Woodring, Harry Hines

(1887-1967)

   Harry Woodring was born in Elk City, Kansas. He attended Lebanon Business University in Indiana before starting a career in banking in 1905. He briefly served in the army during World War I and then resumed his career, becoming president and owner of the First National Bank of Neodesha, Kansas. In 1930, Woodring was elected governor of Kansas as a Democrat, and he initiated a program of moderate reform, establishing public works and modernizing taxation. He was defeated by Alf Landon in 1932. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him assistant secretary of war, and in 1936 he became secretary of war. He revised the plans for military mobilization and increased the size of the Army Air Corps. However, as an isolationist he increasingly disagreed with Roosevelt’s policies, and he resigned when surplus military supplies and aircraft were given to Great Britain in 1940. Woodring returned to banking, and his attempt to get reelected as governor failed in 1946 and again in 1956.