Name Paul Shafer Role Politician | Books The turning of the tides | |
Died August 17, 1954, Washington, D.C., United States | ||
Education Ferris State University | ||
Paul Werntz Shafer (April 27, 1893 – August 17, 1954) was a politician and judge from the U.S. state of Michigan.
Shafer was born in Elkhart, Indiana and moved with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John M. Shafer, to Three Rivers, Michigan, where he attended public schools. He was a student at Ferris Institute (now Ferris State University), Big Rapids, Michigan, and studied law by correspondence with the Blackstone Institute of Chicago, Illinois. He was a reporter, editor, and publisher of newspapers in Elkhart, Indiana, Battle Creek, Michigan, and Bronson, Michigan. He was a member of the Indiana State Militia in 1916 and 1917. Years later, he served as a municipal judge in Battle Creek from 1929 to 1936. He was also married to Ila Mack.
In the Republican Party primary elections of September 1936 for Michigan's 3rd congressional district, Shafer defeated the incumbent Verner W. Main. Shafer went on to be elected to the 75th United States Congress and to the eight succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1937 until his death.
Together with John Howland Snow, Representative Shafer authored "The Turning of the Tides," an expose on the education system of the United States, which was delivered in the House of Representatives on March 21, 1952. In it, the authors took the position that the education system was an alien collectivist (socialist) philosophy, much of which came from Europe, crashed onto the shores of our nation, bringing with it radical changes in economics, politics, and education, funded—surprisingly enough—by several wealthy American families and their tax-exempt foundations. (See also "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt).
Shafer was injured in an automobile accident in March 1940 while traveling in Columbiana County, Ohio. He suffered head and spinal injuries and spent several weeks being treated in both Salem and Youngstown before being flown back to Michigan from Akron aboard an army plane.
He died on August 17, 1954 in Washington, D.C., two weeks after being re-nominated in the Republican primary election to the 84th Congress. He was interred in Memorial Park Cemetery, Battle Creek, Michigan.