Bruce Reynolds Alger (June 12, 1918 – April 13, 2015) was an American politician, real estate agent and developer, and a Republican U.S. representative from Texas, the first to have represented a Dallas district since Reconstruction. He served from 1955 until 1965. Though born in Dallas, Alger was reared in Webster Groves, Missouri, a small suburb of St. Louis.
Early life
Alger was the son of David Bruce Alger, a bank representative, and the former Clare Freeman, an aspiring poet and writer. He attended Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey on a scholarship. There he studied philosophy, art, and music and was a center for the football team. Alger graduated from Princeton with an A.B. in philosophy in 1940 after completing a 73-page long senior thesis titled "Chinese Painting." he went to work for the RCA Corporation as a field representative.
With the coming of World War II, Alger joined the United States Army and was assigned to Squadron 5 at the Army Air Corps Advanced Flying School at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas. He flew bombers and attained the rank of captain, claiming to be among the first U.S. troops in Japan after the conclusion of the war in August 1945. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross. On his return to civilian life, RCA refused to rehire him on the grounds that he had been out of television production for too long.
In 1943, he married his first wife, Lucille "Lynn" Antoine.
In April 2013, Alger self-published a book on his experience in World War II; The Crew Book - Miss America '62. The B-29 that Alger piloted was named "Miss America '62" after his daughter who would turn 18 in 1962. The book details the crew's experience through training, combat, and eventually the surrender of Japan.
In 1945, Alger moved to Dallas and formed his own real estate and land development company. He was chosen as the first president of the White Rock Chamber of Commerce.
In 1950, Alger announced the development of a 180-lot subdivision in Far East Dallas off Peavy Road which was to bear his name, and is known as Alger Park. Alger continued to support the development after being elected to Congress, even speaking at ceremonies for the neighborhood.
Congressional service (1955-1965)
In 1954, Alger became the Republican candidate for U.S. House of Representatives for Texas's 5th congressional district. Considering his state's Democratic tradition, it was unexpected that Alger would win. He received 27,982 ballots (52.9 percent) to Democrat Wallace H. Savage's 24,904 (47.1 percent). He was the only Republican in the Texas delegation for eight years until 1963, when Ed Foreman of Odessa, later of Dallas, joined Alger for the final two years of his tenure.
Alger served during the heyday of the Lyndon B. Johnson and Sam Rayburn era. As a Republican, and a strongly conservative Republican at that, he was the odd man out in the Texas delegation of the day. Alger considered himself an individualist, a constitutionalist, and a man of principles. Critics, however, equated his principles to stubbornness.
His belief in limited government conflicted with many of his colleagues, who expected to trade for votes on various issues and projects, something he refused to do. In the era of civil rights, he believed that solutions lay with local, not national government. He maintained that the national government should concentrate on defense and foreign affairs. He believed that the responsibility for social programs belonged at the local level. He was the only member of the House, for example, to oppose the popular school lunch program. Despite being in the majority of the Texas delegation to decline to sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, Alger voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964, as well as the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
According to Time magazine (January 6, 1958), Alger assessed the upcoming second session of the Democratic 85th Congress in a pessimistic but resolved vein: "I foresee bitterness and hatefulness... We are going to squabble and fight and make the world think we hate each other and that we can't solve our problems. We are going to have bigger and bigger budgets, higher taxes, more government spending at home and abroad, and more inflation accompanied by deficit financing. Happy New Year!"