He wasn’t a polished politician. He was something rarer. He was real. And from 1963 to 1969, Iowa found out what it meant to put a real man in the governor’s chair.
Hughes
came into office when Iowa government still smelled faintly of the 19th
century—old boys, old systems, and old fears. The state needed oxygen, and
Hughes brought a tank.
His
inaugural address made the establishment nervous. “We are not here to preserve
the past. We are here to build the future.” That sounded harmless…but
Hughes meant every word like a fist hitting a desk.
He
started with mental health—an issue most politicians tiptoed around. In 1963,
he pushed through a sweeping reorganization of Iowa’s mental health system,
shifting treatment to community centers instead of massive state institutions.
The Des Moines Register wrote, “Governor Hughes speaks of mental
health not as a program, but as a moral duty.”
He believed people could be saved because he had saved himself. He told audiences, “I know what it’s like to fight your way out of the dark.”
He
didn’t stop with mental health. Hughes turned the state’s welfare system inside
out.
He
expanded aid for dependent children, increased funds for the disabled, and
pushed through a statewide property tax relief plan. Critics snarled he was
spending too much. Hughes shot back, “If you want roads without people, I can
save you money. If you want civilization, it costs something.”
Under
Hughes, Iowa built highways, modernized its state parks, and launched the first
long-term conservation plans that put Iowa ahead of most of the Midwest. He had
no patience for short-term thinking. “A state that refuses to plant the tree
has no right to complain about the shade,” he said.
Even
Republicans admitted—sometimes grudgingly—that Hughes got things done.
The Cedar
Rapids Gazette called him “the most effective governor Iowa has seen in a
generation.”
But
Hughes didn’t govern politely. He governed loudly. He fought with legislators,
lobbyists, with anyone who stood between Iowa and progress. Some people hated
him for it. Many loved him, but no one ignored him.
In
1968, Hughes ran for the U.S. Senate and won. Iowa sent him to Washington with
a mandate carved in steel: keep fighting.
He
did.
In
the Senate, Hughes became a rare lawmaker who talked like he still worked the
loading dock. He carried his recovery story openly—something almost no public
figure dared do in the 1960s. He told the Senate, “If a drunk like me can stand
here, then no barrier is unbreakable.”
That
vulnerability wasn’t a weakness. It was power.
He
led the charge for federal alcoholism treatment programs, pushing the 1970
Comprehensive Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Prevention Act. President Nixon
signed it and called it “a new national direction.” Hughes smiled. He knew it
had been a fistfight from day one.
He
also took on Vietnam.
While
other senators hid behind committees and procedure, Hughes said: “We are losing
our soul overseas.” He joined George McGovern in pushing for withdrawal. It
made him enemies. It earned him threats. It also made him right.
He
wasn’t done swinging.
Hughes
became one of the Senate’s fiercest advocates for consumer protection, trucking
safety, and transportation reform. The man who once hauled freight across the
country now tried to make sure truckers lived long enough to get home.
The Washington
Post described him as “a prairie populist with a long memory and a short
fuse.”
Staffers adored him. Lobbyists feared him. Senators respected him even when he burned them. One of his aides recalled, “Working for Hughes was like working next to a bonfire. You stayed warm, but you could get scorched.”
He
founded halfway houses. He sat with recovering alcoholics. He counseled
strangers in hotel lobbies. He once said, “I would trade every vote I’ve ever
cast if it meant saving one suffering alcoholic.”
For a U.S. senator, that was a wild thing to admit. For Hughes, it was simply the truth.
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