McFARLAND, Ernest William, a Senator
from Arizona; born on a farm near Earlsboro, Pottawatomie County, Okla., October
9, 1894; attended the rural schools; graduated from East Central State
Teachers’ College, Ada, Okla., in 1914, and from the University of Oklahoma at
Norman, in 1917; during the First World War served in the United States Navy;
after the war moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and was employed as a clerk in a bank;
was graduated from the law department of Stanford (Calif.) University in 1921;
was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Casa Grande, Pinal County,
Ariz.; assistant attorney general of Arizona 1923-1924, and county attorney of
Pinal County 1925-1930; moved to Florence, Ariz., in 1925; judge of the superior
court of Pinal County 1934-1940; elected as a Democrat to the United States
Senate in 1940; reelected in 1946 and served from January 3, 1941, to January 3,
1953; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1952; majority leader 1951-1953;
co-chairman, Joint Committee on Navaho-Hopi Indian Administration (Eighty-first
and Eighty-second Congresses); Governor of Arizona 1955-1959; unsuccessful
candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1958; resumed the practice
of law; elected associate justice, Arizona supreme court, in 1964, becoming
chief justice in 1968, and serving until 1970; member, National Commission on
the Causes and Prevention of Violence 1968-1969; director, Federal Home Loan
Bank of San Francisco; president of Arizona Television Company; died in Phoenix,
Ariz., June 8, 1984; interment in Greenwood Memorial Park, Phoenix, Ariz.
Bibliography
American National Biography; McFarland, Ernest W. Mac: The
Autobiography of Ernest W. McFarland. n.p., 1979; McMillan, James E., ed. The
Ernest McFarland Papers: The United States Senate Years, 1940-1952.
Prescott, AZ: Sharlot Hall Museum Press, 1995.
-- Biographical
Data courtesy of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress