Roger Lowell Putnam (December 19, 1893 – November 24, 1972) was an American politician and businessman. A member of the prominent Lowell family of Boston, he served as mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, from 1937 until 1943, and as director of the Economic Stabilization Administration from 1951 until 1952. During his short tenure in federal office, the nation's steelworkers struck, leading United States President Harry S. Truman to seize the nation's steel mills.
For 40 years, Putnam was also the sole trustee of the Lowell Observatory. During that time, he purchased three new telescopes for the observatory and was instrumental in pushing Lowell astronomers to search for Percival Lowell's theoretical "Planet X", which led to the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
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Early life and education
Roger Lowell Putnam was born on December 19, 1893, in Boston. He was the son of William Lowell Putnam II, a notable and wealthy Boston lawyer. The Putnams were members of the Boston Brahmins, a group of families which claimed descent from the founders of Boston. On his mother's side, Percival Lowell (the noted astronomer) and Abbott Lawrence Lowell (president of Harvard University from 1909 to 1933) were his uncles and the cigar-smoking poet Amy Lowell was his aunt.
Putnam graduated from the Noble and Greenough School in Boston, and then attended Harvard University. He became acquainted with Leverett Saltonstall while at Harvard, joined the Hasty Pudding Club and the Fly Club, and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in mathematics in 1915.
He entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1916 and undertook graduate studies in mechanical engineering. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served on the USS Mississippi and was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade.
After leaving military service, Putnam married the former Caroline Jenkins on October 9, 1919. The couple had six children: Caroline, Roger Jr., William, Anna, Mary, and Michael.
Putnam took a job working for a New London, Connecticut, shipbuilding company. He left that position after a short time to become a salesman for the Package Machinery Co. of West Springfield. He rose quickly within the company's ranks, becoming president in just eight years. During the Great Depression, Putnam used his personal wealth to develop new machinery, keeping employment high. He also instituted profit sharing, gave his employees life insurance and instituted a bonus plan. He was named chairman of the board at Package Machinery in 1942, where he remained until 1948.
Role in discovering Pluto
Through his uncle, Percival Lowell, and his own father, Putnam gained a love of astronomy and was an amateur astronomer for most of his life.
Percival Lowell died in 1916. He named Harcourt Amory (his cousin, college roommate and best friend) and his wife, Constance Lowell, executors of his estate. Although Constance Lowell received a $150,000 lump-sum payment, a generous yearly income, and her husband's personal property (including their opulent Boston home), the Lowell Observatory received the bulk of Lowell's money. Amory, meanwhile, was also named the sole trustee of the Lowell Observatory. Constance Lowell felt the will was unfair and went to court to break it. After convincing Amory to resign as trustee, Constance Lowell also induced George Putnam (Roger's older brother) to decline the position. Constance Lowell then named Guy Lowell, Percival Lowell's third cousin, as trustee, believing she could dominate him. However, Guy Lowell fought Constance's attempt to break the will. The lawsuit was settled in Guy Lowell's favor in 1925, but not before the estate had spent more than half its $2.3 million trust fund.
The lawsuit left the observatory with few funds for research or for the purchase of new equipment. Guy Lowell died in 1927, and the trusteeship of Lowell Observatory passed to Roger Putnam.
Percival Lowell had predicted the existence of a "Planet X"—a possible ninth planet—in 1905, but his subsequent death in 1916 and Constance Lowell's lawsuit had largely mothballed the search for the celestial body. Putnam, however, was determined to find "Planet X." Spending several months a year at the Lowell Observatory, Putnam resolved to build a new 13-inch (330 mm) refracting telescope and astrograph at the Observatory to revive the search. The reluctant staff hesitated to spend the Observatory's limited funds on the new telescope until Putnam forced the issue. To fund construction, Putnam persuaded his uncle, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, to provide $10,000 for the new telescope. To save money, Putnam ordered the mounting to be built on-site in the observatory workshop rather than by a contractor. Observatory Director V. M. Slipher designed the telescope. When one of the lens components was ground too thin, a new component had to be built. Putnam paid the $6,000 replacement cost out of his own funds.
The new 13-inch (330 mm) telescope was used by Clyde Tombaugh in the search for "Planet X." On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered a new planet, which was named Pluto on May 1.
Political career
A Republican early in life, Putnam voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. He switched parties and remained a Democrat for the rest of his life.
Putnam became increasingly active in politics through his business ventures. In 1933, he sat on a commission which helped draft Massachusetts' first unemployment compensation act, which Governor Joseph B. Ely signed into law in 1934. Putnam was elected mayor of Springfield three times—in 1937, 1939, and 1941. He was the Democratic nominee for governor of Massachusetts in 1942, but lost to Republican Leverett Saltonstall 54% to 45%. In 1946 he ran for lieutenant governor, but lost the Democratic nomination to Paul A. Dever.
Federal service
President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Putnam as deputy director of the Office of Contract Settlement of 1944. Established by the Contract Settlement Act (58 Stat. 651; July 1, 1944) and part of the Office of War Mobilization, Putnam helped settle claims arising from terminated war contracts during World War II. Putnam served in that capacity until the office was abolished by executive order 9809 on December 12, 1946.
In 1951, President Harry Truman appointed Putnam administrator of the Economic Stabilization Agency (ESA). After the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S. Congress enacted the Defense Production Act. Title IV of the Act gave the president the authority to impose wage and price controls in progressive steps. The ESA was established on September 9, 1950, when Truman issued Executive Order 10161, which established the ESA and charged it with coordinating and supervising wage and price controls. After Congress amended the Defense Production Act in July 1951 to permit looser price controls, ESA Administrator Eric Johnston quit in frustration six weeks later. Putnam was named his replacement in November after Truman's first choices for the office refused to take the job.
