Thoughout much of his life in politics, Pinchot's name had been occasionally thrown around as
a possible Presidential candidate. It never happened. He was eventually elected to public office
as Governor of Pennsylvania in 1922, largely through the support of rural counties and the new
women's vote. During his 1923-1927 administration, his major goals were the regulation of
electric power companies and the enforcement of Prohibition. In a crusade for "clean politics,"
he reorganized state government, did away with many longstanding political practices, eliminated
the state's $30,000,000 deficit, settled the anthracite coal strike of 1923 and was known for
Because Pennsylvania governors were then prohibited from successive terms, Pinchot ran again for
the Senate and lost. But in 1931, he began his second term as Pennsylvania's governor during
the depression years. He advocated Federal economic relief for states and donated a quarter of
his own gross salary for one year. He successfully pressed for large reductions in utility
rates and built twenty thousand miles of paved rural roads to "get the farmer out of the mud".
When Pinchot left office in 1935, he was seventy years old. He made a third run for the Senate
and later again for the governorship. Both campaigns stalled in the primaries. During his last
decade, he fought the transfer of the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture to the
Department of the Interior, an agency he insisted was still corrupt. He assisted his wife in
her political career and a third unsuccessful bid for a Congressional seat. During World War II,
he developed for the Navy a special fishing kit to help sailors adrift in lifeboats survive.
The military commended him for saving countless lives.
Shortly before his death, he completed a ten-year effort to write an autobiographical account of
his work between 1889 and 1910 and his part in the deve...