The Principled Politician: The Story of Ralph Carr

In the winter of 1941, as fear swept across America in the wake of Pearl Harbor, every Western governor closed ranks against Japanese Americans ― threatening to turn them away at state borders, some with violence.Every governor except one. Ralph Carr, Republican Governor of Colorado, stood alone. At a time when President Roosevelt was signing Executive Order 9066 and forcibly relocating over 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes, Carr did something no other elected leader in the nation dared: he welcomed them to his state. Flooded with angry letters and death threats, facing calls for impeachment, Carr consulted his conscience and the Constitution and refused to bend. "If you harm them," he declared, "you must harm me first." It cost him everything. His 1942 Senate bid ended in defeat ― a casualty not of scandal, but of principle. He died in 1950, largely forgotten. Award-winning journalist Adam Schrager spent six years recovering Carr's extraordinary story, blending archival research with vivid storytelling to paint a portrait of a complex man and a nation at its worst and best. The Principled Politician is a compelling, deeply human biography that asks questions as urgent today as they were in 1942: What does it truly cost to do the right thing ― and who pays the price? Read more