Charles Mathias
The mid-twentieth century produced a generation of American politicians who built careers spanning local legislatures, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, often working across decades of significant national change. Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr. was one such figure, a Republican lawyer and politician from Maryland whose public life stretched from the late 1950s through the mid-1980s.
Born on July 24, 1922, in Frederick, Maryland, Mathias attended Frederick High School before going on to Haverford College, Yale University, and the University of Maryland's law school. He also served as a military officer at some point during his life, adding that dimension to a career otherwise defined by legal practice and elected office. As a lawyer working within the Republican Party, he brought a professional grounding to the legislative roles he would go on to hold.
Mathias entered elected politics as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, serving from 1959 to 1961. That position gave way to a seat in the United States House of Representatives, where he served from 1961 to 1969. He then moved to the upper chamber, taking a seat in the United States Senate in 1969 and serving there until 1987. Taken together, those tenures amount to nearly three decades of continuous public service at the state and federal levels, a span that placed him in Washington through some of the more turbulent stretches of American political life in the twentieth century.
Mathias died on January 25, 2010, in Chevy Chase, Maryland, at the age of eighty-seven. His career as a politician, lawyer, and military officer — rooted in Frederick and carried through the halls of Congress for the better part of thirty years — represents a substantial record of public engagement. His authorized biographical label, which identifies him simply as "Mathias, Charles McCurdy, Jr., 1922–2010," reflects the span of a life that moved from a Maryland high school through the highest legislative body in the United States.
Quotes by Charles Mathias
I cannot help but wonder whether, by continuing and expanding the school lunch program, we aren’t witnessing, if not encouraging, the slow demise of yet another American tradition: the brown bag. Perhaps we are beholding yet another break in the chain that links child to home.
People tend to want to follow the beaten path. The difficulty is that the beaten path doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere.
The Voting Rights Act was really the whole core of the civil rights movement. It made a tremendous improvement, ... There was a new recognition of black citizenship.
I think that's why we're having these hearings to establish the record that there is a need (to renew these provisions), ... I think the record will speak for itself.
We desegregated that opera house and made it possible for people to sit anywhere,
People tend to want to follow the beaten path. The difficulty is that the beaten path doesn't seem to be leading anywhere.
The brown bag, of course, had its imperfections. While some kids carried roast beef sandwiches, others had peanut butter. I have no way of knowing if all of those brown bags contained 'nutritionally adequate diets.' But I do know that those brown bags and those lunch pails symbolized parental love and responsibility.
I cannot help but wonder whether, by continuing and expanding the school lunch program, we aren't witnessing, if not encouraging, the slow demise of yet another American tradition: the brown bag. Perhaps we are beholding yet another break in the chain that links child to home.