Conservative lawyer John F. McGee was the dominant personality on the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, the body that governed Minnesota during World War I. Under McGee’s leadership, the commission demanded unquestioning support for the war effort and suppressed possible German American dissent. After the war, McGee became a federal judge who was well known for the heavy sentences he imposed on bootleggers.
McGee was the son of an Irish immigrant who farmed in Illinois. He “read” law with local lawyers and was admitted to the bar in 1882. The next year, he moved to Dakota Territory, where he built a successful law practice. In 1887, he moved to Minneapolis, where he tried complex commercial cases. Ten years later, still only thirty-six years old, he was appointed judge of the district court in Minneapolis.
McGee resigned in 1902 for financial reasons (by then, he and his wife had a family of six children). He then opened a law office that handled cases involving banks and railroads. Although not involved in politics, he had close relations with conservative business leaders and Republican politicians like Senator Knute Nelson. He developed a deep hostility for the trade union movement, the Socialist Party, and the Nonpartisan League.
The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. In response, the legislature created the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety (MCPS) and gave it sweeping powers to govern the state during the war. It was composed of Governor J. A. A. Burnquist, the attorney general, and five members selected by Burnquist, one of whom was McGee. In October 1917, the federal government appointed him the fuel administrator for the state. In this role, he had broad powers to guarantee that Minnesota had sufficient coal supplies.
McGee quickly became the leading figure in the MCPS, setting its tone of intolerance to any form of dissent, labor agitation, or German cultural expression. Under McGee’s leadership, the MCPS demanded “100 percent loyalty” and held that anyone who criticized the government was a traitor.
The Minnesota National Guard became part of the regular army when the war began. McGee took on the job of organizing the Home Guard to replace it. It eventually grew to twenty-one battalions across the state. The MCPS ordered many of these units to St. Paul to defeat a transit workers’ strike in the winter of 1917–1918. In some areas, units conducted “slacker raids,” during which hundreds of young men were arrested and required to prove that they were not avoiding conscription.
In 1916, the Nonpartisan League won the elections in North Dakota. In 1918, it tried to do the same in Minnesota. It chose Charles Lindbergh Sr. to run against Governor Burnquist in the Republican primary. The governor and the MCPS branded the NPL as disloyal and made it difficult for Lindbergh to campaign in many counties. Local sheriffs and sometimes Home Guard units were called out to ban NPL rallies. Burnquist won the primary and went on to be re-elected governor.
The MCPS was disbanded when the war in Europe ended. McGee then returned to his law practice. When Congress took up a bill to create a new federal judgeship for Minnesota, McGee campaigned for the appointment. Senator Knute Nelson supported him, but progressive senators like Robert La Follette opposed him because of his repressive record during the war. In the end, the United States Senate confirmed him, and he began hearing cases as a federal judge in 1923.
McGee became known as a judge who worked overtime to try bootleggers. He was also known for the length of the sentences he imposed. His time on the federal bench was cut short, however, when he killed himself in his office on February 15, 1925. He left a note that said that he suffered from exhaustion and depression as a result of his heavy workload.
The sitting governor and two former governors were honorary pall bearers at McGee’s funeral at St. Stephens Catholic Church, his local parish. He is buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in South Minneapolis.