Robert Bruce Chiperfield

Robert Bruce Chiperfield

Mary Rogers
Farmington Junior High School, Farmington

Robert Bruce Chiperfield was a lawyer and a U.S. Representative from Illinois. He was elected to the Seventy-sixth U.S. Congress in 1938. Robert Chiperfield was in Congress for twenty-four continuous years and twelve consecutive terms, until 1962. In 1953 and 1954, during the Eighty-third Congress, Robert Chiperfield served as chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs Committee. Robert B. Chiperfield's great-grandfather was Ossian Ross, a pioneer settler of Fulton County and the founder of Lewistown, Illinois.

Robert Bruce Chiperfield was born November 20, 1899, in Canton, Illinois. He was the son of Burnett Mitchell and Clara Louise (Ross) Chiperfield. Burnett Mitchell Chiperfield, Robert's father, was a lawyer and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives for ten years before his election in 1914 as U.S. Representative at Large, serving for one term. He was also a representative in Congress from 1915 to 1917. Son Robert went to schools in Canton, the District of Columbia, and Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He served as an Army private during World War I.

Chiperfield had one brother, Claude B., and one sister, Margaret. He had a son, Robert, and a daughter, Virginia. Robert's first wife was Katherine Newbern. They were married July 1, 1930. She died in April 1955. His second wife was Eunice Anderson Chiperfield. Chiperfield was a member of the Congregational Church, Masons, Elks, Eagles, and the American Legion.

Chiperfield attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, for one school year, 1918 to 1919. He then transferred to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1922 he received his degree from Harvard University. He then attended Harvard University law school for two years before transferring to Boston University, where he received his law degree. Father and son formed a law partnership at Canton in 1925, when Robert was admitted to the Illinois bar.

Robert Chiperfield was appointed Canton's city attorney in 1926. His father was returned to Congress in 1928 as Representative of the Fifteenth District and was reelected in 1930. Successive defeats in 1932 and 1934, however, caused his father to withdraw from politics. On June 24, 1940, Burnett M. Chiperfield died at his home. His son had been elected two years earlier to his old seat in Congress. Robert B. Chiperfield was assigned to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1939.

Chiperfield opposed the establishment of the naval base at Guam and the naval appropriations bill in the 1939 session. He went on record in 1941against permitting American ships in combat zones and belligerent ports, extending the length of military service, and the Lend-Lease bill. He opposed both the price-control bill and the extension of the president's devaluation authority. Near the end of the war he argued that Lend-Lease agreements could only be made with countries at war with Japan. He also insisted that European countries should pay in dollars for articles and services received since the end of hostilities in Europe.

Chiperfield voted against a $3.7 billion loan to Great Britain and favored limiting foreign relief to $200 million. He voted to override President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Bill and voted for limiting the Presidency to two terms. Chiperfield

strongly urged in a House speech that the U.S. improve relations with Argentina. In 1945 he became a member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
In 1951 Chiperfield was a delegate to the Japanese peace conference and in 1952 a delegate to the Commonwealth of Nations Parliamentary Association meeting in Ottawa, Canada. In January 1953 Chiperfield became chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee after the Republicans obtained a majority in the national legislature in November 1952.
Chiperfield favored statehood for Hawaii as well as raising the public debt limit during the 1953 session of the Eighty-third Congress. He was against an increased appropriation for the Air Force. Chiperfield went to Moscow in October 1953, the first Congressman to do so in seven years. When he returned, he said that much of the Soviet Union's

Robert Bruce Chiperfield held a seat in Congress for twenty-five years.

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industrial effort was being directed toward making a strong military. In the 1954 session under his chairmanship, the Foreign Affairs Committee approved an amendment to the new foreign aid bill banning military aid shipments to France and Italy until those nations had joined the European Defense Community.

Chiperfield's accomplishments continued to mount. He was an observer at the United Nations, and later, as ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, he named five members to that body under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was appointed delegate to the interparliamentary meeting between the U.S. and Mexico in 1962. Congressman Chiperfield was offered the ambassadorship to New Zealand by President Eisenhower but turned it down because of his responsibilities to the committee and his wife's failing health. Brazil and Greece gave him their highest national award for his actions during visits there.

In December 1961 Robert Chiperfield wrote in a letter to the Canton Daily Ledger: I have decided not to be a candidate for Congress in 1962, but will continue to be vitally interested in politics and the Republican party. Before returning to Washington I am going to spend as much time as possible in my district. Thanking my friends for their kindness and support over the years.

Robert Chiperfield died April 9, 1971, of a heart attack. He believed his highest honor was having his portrait hung in the U.S. Capitol under the authority of his Democratic and Republican colleagues.— [From Marjorie Dent, ed., Current Biography; Canton Daily Ledger, June 24, 1940, Nov. 9, 1960, Dec. 15, 1961, Nov. 7, 1962, Ap. 9, 1971.]

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