By Ray Hill
Clarence Cleveland Dill lived a very long and productive life. Throughout the seasons of Dill’s life, he was a country schoolteacher, newspaper reporter, congressman, U.S. senator and successful attorney. Amiable, intelligent and passionate, Clarence C. Dill was a stalwart progressive. Dill once suggested the North Pole be named “Coolidgeland” because “it is so cold and silent.”
In 1914, Clarence C. Dill entered politics, seeking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. With the Republicans split, Dill won the election and was popular enough to be reelected in 1916. Congressman Dill was one of only 50 members of the House who voted against the declaration of war on the German Empire in 1917, which was a highly controversial stand back home in Washington State. Opposed by J. Stanley Webster, a justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, Dill lost the 1918 election, albeit narrowly.
Four years later, Dill set his sights on a higher office and won the Democratic nomination to face two-term U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter, a native of Virginia who spoke with a soft southern drawl, who was a progressive Republican. Senator Poindexter pointed to Dill’s vote against going to war with Germany and denounced the former congressman as a radical. Dill eked out a small victory, winning by 3,937 votes. President Harding later appointed Senator Poindexter as ambassador to Peru, a post which had been recently occupied by former Tennessee governor, Benton McMillin.
Dill turned out to be a productive member of the Senate and was an avid advocate of public power and ardently supported the Columbia Basin Project, which was of vital importance to the State of Washington. Years later, it was Senator Clarence Dill who secured a pledge from Democratic presidential nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt to support the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam.
It was Senator Dill who sponsored the Radio Act of 1927, which created the Federal Radio Commission, which became the Federal Communications Commission in 1934. The Federal Radio Commission was designed to regulate the burgeoning broadcasting stations and networks throughout the nation. Dill’s final accomplishment as a member of the United States Senate was the passage of the Communications Act of 1934, which replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission. The act also moved the government’s regulation of telephone companies from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the Federal Communications Commission. Dill was the Senate sponsor of the bill, while Sam Rayburn, future speaker of the House, carried the bill in the House of Representatives.
Senator Dill ran for a second term in 1928, which was a banner year for Republicans across the nation. Dill’s GOP opponent in the general election was Kenneth Macintosh, chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court. While Herbert Hoover crushed Al Smith in the Evergreen State by quite nearly 180,000 votes and GOP Governor Roland Hartley was handily winning reelection, Senator Clarence Dill won a second term by just over 34,000 votes, bucking the Republican tide.
Clarence Dill’s personal life was much more complicated than his legislative life. Rosalie Gardiner Jones was an early feminist and dedicated suffragette. Outspoken, hot-tempered and talented, Rosalie had once been “a Chevrolet mechanic, chicken farmer, collector of book plates, a licensed attorney, and managed the $5 million estate which she and her two brothers inherited.” Miss Jones visited the office of Senator Dill in 1924 to discuss the issue of world peace. Dill did not give Miss Jones the answer she was looking for and was evidently somewhat evasive in his reply, and she chastised him before leaving in a snit. Senator Dill urged his chief assistant to help locate the “lady in pink” who had visited his office. Apparently, she was located, and Clarence Dill and Rosalie Jones became friends. By 1927, Miss Jones telephoned a reporter to share the news that she and the senator were engaged. The couple was married at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. Theirs would be a tumultuous union.
It is almost certainly true that Dill could have easily been elected to a third term in the U.S. Senate had he run again in 1934. The senator announced he would not be a candidate that year.
Following Dill’s decision not to seek reelection to the United States Senate in 1934, Rosalie snapped that her husband was a “political coward.” By that time, the two were separated and began a heated court battle over their home, “Cliff Aerie,” a spectacular 12,000-square-foot home overlooking much of Spokane. The home sat on a bluff and had six different levels built in the Spanish style. The court’s decision gave the house to Dill and the furniture to Rosalie.
Clarence Dill had already fallen in love once again after meeting Mabel Dickson, and the two were married in 1939. They were together for 30 years until Mabel died in 1969.
Clarence C. Dill decided the time was ripe for a political comeback in 1940 when he entered the Evergreen State’s “blanket primary,” which allowed all candidates of all parties to run. Five Democrats and five Republicans entered the primary. The three leading candidates were former Senator Dill, Governor Clarence D. Martin, and the mayor of Seattle, Arthur B. Langlie, who was a Republican. Governor Martin had first been elected in 1932, a successful businessman running for statewide office for the first time. Spending his own money, Martin outran Franklin Roosevelt in Washington. Reelected in 1936, Martin once again had a bigger majority than did FDR. Martin was seeking a third term as governor. Dill ran first in the blanket primary and was followed by Arthur Langlie. Governor Martin ran some 71,000 votes behind the former senator. The governor endorsed Dill for the general election, but many of Martin’s followers were unhappy their candidate had been defeated. Dill had campaigned on a platform of abolishing many state jobs, which later caused speculation that many of those job-holders, normally Democrats, voted for Arthur Langlie in the general election.
