Scope and Content Note
The papers of Thomas J. Walsh (1859-1933) and John E. Erickson (1863-1946) span the years 1910-1934 and consist largely of correspondence pertaining to the senatorial careers of the two men as representatives from Montana from 1913 to 1934. Included in addition to official and personal correspondence are speeches, legislative files, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, photographs, and other material. Erickson succeeded Walsh after the latter's sudden death in March 1933.
Part I, 1910-1933, of the collection contains nine series: Subject File A, Subject File B, Legislation File, General File, Political File, Personal Correspondence, Miscellany, Scrapbooks, and Addition.
Part II, 1922-1934, is organized into two series: Walsh Files and Walsh and Erickson Files. The Walsh Files in Part II are arranged into ten subseries: Miscellaneous Correspondence; Bills, Amendments, and Resolutions; World Court Legislation; Flathead Power Site; Legislative Correspondence; Land Cases; Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway; War Risk Insurance; Printed Matter; and Photographs. Walsh and Erickson Files in Part II contain four subseries: Miscellaneous Correspondence, Appointments Correspondence, Legislative Correspondence, and Pension Correspondence.
Topics of significance relating to Montana include farm loan associations, Indian affairs, pardons and paroles, the Sun River irrigation project, Flathead River power sites, oil and gas permits, and land cases. Subjects of national significance include the National Council of Defense in World War I, railway legislation, war risk insurance, American Peace Society, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway route, League to Enforce Peace, Russian famine relief, Permanent Court of International Justice (later known as World Court), and World Peace League.
Walsh-Erickson Files in Part II were maintained for the period 1933-1934, but there is some overlap chronologically with previous material. Topics include farm legislation, pensions, political appointments, and Indian affairs.
Correspondents include William Edgar Borah, Albert B. Fall, Warren G. Harding, Herbert Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover, Charles Evans Hughes, Cordell Hull, Harold L. Ickes, Wesley Livsey Jones, Andrew W. Mellon, Gerald Prentice Nye, David Aiken Reed, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Henrik Shipstead, Henry L. Stimson, Henry A. Wallace, and Ray L. Wilbur.