Wallace F. Bennett: The Paint Company Senator Who Took Silver Out of Coins

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Wallace F. Bennett was born in Salt Lake City in 1898, majored in English and lettered in debate at the University of Utah, and served as an infantry instructor in World War I. In 1920 he started as an office clerk at his father's Bennett's Paint and Glass Company and worked up through cashier, production manager and sales manager to president in 1938. He also organized a Ford dealership, hosted a daily radio show, directed a nurses' chorus and wrote hymn lyrics, and in 1949 was elected president of the National Association of Manufacturers. In 1950 he unseated three term Democratic Senator Elbert D. Thomas 54 to 46 percent in a campaign that circulated pamphlets tying Thomas to communist positions.

On the Finance and Banking committees, Bennett warned early about a silver shortage. By 1963 the Treasury had about 30 million ounces of free silver but needed over 75 million a year for coins, while the market price rose to $1.29 an ounce. He backed the Silver Purchase Act of 1963, which replaced silver certificates with Federal Reserve notes, then told the American Mining Congress that silver had to come out of coins, and helped pass the Coinage Act of 1965 and its copper-nickel dimes and quarters. He opposed Medicare and the Equal Rights Amendment yet voted for the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act. He died in 1993 at 95.

• The Silver Purchase Act freed about 1.6 billion ounces of silver for the Treasury.
• He voted to confirm Thurgood Marshall but missed the vote on the 24th Amendment banning poll taxes.
• He helped bring defense and aerospace work to Utah and pushed the Central Utah Project for water.
• He resigned on December 20, 1974, so successor Jake Garn could gain seniority over other incoming senators.
• His son Bob Bennett won the same Senate seat in 1992.