K. Ross Toole Archives
The Mike Mansfield Papers: Series Notes
Series IX: Senate: Legislation, 1953-1977 (183 linear ft.)
This series covers all legislation relevant to Mansfield during his twenty-four years in the Senate. The documents and information in this series is similar to the information contained in Series II: House: Legislation. Since Mansfield was in the Senate for more than twice as long as he spent in the House and he held significantly more important positions there, the series is both more extensive and more substantive. Despite greater breadth and depth, the core of the series' content remains the same. The series contains a broad spectrum of legislation including Senate and House bills. The files reflect all phases of the legislative process from proposals to introduce legislation to copies of public laws. More specifically, the folders contain a predictable sequence of documents throughout the series. The series generally consists of correspondence, committee reports, copies of the pending bills, press releases, telegrams, and newspaper clippings. In general all material relating to a specific piece of legislation is contained in a single file, though some folders focus on a specific sub-committee and the bills before it during a single session. For example, Box 60 contains all the bills before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1959. Both House and Senate legislation for the era are included, though they generally are grouped by related subject. Included in the files are bills relating to wilderness designation, Vietnam, the Equal Rights Amendment, Alaskan statehood, Senate appropriations, tax reform, cigarette advertising, farm programs, mining, timber, and foreign relations. A file typically will have all the information on a particular bill; often a single folder will contain all the documents for a ten or twenty year period leading up to the introduction of the legislation.
The majority of the series consists of correspondence. The letters are predominantly from constituents and interest groups with concerns over the effect of a specific piece of pending legislation. Almost every folder also contains copies of Mansfield's replies to these letters. The letters still project an intimacy between Mansfield and Montana citizens that seems remarkable though the later folders have fewer personal anecdotes and less informal chatter about friends and family. The letters from interest groups continue to reveal the key players in Montana politics, particularly the strong voices of farmers, ranchers, loggers, and miners. As Mansfield tackles more national and international legislation, their letters appear less in the files. Certain issues raise significant interest among Montana voters, particularly increasing foreign aid and any proposed cuts in federal support for agriculture. The rest of the series is rounded out by letters and memorandums from Congressional colleagues, press releases, Mansfield's speeches and testimony, newspaper clippings sent by constituents, telegrams, and reports and letters from Federal Agencies.
The series is arranged chronologically by Congressional session, and individual boxes usually contain material from a single session. Some boxes follow the number sequence of Senate bills from a particular session, but unfortunately this does not hold consistently true. Generally folders contain information relating to a single bill. However, specific subjects like Public Works may be grouped together in a folder and a box may be organized by subject within a legislative session. Like the House Legislation series, the Senate series does not contain every piece of pending legislation during this time but any bill that related to Montana or Mansfield's committee assignments is included. In addition, Mansfield's interest in pending legislation expands significantly as his leadership role grows. The series is arranged in a rough chronological way with the bills from one legislative session grouped together. Aside from chronology, many folders contain a single piece of legislation and its attendant documents while others are grouped by subject. For example all the bills relating to veterans for a particular period are contained in folders titled "Veteran's Affairs", though a very important bill might be listed individually. There is no apparent order to the arrangement of files within a particular time period, though some may be arranged alphabetically by subject. To add to the difficulties in locating information in this series, some subject files contain material spanning the entire decade. In general using subject and chronology headings will yield approximate locations for researchers though finding specific information is dependent on serendipity as much as science.
See sample documents from this series: Mansfield's letter of 8 September 1958 that advocates expanding the animal house at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Hamilton, Montana.
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Last Updated: 24 June 2002.