Wilbur Mills
Wilbur Daigh Mills (May 24, 1909 – May 2, 1992) was an American Democratic politician who represented Arkansas's 2nd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1939 until his retirement in 1977. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1958 to 1974, he was often called "the most powerful man in Washington".
Wilbur Mills
Born in Kensett, Arkansas, Mills pursued a legal career and helped run his father's bank after three years at Harvard Law School, when he returned to Kensett he also assisted his father at the AP Mills General Store, as he had done for many years. In fact, he began doing the store inventory at about 10 years of age. He served as the youngest ever county judge of White County, Arkansas, then won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1938, the youngest elected from Arkansas. As the youngest chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mills was the Congressional architect in establishing Medicare. He was also the architect of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, lowering rates on poor and raising rates on rich, and creating the alternative minimum tax and a strong advocate for infrastructure projects, especially the interstate highway system.
Mills' name was entered in the presidential primaries in a few states in 1972, championing an automatic cost of living adjustment to Social Security, performing surprisingly well in Manchester, New Hampshire and poorly in several states in the Democratic primaries. After two public incidents with a stripper named Fanne Foxe, he stepped down as Chair of the Ways and Means and checked into the Palm Beach Institute for Alcoholism for three months and he declined to seek re-election in 1976, even though he had received more than 59% of the vote for re-election after the first incident. After leaving office, he returned to the practice of law and helped establish a center for the treatment of alcoholism, the Wilbur D. Mills Center for Alcoholism and Drug Treatment Center, while supporting similar centers around the country in their fundraising efforts.
Youth and early political life[edit]
Mills was born in Kensett, Arkansas to Abbie Lois Daigh Mills and Ardra Pickens Mills.[1] Kensett was the first public school in Arkansas to integrate under Mills's father, who was first superintendent, then chairman of the school board, and the banker for the school district. Mills attended public schools in Kensett but graduated as valedictorian from Searcy High School in the county seat of White County. He thereafter graduated from Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas as salutatorian, having resided in Martin Hall. He studied constitutional law at Harvard Law School under Felix Frankfurter, who later was nominated and confirmed (1939) as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Mills returned to Arkansas to run his father's bank and assist with the store, during the Great Depression and was soon admitted to the Arkansas Bar Association in 1933.
Mills served as the 29th county judge of White County, between 1935 and 1939, and began small Medicare-like, county-funded program, with a $5,000 fund to pay medical bills (equivalent to $110,000 in 2023),[2] prescription drugs which were sold at cost, and hospital treatment for the indigent which were lowered to $2.50 per day (equivalent to $55 in 2023),[2] as well as have doctors see qualified patients free of charge. Patients were qualified for the program through petitioning the local justice of the peace, who in turn made a recommendation to Mills as county judge.
Scandal, alcoholism, recovery and retirement[edit]
Mills was involved in a traffic incident in Washington, D.C. at 2 a.m. on October 7, 1974. U.S. Park Police stopped his car late at night because his driver had not activated the vehicle's headlights. Mills was intoxicated, and his face was injured following a scuffle with Annabelle Battistella, better known as Fanne Foxe, a stripper from Argentina. When police approached the car, Foxe leapt from the vehicle and jumped into the nearby Tidal Basin.[9][10][11] She was taken to St. Elizabeth's Mental Hospital for treatment. The Park Police took Mills to his home. Despite the scandal, Mills was re-elected in November 1974 in a heavily Democratic year with nearly 60% of the vote, defeating Republican Judy Petty. On November 30, 1974, Mills, seemingly drunk, was accompanied by Eduardo Battestella, Fanne Foxe's husband, onstage at The Pilgrim Theatre in Boston, where Foxe was performing. He held a press conference from Foxe's dressing room.[9] Mills stepped down from his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee, acknowledged his alcoholism, joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and checked himself into the Palm Beach Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida for two months, where he was joined in treatment by Mrs. Mills.[9][12][13]Mills chose not to run for re-election in 1976, and to continue to devote himself to his recovery and his work with other alcoholics in public office. He was succeeded by a family friend, Democrat Jim Guy Tucker.[14][15] Thereafter, Mills practiced tax law at the prestigious Shea and Gould Law Firm of New York's Washington Office, until he retired in 1991 and moved back to Arkansas to work on the continued development including a new campus of the Wilbur D. Mills Treatment Center for Alcoholism, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences's Wilbur D. Mills Endowed Chairs on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, and the Masonic Grand Lodge's capital fundraising campaign.
Mills died in Searcy, Arkansas in 1992. He is interred at Kensett Cemetery in Kensett, Arkansas.[16]
Personal life[edit]
Wilbur was married to Clarine "Polly" Billingsley Mills for almost 58 years from 1934 until his death in 1992; she died on October 16, 2001. They are interred side by side at the Kensett Cemetery.
Various schools, highways, and other structures in Arkansas are named for Mills:
Sculptures of Mills are located at: