Overcoming personal tragedy, Effiegene Locke Wingo
succeeded her late husband in Congress to help her
Arkansas constituents cope with an appalling national
emergency. In the early days of the Great Depression,
Wingo relied on her experience and connections as an active
congressional wife to bring relief to her drought-stricken
and impoverished Arkansas district.
Effiegene Locke, the eldest of seven children raised by
Irish parents and the great-great-great-granddaughter of
Representative Matthew Locke of North Carolina, was
born on April 13, 1883, in Lockesburg, Arkansas. She
attended both public and private schools and received a
music diploma from the Union Female College in Oxford,
Mississippi. Effiegene Locke then graduated with a BA from
the Maddox Seminary in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1901.
Shortly after graduation she met lawyer Otis Theodore
Wingo, in De Queen, Arkansas, at a Confederate veterans’
reunion. The couple soon married and raised two children:
Blanche and Otis Jr. In 1907 Otis Wingo was elected to
a term in the Arkansas state senate, where he served until
1909 before returning to private business. He won election
to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1912 and to the
eight succeeding Congresses. During Otis Wingo’s political
career, his wife became immersed in the social side of
political life in Washington, DC.
In 1926 a car accident severely injured Representative
Wingo, thrusting Effiegene into a far more active role.
For four years she worked as an unpaid assistant in her
husband’s office, becoming his point of contact during long
absences as he sought to recuperate from his injuries. That
direct experience—tending to constituent requests—gave
her valuable exposure to voters and a keen understanding
of the district’s political and business networks. Following
an emergency operation, Otis Wingo (who was serving
his ninth term in Congress) died in Baltimore, Maryland,
on October 21, 1930. His dying wish was that his wife
be chosen as his successor.1 That appeal prompted Otis
Wingo’s friend and the chief Democratic contender for
the vacant seat, A. B. Du Laney, to peremptorily withdraw
from the race and back Effiegene Wingo. Newspapers
described that act as “gallant” and “chivalrous.”2 Less than
a week after Otis Wingo’s death, the Arkansas Democratic
and Republican central committees, both of which earlier
that year had nominated Otis Wingo for the seat, chose
Effiegene Wingo to replace her late husband. Several
speakers at the GOP meeting spoke up to of fer eulogies for
her husband. According to the standard study on Southern
politics in the early twentieth century, comity between
the major parties was a regular occurrence in Arkansas
politics. The state’s political network was controlled largely
by conservative Democrats, who differed little from their
Republican counterparts on major issues of public policy.
Political scientist V. O. Key explained Arkansas elections
by paraphrasing a prominent local politician who described
them as “‘rivalries’ that turn around ‘personalities and
emotions’ of the moment” featuring candidates with
“connections” within the political network.3 Effiegene
Wingo, a congressional widow with whom voters
empathized, and who enjoyed wide name recognition, fit
the pattern well. Facing no competition, she was elected
simultaneously on November 4, 1930, to complete her
husband’s term in the 71st Congress (1929–1931) and to a
full term 72nd Congress (1931–1933). She garnered 21,700
votes, more than four of the state’s six other Representatives.4
Reflecting on Wingo’s election, the Richmond Times-Dispatch observed that “heart impulses in Arkansas
overwhelmed the impulses of the mind.” Without crediting
Wingo’s four years’ work in her husband’s office, the Times-Dispatch surmised that sentimentality had overcome
Arkansas voters. The editors wrote disapprovingly, “In
this country public office is not a thing to be bequeathed
to one’s next of kin or one’s best friend. Supposedly, it
is won on merit, and it should descend through a like
channel.”5 Debate was fueled by the fact that Wingo
seemed to be part of a larger pattern: She served alongside
yet another Arkansas widow, Pearl Oldfield, who was
filling out the remainder of her late husband’s term in the
71st Congress.
Sworn in on December 1, 1930, Effiegene Wingo
received a post on the Committee on Accounts and the
Committee on Insular Affairs for the remaining months of
the 71st Congress. In the following Congress, she served on
another coveted and influential committee, Foreign Affairs.6
Wingo, like her colleagues, was consumed by the effects
of the Great Depression. Natural disasters exacerbated the
economic plight of her 11-county district on the western
edge of the state, bordering Oklahoma. A severe cold
snap in the winter of 1929–1930, followed by a scorching
drought in the summer of 1930 created “Dustbowl”
conditions. Peach orchards, the leading agricultural
commodity, and the poultry industry were decimated.
Many farmers lost their livelihoods and had to search for
food to feed their own families. “The failure of many banks
because of these conditions has made the situation more
difficult,” Wingo remarked. “It will take years for the
State to rehabilitate herself. The economic situation is so
thoroughly demoralized that farmers will lose their cattle,
their lands, their homes. People who have known wealth all
their lives have nothing. This is a gloomy picture, but a true
one.”7 Wingo suspended her social activities in Washington,
DC, to focus on raising relief funds for her district.
Appealing to Washington society and working through the
American Red Cross, she opened a channel of supplies into
her district. Among those who pitched in to help was the
humorist Will Rogers, who delivered talks in the district
and donated all proceeds and some of his personal money
for relief efforts.8 In Washington, Wingo relied on her
daughter, the newly married Blanche Sawyer, and the same
staff that her husband had employed, to attend to her busy
appointment schedule.
Wingo believed that only federal aid would revitalize the
Arkansas economy. In the days before the establishment
of New Deal programs, she steered as many projects and
as much federal money as she could into her district.
She sponsored a bill to complete construction of a
railroad bridge across the Little River near Morris Ferry,
Arkansas.9 In addition, she helped guide federally funded
programs back home to build additional railroad bridges,
a veterans’ hospital, a federal building, and other large
construction projects, as well as federal loans for public
and private building and for welfare grants. Wingo also
proposed using federal money to establish a game refuge
in the Ouachita National Forest and to establish Ouachita
National Park.10
In February 1932, citing her physician’s directions,
Wingo announced that she would not be a candidate for
re-election. She remarked to her constituents that it had
been a “sweet privilege to serve my people.”11 Wingo spent
much of December 1932 at her son’s hospital bedside in
Connecticut, where he was recuperating from a car wreck.
After Congress, Wingo cofounded the National
Institute for Public Affairs. The organization provided
college students internship opportunities to enter public
service through on-the-job training programs in federal
departments. She resided in De Queen, Arkansas, and spent
a good deal of time in Washington, DC, tending to her
educational work. On September 19, 1962, while visiting
her son, Effiegene Wingo died in Burlington, Ontario.
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