best for themselves. Until this legislation was passed, creditors were charging extravagant percentages to single women and minorities and poorer people merely based on sex, race and income, not credit.

He was an advocate for public housing and opposed real estate redlining. A fateful compromise of Douglas' was his acceptance in 1949 of a provision in a public housing bill making it possible for suburbs to reject low-income housing.

In 1966 Douglas successfully sponsored legislation authorizing creation of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

In a Republican-dominated election year, Douglas lost re-election in 1966 to Charles H. Percy. After he died, his remains were cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the lagoon of Jackson Park.

Prior to his political career, Douglas helped develop the Cobb-Douglas functional form, often used for production functions and utility functions in economics.

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