The rise of Idaho’s longest-serving US senator and his affair with former president’s daughter
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IDAHO FALLS – William Borah had gone “as far west as his pocketbook would take him” when he got off the train in Boise.
It was October 1890 and the 25-year-old man from Fairfield, Illinois had come to the nation’s newest state on the advice of a gambler on board the train. He settled in Boise, where he found success as an attorney.
Borah had always been interested in “oratory and the written word,” according to his biographer, Marian McKenna, which is one reason why he was drawn to practicing law.
“I can’t remember when I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” Borah is reported to have said. “There is no other profession where one can be absolutely independent”
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He married Mary McConnell, the daughter of Idaho’s third governor, William McConnell, in 1895.
The following year, Borah turned his attention to politics. The progressive republican ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives, voicing his support for Democratic Presidential Candidate William Jennings Bryan. In the wake of an economic depression, conversations about increasing the money supply were a hot topic. Bryan expressed support for the unlimited coinage of silver. Borah was on board with the idea, and so were many Idahoans. But it wasn’t enough for Bryan to secure a victory.
Borah also lost the election, but he went on to win a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1907. It’s a position he held for the next 33 years until his death in 1940. To date, he holds the distinction of being the Gem State’s longest serving U.S. senator.
Borah’s political accomplishments
As a senator, Borah was instrumental in the ratification of the 16th and 17th Constitutional amendments, the latter of which provided for the direct election of U.S. senators. Before that, the state legislature elected its U.S. delegation.
In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, Bill Smith, the director of the University of Idaho’s Borah Foundation, says it was the 17th amendment that helped Borah gain favor with Idahoans.
“Idahoans appreciate a bit of that maverick touch, even in the 1900s and 1910s,” Smith says. “He’s freed by the shift in the mechanism for the direct election of U.S. senators … to be nuanced in his positions.”
Borah served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 25 years, which gave him enormous influence in American foreign policy in the years following World War I.
During that time, he staunchly opposed President Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations because he believed it would obligate the U.S. to fight in foreign conflicts.
America voted against it in 1919.
A decade later, Borah advocated for the Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Paris Peace Treaty. This document “renounced war as an instrument of national policy,” according to Brittanica, and nearly every nation was in favor of it.
Smith considers this action Borah’s most important political achievement.
“People misinterpret this as something that forbids war from ever happening, but what it tries to do is take the norm of going to war, which was acceptable for countries to do before this … and make it so the default position is that war was not acceptable foreign policy, unless it met certain criteria,” Smith explains. “This was a major change in the way the world interacts.”
“It is a remarkable legacy that continues to benefit Idaho and the world,” Smith adds.
Borah was frequently identified as “Borah of Idaho” by members of Congress, Smith says, and he was often called the Lion of Idaho because of his strong leadership and oratory skills.
He established a legacy of senators from Idaho serving as the foreign relations committee chairman. Others who have served in this capacity over the years include Senator Frank Church and Senator Jim Risch, who is now the longest-serving member of the committee.
But amid Borah’s political accomplishments was an affair with Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. They had a child together, which was common knowledge in political circles but wasn’t something the general public knew about until recently.
Borah and Alice Roosevelt Longworth
In a recent podcast interview, Sarah Cordery, who wrote a book about Longworth in 2008, explained that Longworth was a writer and socialite who was married to Nicholas Longworth, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Like her father, Alice was highly educated and had a lot of influence in politics throughout her life.
Though Alice loved her husband, Cordery says Nicholas was an alcoholic who played the field and had multiple extramarital affairs. But for Alice, what was worse was her husband’s “political infidelity.”
“When he would not join the Progressive Party, she began to cool in her affections toward him, which speaks volumes about Alice’s commitment to politics,” says Cordery. “Nick’s affairs continued and they became more public. They were in Ohio once and Alice was out walking and she literally stepped over Nick, who was in the arms of another woman as they were picnicking on the grass.”
Alice and Borah first met in 1908 in the nation’s capital when Borah was a “newly minted senator,” according to Boise attorney and former Idaho Attorney General David Leroy, who is a student of Borah and Idaho political history.
It was June 1912 before they had any significant contact. Leroy explains they, and many other politicians, were on a train headed back to Washington D.C. from the Chicago Republican Convention.
“They had conversations and became friendly with each other during that trip,” says Leroy. “Their romantic relationship probably started some time after March of 1920, when Borah was a leader in the Senate opposing Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations.”
Borah and Alice shared similar views on the League of Nations and other political issues, and due to the high value she placed on politics, she quickly became “infatuated” with Borah. The lovers had a daughter together, Paulina, who was born in 1925.
The affair between Longworth and Borah was widely known around Washington, Cordery says. But it’s unlikely the general public or Idaho voters knew anything about it at the time because it was not something that was reported by the media.
“Journalists knew about it, Washington insiders knew about it, but it was never something they brooded about. That would not have been appropriate at the time. You kept your private life private,” explains Cordery. “The relationship between journalists and politicians was very different then.”
And as far as Paulina knew, Nick Longworth was her father. No one told her any different until she was an adult, according to Leroy, and Borah was always referred to as an uncle.
Alice Sturm, Borah’s 35-year-old great-granddaughter who works as a landscape architect in Washington D.C., spoke with EastIdahoNews.com about Borah and Paulina’s relationship. She says that when Paulina found out that Borah was actually her father, she “wasn’t happy.”
Though Leroy says Nick and Paulina were “inseparable,” as far as Sturm knows, Borah and Paulina never had a relationship.
Borah died from a brain hemorrhage in January 1940 six months shy of his 75th birthday. Paulina was 31 when she died in 1957 from what Sturm calls an accidental death.
“She combined sleeping pills with alcohol. I don’t think people knew you shouldn’t do that back then,” says Sturm, pointing out that her death wasn’t tied to any emotional distress related to the news about Borah.
Though Sturm has always known Borah was her illegitimate great-grandfather, she says it didn’t really become public knowledge until the release of Cordery’s book. It’s never caused her any personal grief, but it has connected her with members of the Longworth family over the years.
Even though she’s never been to Idaho, she says it’s given her a connection to the Gem State.
When asked if she has any desire to run for office, Sturm laughed and politely said, “No.”
‘The people … liked Borah’
Despite Borah’s marital infidelity, Smith says his efforts in putting Idaho on the world stage still makes him a noteworthy person from Idaho’s past.
“When (Borah) first got to Washington … he wore a 10-gallon hat. He had a western vibe and a swagger in his speech that people liked,” Smith says. “Even when Idaho politics shifted and Republicans fell out of favor … Borah was still elected. The people still liked Borah.”
The fact that Borah was so well liked led to his likeness becoming one of two statues to represent Idaho at the U.S. Capitol in Statuary Hall. It was placed there in 1947, seven years after Borah’s death.
Idaho’s highest mountain peak in the Lost River Range of Challis National Forest was named in Borah’s memory in 1934, according to the Lewiston Tribune.
Noting Borah’s role in bringing Idaho international acclaim, Leroy says Borah was Idaho’s first and foremost “citizen of the world.” Many Idahoans are proud of that legacy.