Franklin Roosevelt easily carried Washington State, and Democrat Mon Wallgren won the Senate seat being vacated by Lewis B. Schwellenbach. The gubernatorial race between Dill and Arthur Langlie was extremely close. Langlie led by just over 2000 votes, and it became readily apparent that the election would be decided by 25,000 absentee votes. Arthur Langlie had run an unusually strong campaign and demonstrated he could cut into the normal Democratic majorities. As counties began counting the absentee ballots, Langlie’s ability to win votes from Democrats continued inside ordinarily heavily Democratic areas. It was not long before a deepening gloom settled over the Dill campaign as the candidates waited for the counting of the ballots. In the end, Arthur B. Langlie beat Clarence C. Dill by 5,816 ballots out of roughly 780,000 cast.
Dill’s persistent refusal to acknowledge his defeat aggravated just about every Republican in the state and many Democrats. The former senator remained silent while supporters urged him to concede his loss in the election. Arthur Langlie had been quite circumspect during the counting of the ballots and, when it became clear that he had won, made a measured and respectful statement. Finally, C. C. Dill broke his own silence and snapped, “I’m not going to concede anything.” Dill added he would have no further statement “until the finish and the official result is known.”
Evidently, Dill began to comprehend that he was not doing himself any good. As some Democrats complained about scratched ballots, the former senator issued a public statement to distance himself from the accusations. Dill admitted on November 29 that he had not received any invitation from sitting Governor Martin to attend budget hearings and acknowledged the governor’s inviting Langlie to attend was “justified, I think.” “Langlie’s probably elected,” Dill added glumly.
“I’m peaceful,” the former senator assured a reporter. “Let somebody else do the worrying. I went duck hunting this morning.”
Five months after Arthur Langlie had been inaugurated governor, Clarence C. Dill was merely a political observer. “I’m a decent citizen once more,” the former senator said. “I’m out of politics and having a good time. Even though I believe I would have made a good governor, I actually felt a sense of relief when it was all over.”
Charles H. Leavy had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1936 to represent Washington’s Fifth District and had been decisively reelected ever since. Yet Leavy was anxious to become a federal judge, a dream President Roosevelt made come true. With Leavy not seeking reelection in 1942, a host of potential candidates were testing the political waters. One of those eager candidates was Clarence C. Dill, who was thinking of going back to where he had started 28 years earlier.
The United States was in the first year of the Second World War, and as the months passed, things were not going well for the Allied Forces. Hitler’s legions seemed unstoppable, and millions of Americans read the bad news daily in their hometown papers. The people united in the effort to win the war, and candidate Dill leaned in hard in supporting President Roosevelt. Speaking at a Democratic rally with several primary opponents, the former senator told the audience, “If I go to Washington again, I’ll make myself heard there and I’m sure I can help to bring about a more vigorous prosecution of this war and to eliminate waste and extravagance in war projects because I know personally all of the administration leaders and the president himself.”
Opponents pressed Dill about his vote when first serving in Congress against going to war against Germany, as well as his having voted against conscription. Dill had a very simple explanation, saying he had campaigned and won the election by telling voters he would not vote to go to war and would oppose the conscription of their sons. C. C. Dill said he had kept his promise to the people who had elected him. “I have a habit of keeping my promises,” Dill told the audience, “and if I had it to do over again, I’d do the same.”
Easily the candidate with the greatest name recognition in a field of six, Dill ran first in the blanket primary. Dill’s opponent in the general election was Walt Horan, who was a veteran of the First World War and a successful businessman and farmer. Horan and his brother were the owners of one of the largest fruit orchards in the Evergreen State. Walt Horan had been the GOP nominee for Congress against incumbent Charles Leavy in 1940 and lost decisively.
The unrest of the voters made itself felt in the election returns, with Republicans making significant gains in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Walt Horan upset Clarence Dill in the 1942 election and won an impressive 63% of the votes, carrying every county but one, which Dill carried by 13 votes.
That defeat ended Clarence Dill’s elective career. The former senator assumed a senior status inside his own political party and the role of statesman enjoyed by many dead or defeated politicians. Dill continued his successful law practice, thoroughly enjoyed living in one of the most beautiful homes in the entire Northwest and performing the occasional political service. Governor Mon Wallgren appointed Dill to serve on the Columbia Basin Committee. The former senator accepted an appointment as a special assistant to the attorney general of the United States, a post he held from 1946 until 1953, when the Republicans won the White House. Dill resumed his law practice and was considered a legal expert in the field of public power and water projects. Clarence C. Dill remained an influential figure for the remainder of his long life.
Dill sold the beautiful “Cliff Aerie” in 1969 after his wife, Mabel, died of a heart attack. The former senator did not have the heart to continue living there without his beloved wife.
Ninety-three-years old, the former senator began ailing and was hospitalized on December 14, 1977. Dill quietly passed away in the hospital on January 14, 1978.
© 2025 Ray Hill
