March 29, 1932

U.S. Rep. John McDuffie became head of the House Economy Committee and sponsored a bill to maintain the credit of the U.S. government during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term. A native of River Ridge in Monroe County, McDuffie served in the U.S. Congress from 1919 to 1935 as a Democrat and advocated for efficient government and conservative economic policies. He played an active role on the Rivers and Harbors Committee, through which he secured funds to improve the Port of Mobile and the Tombigbee River, and later served as both minority whip and majority whip. In 1935, Roosevelt appointed McDuffie as a federal judge for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile, where McDuffie served until his death in 1950.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

John McDuffie (1883-1950) was a law school classmate of Maud McLure Kelly’s who practiced law in Alabama in the early twentieth century before becoming a U.S. Congressman. He resigned his Congressional seat in 1935 when he was appointed U.S. district court judge. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.