The steel seizure crisis
Putnam faced an immediate crisis as head of the ESA. The collective bargaining agreement between the United Steelworkers of America and the nation's major steel manufacturers was to expire on December 31, 1951. Yet few negotiations had taken place. Steelmakers refused to grant any wage increase without a guarantee that the Office of Price Stability (OPS), a subdivision of the ESA, would grant a price increase to match. The union, however, was pushing the Wage Stabilization Board (WSB), another ESA agency, to grant the workers a significantly higher wage. President Truman and Putnam were convinced that the key to taming inflation was to break the price/wage spiral in which higher wages pushed prices higher, only to induce workers to seek even higher wages to overcome the inflation in prices.
Putnam worked feverishly for six weeks to settle the steel talks. He ordered his subordinates at OPS and WSB to meet with the union and manufacturers and to call meetings of both sides. He also coordinated settlement efforts with Cyrus S. Ching, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, but the talks failed. Putnam then urged President Truman to personally intervene in the steel crisis and use his influence with union leaders, which he did on New Year's Eve. Philip Murray, president of the Steelworkers, subsequently postponed the strike for 45 days beginning January 3, 1952.
The steel crisis issue was now out of Putnam's hands. In Executive Order 10233, President Truman had expanded the WSB's powers in April 1951. To ease the threat of strikes and make the board's wage stabilization efforts easier, the board was now authorized to make recommendations on economic and non-economic issues in collective bargaining disputes, a power it had previously lacked. The board could not, however, force parties in a labor dispute to accept its findings. When making recommendations, the board was authorized to report only to the president, bypassing Putnam and his superior, Charles Edward Wilson, administrator of the Office of Defense Mobilization (of which ESA was a part). As one incentive to get the union to postpone the strike, Truman agreed to let the WSB investigate the labor dispute and invoke the direct presidential reporting provisions of E.O. 10233.
While the Wage Stabilization Board conducted its hearings, Putnam was forced to replace the administrator of OPS. Michael DiSalle, the OPS administrator, had announced his resignation in the fall in order to run for the United States Senate. Putnam and Truman agreed to replace DiSalle with Ellis Arnall, a former governor of Georgia.
Remaining tenure at ESA
The steelworkers' strike made Putnam work much harder to maintain the Truman administration's wage and price stabilization program. Putnam was forced to give aluminum workers a 21.4 cents an hour wage increase just days later in order to avoid a strike. But he later imposed new wage restrictions on nine large classes of small businesses and strict limitations on the kind of Christmas gifts employers could give to workers in order to avoid a spike in inflation.
Congress stripped the WSB of its labor dispute adjudication powers in the wake of the steel seizure crisis. Putnam struggled to keep union representatives on the new board, and to find industry representatives willing to serve. He succeeded in fully staffing the board, but the wage stabilization program continued to disintegrate.
A revolving door at the top of the ESA and its key agencies worsened the situation. Nathan Feinsinger, the chairman of the WSB, resigned in July 1952. Putnam appointed Archibald Cox as his replacement in August. Ellis Arnall resigned in early August, and Putnam appointed Tighe Woods, chairman of the federal rent stabilization agency, as his successor.
A second labor wage dispute crisis hit in October 1952. Bituminous coal miners organized by the United Mine Workers of America had negotiated a wage increase of $1.90 per hour but no increase in fringe benefits (as other unions had). Without union knowledge, the coal operators submitted the agreement for approval to the reconstituted Wage Stabilization Board. Mine union president John L. Lewis, angered by the lack of respect, refused to participate in the WSB's hearings despite Cox's pleas for union input. Reluctantly, on October 18 the board cut the wage increase by 40 cents. Angry union coal miners engaged in a nationwide wildcat strike the next day. With the presidential election just weeks away, Lewis asked Putnam to take personal control of the coal miners' case on October 24, and Putnam did so on October 25. The strike ended. Putnam deferred action until after the election. When Lewis balked at further delay, Putnam threatened to rule against the union. Although Putnam, Cox and other stabilization and mobilization officials all eventually endorsed the lower pay award, Truman reversed the WSB on December 3. Cox and industry representatives on the WSB resigned in protest. The decision led to the collapse of the Wage Stabilization Board, and it quickly became clear that neither President Truman nor President-elect Dwight Eisenhower would seek to retain national wage and price controls.
Later life
After leaving federal service, Putnam returned to his position as chairman of Package Machinery. In 1953, Putnam became president of WWLP, Springfield's first television station. WRLP-TV, WWLP's sister station, took its call letters from Putnam's name. Late in life, Putnam also served on the board of the Third National Bank of Hampden County and the board of the Van Norman Machine Tool Company (now part of the Kwik-Way corporation).
Putnam believed higher education was the key to social uplift and the country's economic problems. Beginning in 1958, he served on the Massachusetts Board of Regional Community Colleges. In 1966, he served on the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. Putnam also received honorary degrees from Boston College (1949), Saint Anselm College (1952), and the University of Massachusetts Lowell (1970).
Death
Putnam died of a stroke at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts on November 24, 1972, aged 78.
Legacy
Roger L Putnam Vocational-Technical High School in Springfield, Massachusetts, is named for him.
Alumni House, the home of the Boston College Alumni Association, was renamed in 1967 in honor of Putnam, a benefactor of the college.