Francis Williams Sargent (July 29, 1915 – October 22, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 64th governor of Massachusetts from 1969 to 1975. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 63rd lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1967 to 1971. In 1969, he became acting governor when John A. Volpe resigned to become Secretary of Transportation under the Nixon administration. In 1970, he was elected governor in his own right, defeating the Democratic Party's nominee Kevin White. He lost reelection in 1974 to Democrat Michael Dukakis.
Early life, education, and early career
Sargent was born in 1915 in Hamilton, Massachusetts, the son of Margery (Lee) and Francis Williams Sargent. He was known for his sharp wit and self-deprecating manner. A Republican, "Sarge" graduated from Charles River School, and then Noble and Greenough School.
Sargent was a student in the architecture program (class of 1939) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a classmate and friend of architect I.M. Pei. Sargent received a special degree in architecture after completing four years of what was then a five-year program, rather than a normal graduation.
After MIT, Sargent worked for the architectural firm of Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott as a draftsman, leaving to work as a carpenter for a general contractor to learn the building trade. He then started his own firm, Sargent & Sweeney.
Sargent served in World War II, fighting in Italy, earned a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. He enlisted in 1942, volunteered for the ski troops, and rose from private to corporal to sergeant to lieutenant to captain while serving with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy.
After the war, Sargent moved with his family to Orleans on Cape Cod, where he and his son started and ran the Goose Hummock sporting goods store, beginning in 1946.
Sargent served as the Director of Marine Fisheries for ten years, from 1947 to 1957. Between 1959 and 1962 he was in Washington, D.C., as the executive director of the U.S. Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission. He was appointed as the state Commissioner of Public Works in Massachusetts in 1964, a position he held for two years.
In 1962, Sargent ran for a seat in the Massachusetts state Senate, but lost.
In 1966, Sargent ran for and was elected as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts with the slogan "Put Sarge in Charge". In 1969, he became acting governor when Governor John A. Volpe (R) resigned to become secretary of Transportation under President Richard Nixon. In 1970, Sargent won the gubernatorial election in his own right, defeating Boston Mayor Kevin White.
According to a biography of Barney Frank, White was the first mayor to declare the city had a race problem, and people wanted to keep him as mayor instead of making him governor. Frank said, "Sargent was seen as a good liberal and some liberals reasoned that if we elect Kevin White as governor, who knows who is going to be Mayor of Boston." Frank also said it was Sargent's popularity that won him the election.
Sargent retired from politics after running for reelection and being defeated by Democrat Michael Dukakis in the 1974 gubernatorial election. Among the factors contributing to his defeat was voter distaste for the Watergate scandal, and an economic slowdown.
When Sargent first entered office, the budget was in turmoil because of spending increases on welfare and other benefits. He tightened rules for qualifying for Medicaid and introduced a new corporate tax.
He was governor of the Commonwealth during the strife over school busing following Judge W. Arthur Garrity's 1974 decision to desegregate Boston public schools through court-mandated redistricting of the Boston school system, including busing some students out of their neighborhoods to end a pattern of racial segregation in the schools. Sargent had previously vetoed attempts to repeal or water down the state's Racial Imbalance Act, which prohibited state aid to racially imbalanced school districts. When Sargent called for obeying the federal court order, anti-busing forces complained that he and his neighbors in the well-to-do suburban Boston town of Dover, Massachusetts, did not have to share any of the burden of desegregating Boston schools.
Carl Sheridan, a former Dover police chief, said of the incident, "I think people will most remember him for the busing situation. I remember one time a bus load of demonstrators came out to Dover looking for Sargent and his house. But because the town had no street lights, they got out of the bus and were standing in the pitch black. They got back in the bus and left. Sargent was still laughing about that two weeks ago."
Sargent also created the weekend prison furlough program. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the right extended to first-degree murderers because the statute did not specifically exclude them, the Massachusetts legislature quickly passed a bill to prohibit furloughs for such inmates. However, in 1976, Michael Dukakis vetoed that bill.
Sargent also created the Massachusetts Appeals Court in 1972, and selected Alan M. Hale, then a justice of the Superior Court at the time, along with David Rose, Edmund Keville, Reuben Goodman, Donald Grant, and Christopher Armstrong, to the bench. They were sworn under oath in October 1972. Sargent said of the experience, "I wasn't too darn anxious to come here. I liked what I was doing. I enjoyed the experience on the Superior Court, meeting people and lawyers all over the State. I didn't want to leave, but the challenge of setting up an entirely new court was one I could not refuse." Sargent went on to speak of Chief Justice Hale and his five associates, "I have sought individuals who have a proven record of outstanding legal accomplishment, wisdom and good judgment. It is my belief that the men we have selected will allow this court to take its rightful place in our judicial system. It is a bench both balanced and responsive. It will, from the outset, be able to shoulder its full share of an appellate overload which for many years has been staggering." He called the creation of the Appeals Court "the single most significant step in judicial reform in Massachusetts this century."
Sargent was an avid fisherman on Cape Cod and became interested in the environment because he was frustrated by overfishing and the use of illegal nets. A dedicated conservationist, he delivered the keynote address at MIT on the first Earth Day in 1970.