Rush Dew Holt Sr. (June 19, 1905 – February 8, 1955) was an American politician who was a United States Senator from West Virginia (1935–1941) and a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates (1931–1935, 1942–1950, 1954–1955). Early life and family Holt was born in Weston, Lewis County, West Virginia, on June 19, 1905. His parents were Chilela (née Dew) and Dr. Matthew Samuel Holt, a small-town physician and horse trader. Matthew Holt was an atheist, who shifted his political support from the Republican Party to William Jennings Bryan in the 1890s, and then to Socialist candidate Eugene Debs; Matthew Holt attended the Socialist Party's 1917 convention, where he participated in condemning American involvement in World War I. Rush Holt attended the public schools and West Virginia University at Morgantown; he graduated from Salem College in 1924. He became a high school teacher and athletic coach, then an instructor at Salem College. Political career Holt was elected as a Democrat to the West Virginia House of Delegates, serving from 1931 to 1935. In this office, he was described as "a champion of the common man and a critic of privately owned utility corporations." In November 1934, at 29, he was elected to the United States Senate, but because a Senator is constitutionally required to be at least 30 years old, he could not take his seat until after his 30th birthday in June 1935. Holt was the youngest person ever popularly elected to the U.S. Senate. Holt was elected with the support of the United Mine Workers and the endorsement of Democratic West Virginia Senator Matthew M. Neely. Holt proclaimed himself an unequivocal supporter of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but according to William E. Coffey, "most knowledgeable observers ... viewed Holt as politically left of the president." However, by 1936, Holt emerged as a vocal conservative critic of the New Deal, attacking, for example, the Works Progress Administration as corrupt and inefficient. One scoring method found Holt to be the third most conservative Democratic Senator to serve between 1937 and 2002. Throughout his Senate career, Holt was a staunch isolationist. He was impressed by the findings of the Nye Committee (1934–1936) and by H. C. Engelbrecht's and F. C. Hanighen's book, Merchants of Death (1934). Holt began making a number of public appearances in support of antiwar causes, including several radio addresses for the National Council for Prevention of