Costigan, Edward

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COSTIGAN, EDWARD

Edward Prentiss Costigan (July 1, 1874–January 17, 1939) was a U.S. senator from Colorado from 1930 to 1936. Born in Virginia, Costigan moved to Colorado when he was three years old. He became politically active as a young adult, campaigning for William McKinley in the 1896 and 1900 presidential elections. After finishing his Harvard degree and entering the bar in 1897, Costigan returned to Denver dedicated to political activism for the underprivileged and opposed to the self-interested political machines that dominated Colorado politics.

Frustrated by Republican Party conservatism, Costigan helped found the Progressive Republican Club of Denver in 1910, which joined the new National Progressive Republican League the following year, setting the stage for Theodore Roosevelt's third party campaign for the presidency in 1912. Costigan took a leading role in that campaign, running for governor of Colorado on the Progressive ticket and coming in a solid second.

Costigan's political activism found full expression after the Ludlow coal strike in 1914, when he successfully acted as defense counsel to the strike leaders accused of inciting violence against the mine-employed militia. The issue served to crystallize Costigan's developing views on the need for the fair treatment of industrial workers in the new age of industrial capitalism. With the decline of the progressive movement, Costigan felt he had no choice in 1916 but to endorse Democratic President Woodrow Wilson for re-election. Costigan was rewarded with a place on Wilson's new Tariff Commission, on which he served until his resignation in 1928.

The onset of the Great Depression provided Costigan with a campaign issue with which to return to active political life. Fighting on the issue of Republican paralysis in the face of unprecedented nationwide poverty and economic collapse, he won a convincing victory as a Democrat in the 1930 Senate race in Colorado.

Costigan was at the forefront of legislative efforts to create a federal welfare safety net to combat the Depression in 1931 and 1932; he participated in a conference of progressive legislators in March 1931 and drew up plans for a joint federal-state program of grants-in-aid to the destitute the following November. The Costigan-La Follette bill failed in the Senate, but a less ambitious version passed in early 1932. In September 1932 Costigan became vice-chairman of a National Progressive League, which worked for the election of Franklin Roosevelt to the presidency.

One of the most significant acts of the First Hundred Days of the Roosevelt administration in 1933 was the signing of the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which was based on the Costigan-La Follette proposals. The first allocation of aid under this act went to Colorado in recognition of Costigan's role in passing the bill. Costigan also drew up plans for six billion dollars of federal public works, supplemented by loans and grants to states for further local construction. He was also co-sponsor of an unsuccessful anti-lynching bill, and of successful efforts to strengthen emergency banking legislation by forcing the government to guarantee bank deposits. The strain of his intensive legislative duties took its toll: Costigan suffered a stroke in 1934 that was to lead to his decision not to seek renomination to his Senate seat in 1936.