Arthur
V. Watkins Distinguished
Service Award
The Arthur Vivian Watkins Distinguished Service Award, established in 1989 by the Utah Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration, honors elected officials who, through exceptional commitment, skill and integrity, served the public with special distinction.
Senator Watkins was born in Midway, Utah in 1886 and died in Salt Lake City in 1973. After studying at Brigham Young University and New York University, he earned a law degree at Columbia University in 1912. He farmed in Lehi, practiced law in Vernal, and was Assistant Salt Lake County Attorney and a district judge before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946 and then reelected in 1952. After his Senate career, he was a member and then Chair of the U.S. Indian Claims Commission.
In the U.S. Senate, Arthur Watkins earned such a reputation for quiet legislative skill and integrity that he was called to chair perhaps the most difficult and critical Senate task of this century: The Select Committee which eventually brought the censure charges against Senator Joseph McCarthy. He took the task with pain. He took it not from political ambition, for he knew it represented great political burden. He took it as a responsibility to his nation. Although he lost in his next campaign for reelection, the judicious skill and moral rectitude with which he handled one of the ugliest challenges to our democracy were celebrated in the state and national press, in best selling American literature, and by President Eisenhower and the Senate with whom he served. Democracy must be repeatedly saved, and this award is named for a Utahn who met this challenge.