Publisher's Synopsis
This is a biography of one of the most prominent members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the twentieth century. A Democrat, Flood represented Pennsylvania's 11th Congressional District for thirty-one years. His ability to provide for his depressed district emanated mainly from his chairmanship of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HEW Flood surpassed most of his colleagues in the extremism of his anti-Communist rhetoric. Focusing frequently on Eastern Europe helped him politically, given the demographics of the district. But his real obsession was the Panama Canal. He advocated permanent U.S. possession of the canal and Canal Zone and publicized the issue from 1958 until 1978, his next-to-last year in office. Flood's career ended with his indictment and trial on a variety of corruption charges. A plea agreement allowed him to evade prison time, but he resigned his long-held seat in January 1980 and remains a figure whose achievements are clouded by scandal. Now an independent scholar Sheldon Spear is retired from the history department at Luzerne County Community College.
