Howe, Frederic Clemson, 1867–1940, American lawyer, government official, and political scientist, b. Meadville, Pa. He practiced law (1894–1909) in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was closely associated with Mayor Tom. L. Johnson and his municipal reform program, serving on the city council and, from 1906 to 1909, in the state senate. Like Johnson, he was influenced by the writings of Henry George. From 1911 to 1914 he was director of the People's Institute in New York City, and from 1914 to 1919 he was commissioner of immigration at the port of New York. He was an acknowledged authority on municipal affairs and wrote The City, the Hope of Democracy (1905), European Cities at Work (1913), and The Modern City and Its Problems (1915). He was also interested in many other reforms, and wrote Denmark, a Cooperative Commonwealth (1921) and Confessions of a Reformer (1925), besides other books and many articles. In 1933 he was attached to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration as consumers' counsel in the framing of codes concerning agricultural products. When jurisdiction over most of these codes was transfered to the National Recovery Administration, Howe moved to the Consumers' Advisory Board of the NRA. From 1935 he was special adviser to the secretary of agriculture. He also acted as a special economic adviser to the Philippine commonwealth. His wife, Marie Jenney Howe, 1871–1934, b. Syracuse, N.Y., was a Unitarian minister, a leader in the woman-suffrage movement, and the author of George Sand (1927) and The Intimate Journal of George Sand (1929).
See biography by K. E. Miller (2010).
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