Representative Clifford Ragsdale Hope

Clifford Ragsdale Hope (June 9, 1893 – May 16, 1970) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Kansas whose thirty years of service, from 1927 to 1957, made him the longest-serving Kansan in the House. He was born in Birmingham, Van Buren County, Iowa, where he attended the local public schools. His early years in rural Iowa exposed him to the agricultural and small-town concerns that would later shape much of his legislative focus and his long association with the farm economy of the Great Plains.

After completing his primary and secondary education, Hope pursued higher education at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska. His studies there provided him with a grounding in liberal arts and public affairs at a time when the region was undergoing significant economic and social change. Although details of his specific course of study are not widely recorded, his university experience helped prepare him for a career in law, public service, and ultimately national politics.

With the entry of the United States into the First World War, Hope entered military service. He served in the United States Army during World War I as a second lieutenant, joining the large cohort of young Americans who took part in the nation’s first major overseas conflict of the twentieth century. His wartime experience, coming at a formative period in his life, contributed to his understanding of national defense, veterans’ issues, and the broader responsibilities of federal government in times of crisis.

Following the war, Hope settled in Kansas and entered public life. He was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives, where he gained experience in legislative procedure and state-level policymaking. Service in the state legislature provided him with a platform to build a political base, refine his positions on agricultural, fiscal, and governmental issues, and establish himself within the Republican Party of Kansas. His work at the state level laid the groundwork for his subsequent election to Congress.

Hope was elected as a Republican to the Seventieth Congress and took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 4, 1927. He served continuously through the Eighty-fourth Congress, leaving office on January 3, 1957, for a total of fifteen consecutive terms. His tenure in Congress spanned the late 1920s, the Great Depression, the New Deal era, World War II, and the early Cold War, a period of profound transformation in American political and economic life. Throughout these three decades, he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Kansas constituents, particularly the agricultural communities of the Great Plains. As a member of the House of Representatives, Clifford Ragsdale Hope contributed to the democratic process during a significant period in American history, engaging in debates over farm policy, federal spending, and national security that defined mid-twentieth-century governance.

During his long congressional career, Hope became closely identified with agricultural and rural issues, reflecting the priorities of his district and his own background. His service coincided with major federal initiatives affecting farmers, including New Deal farm programs, wartime production measures, and postwar efforts to stabilize commodity markets. By the time he left office in 1957, his thirty years in the House had made him the longest-serving Kansan in the United States House of Representatives, a distinction that underscored both his electoral durability and his influence within the Kansas Republican delegation.

After leaving Congress, Hope remained active in the agricultural sector. From 1959 to 1963 he served as president of Great Plains Wheat Inc., based in Garden City, Kansas. In that role he worked to promote the interests of wheat producers and to advance the marketing and development of one of the region’s most important crops, extending his longstanding engagement with farm policy into the private and quasi-public sphere. His post-congressional career reflected a continuity of focus on the economic well-being of the Great Plains and its agricultural communities.

Clifford Ragsdale Hope died on May 16, 1970, as a result of a stroke. His death marked the close of a public life that had spanned service in World War I, the Kansas House of Representatives, three decades in the United States Congress, and leadership in a major regional agricultural organization. His career left a lasting imprint on Kansas political history and on the representation of agricultural interests in the national legislature.