Henry Joseph Berquist (February 26, 1905May 1, 1990) was an American politician. He served three terms in the Wisconsin State Assembly (1937–1942) representing Florence, Forest, and Oneida counties as a member of the Wisconsin Progressive Party. He resigned to serve in World War II and was wounded and captured at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war he was a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin in 1948 for Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party, but was not elected. In his later years he became a staunch Democrat and advocated for senior issues.
Early life
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was educated there. He moved to Wisconsin and became actively involved in the fur farming industry; he was a national organizer and vice president of the American fur Growers Association and worked as a cartoonist for their monthly magazine. In 1934, he attended the Farm and Labor College at Tomahawk and he was employed as superintendent and labor foreman for the Northlands Packing Company in Rhinelander.
Elected office
Also in 1934, Berquist made his first attempt at elected office when he ran for Wisconsin State Assembly, challenging incumbent Democrat Neil McEachin in the Florence–Forest–Oneida assembly district. McEachin also faced a primary challenge that year after coming into significant conflict with his own party due to a dispute with Governor Albert G. Schmedeman—also a Democrat—over conflicting plans for state controls of alcohol law following the Repeal of Prohibition in the United States. Berquist ran as a Socialist and came in a distant fourth in the general election.
The seat went to Wisconsin Progressive candidate Herman L. Kronschnabl, but only two years later Kronschnabl announced that he would forgo re-election in favor of running for a seat in the Wisconsin State Senate. Berquist decided to run again, this time seeking the Progressive Party nomination. Four candidates ultimately ran in the Progressive primary election. Berquist won a narrow victory for the nomination with 33% of the primary vote—taking roughly the same number of votes he had received in the 1934 general election. Berquist was subsequently re-elected in 1938 and 1940.
In the Assembly, Berquist rose to junior floor leader for the Progressive caucus and was appointed secretary of the special joint investigative committee on land utilization in the northern area of the state.
In 1942, Berquist declared his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin on the Wisconsin Progressive ticket, while strongly endorsing the economic policies and war policies of the Roosevelt administration. In the Progressive Party primary, he faced state senator Philip E. Nelson, a former Republican who represented the northwest corner of the state. In the September Primary, Nelson won with a commanding 71% of the vote. Nelson, however, had already been appointed to the federal War Production Board and, on the eve of the Progressive Party state convention, declined the nomination. On October 5, the Progressives formally nominated Henry Berquist in place of Nelson.
In the general election, Berquist was defeated by incumbent Lieutenant Governor Walter Samuel Goodland. This would prove to be a fateful election, as the winner of the gubernatorial election, Progressive Orland Steen Loomis, died of a heart attack a month before taking office, leaving the Republican Goodland to be sworn in as Governor.
World War II service
Prior to the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Progressive Party had a staunch non-interventionist policy and insisted that America's best strategy in this era was to build up domestic strength. Berquist, during his time in the Assembly, was considered a staunch pacifist and isolationist—at one point he supported a bill to ban toy soldiers and toy guns, saying that perhaps removing some of the glamor from war for children would reduce the likelihood of future wars. However, just weeks after his defeat in the 1942 election, Berquist resigned his Assembly seat and enlisted in the United States Army for service in World War II. Despite being nearly 38 years old, Berquist entered service as a private and was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, with the 52nd Armored Infantry Regiment, 9th Armored Division. While at Fort Riley, he wrote to his teenage son explaining the reasons for his absence and his rationale for the war in a widely reprinted letter. He rose to the rank of corporal by spring of 1943, and trained with his regiment throughout the year in California, Missouri, and Louisiana. He was promoted to sergeant in the summer of 1944.