Last month, I wrote about the 1926 Maine GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, in which Arthur Gould upset former Gov. Percival Baxter and a Maine Senate president backed by the Ku Klux Klan.

Though ensuing elections in this era were usually rubber stamp ratifications of the nominee, Gould still encountered unexpected resistance before becoming the first U.S. senator from Aroostook County.

Three days before the election, Gov. Owen Brewster, a Republican, shocked Maine by announcing he would withhold support from Gould. Brewster – whose 1947 showdown with billionaire Howard Hughes was immortalized by Alan Alda in the 2004 movie “The Aviator” – based his rejection on allegations Gould had violated Maine law by exceeding the $1,500 campaign spending limit.

Brewster’s announcement came also on the eve of a campaign spending violations hearing, in response to charges brought by a Ku Klux Klan leader. At the hearing, however, no adequate documentation was produced to support the charges of excessive spending. Gould went on to win the election over the Klan-backed Democratic candidate.

But Gould still had to take office, and in this he faced opposition from a prominent force: Sen. Thomas Walsh.

Walsh, who had led the investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal, alleged Gould was unfit to enter the Senate because he had paid a $100,000 bribe to the incoming premier of New Brunswick, J.K. Flemming, in 1912.

(Just what Gould was supposedly doing bribing a prominent Canadian political leader takes a little explaining.)

The backdrop was one of Gould’s most ambitious projects, arising from one of his railroad companies. He aimed to build a 200-mile line connecting the busy seaport of St. John, New Brunswick, with northern Maine.

Railroads then, like those today, required much government support, even if run by entrepreneurs like Gould. For one thing, railroads needed eminent domain authority to build efficient routes over long distances. Railroads often also required large amounts of borrowed capital, which for Gould and his partners in the St. John Valley Railway Company, meant some $7 million. To obtain the capital, the company went into the bond market, which refused to participate without something else government sometimes affords: loan guarantees.

Walsh’s investigation drew upon a similar inquiry in New Brunswick in 1917. There, a judge concluded that in 1912, Gould paid Flemming $100,000 during his campaign for premier. This was allegedly to secure New Brunswick’s cooperation in guaranteeing railroad bonds. Flemming was elected; the bonds were guaranteed.

World War I upset the sale of some of the last and most crucial bonds, however, turning Gould’s dream into a nightmare. Nevertheless, the government that replaced Flemming’s convened the investigation in 1917 that haunted Gould as he tried to enter the U.S. Senate 10 years later.

In Senate hearings in early 1927, Gould defended his seat by contending the payment was not a bribe. Instead, Gould asserted it was a campaign contribution, and argued the New Brunswick government – in the words of a Gould associate – “had us by the throat.” Walsh pressed Gould, contending his testimony contradicted his 1917 statements, and that this was grounds for perjury, a basis for barring Gould from the Senate.

In 1917, Gould testified “I got the moneyand handed it over to Flemming.” By 1927, Gould testified his partners, not himself, made the payment, and contended it was made over his objections or without his prior knowledge. The Senate gave Gould the benefit of the doubt and voted overwhelmingly to confirm his election.

Once seated, Gould went to bat for northern Maine. On the agriculture committee, Gould obtained increased duties on potato imports, helping to sustain a centerpiece of the Aroostook economy. Gould rescued Fraser Paper by thwarted attempts to curtail its ability to import pulp it needed to operate.

His greatest influence came as chair of the Senate Immigration Committee. Here, Gould opposed attempts to limit the amount of Canadians who could immigrate into the United States. Championing the cause of Canadian-American relations became such a theme of his interests, he was sometimes referred to as “the Senator from Canada.”

Plagued by failing eyesight, Gould left the Senate at his term’s end in 1931. At age 73, he returned to supervise his ventures around Presque Isle, and despite the Canadian railroad debacle, Gould again became a major player in lumbering operations and a local railroad.

Walsh died two years later, a few days before being sworn in as President Franklin Roosevelt’s first attorney general. Though then legally blind, Gould was outlived his nemesis another 13 years, until his death at age 89 in l946.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached by e-mail: [email protected].