Wallace Foster Bennett

U.S. Senator. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. Senate from Utah from January 1951 until December 1974. Born to Mormon parents, his grandparents emigrated from England. He received his primary education at local schools and graduated from Latter-day Saints' (LDS) High School at Salt Lake City, Utah in 1916. He then entered the University of Utah at Salt Lake City and joined its Reserve Officer Training Corps. When the United States entered World War I (WWI) in April 1917, he left to serve in the U.S. Army and was commissioned an 2nd lieutenant of Infantry in September 1918 and was assigned as an instructor in the Student Army Training Corps at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado. After the end of World War I, he returned to the University of Utah and in 1919, he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and served for a year as principal of the San Luis Stake Academy in Manassa, Colorado. In 1920, he returned to Salt Lake City and became an office clerk at his father's business, Bennett's Paint and Glass Company, later advancing to cashier, production manager, and sales manager. In 1929, he became secretary-treasurer of the company and following his father's death in 1938, he became president and general manager, serving in that position until 1950, when he became chairman of the board. He also ventured into other business, including a Ford dealership known as the Bennett Motor Company, serving as its president from 1939 to 1950, served as president of the Cardon Jewelry Company and of the National Glass Distributors Association, vice-president of Glayton Investment Company and of the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association, and director of Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, the Utah Oil Refining Company, and the Utah Home Fire Insurance Company. In 1949, he was elected president of the National Association of Manufacturers. In March 1950, he became the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and defeated three-term Democrat incumbent Elbert D. Thomas in the following November general election and was subsequently re-elected to three additional terms. During his time in the U.S. Senate, he earned a reputation as a conservative and a pro-business advocate, opposing government regulations and supporting right-to-work laws. He served as a member of the Senate Finance and Banking and Currency Committees, as well as the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the special Senate Ethics Committee and was instrumental in bringing the Central Utah Project and the defense and aerospace industries to Utah. He supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but supported a measure that prohibited withholding federal aid to schools that practiced racial discrimination. He opposed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the creation of Medicare. In 1974, he declined to seek re-election and resigned from his seat In December of that year. He returned to Salt Lake City and resumed his business pursuits, serving on a variety of boards. He died at his home at the age of 95. He wrote the words to "God of Power, God of Right," which is Hymn #20 in the 1985 Latter-day Saints Hymnal. He authored the books "Faith and Freedom" (1950) and "Why I am a Mormon" (1958). He is the father of Robert Foster "Bob" Bennett, who served as a U.S. Senator from Utah from January 1993 until January 2011.