Iowa’s Cantankerous Congressman

Harold Royce “H. R.” Gross

By Ray Hill It is fair to say there was not a speck of get-along-go-along in the character of Harold Royce Gross, a former newscaster who spent 26 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Third Congressional District of Iowa. Gross was as anti-establishment as it was possible to be, and the people of the Third District rewarded him by giving him huge majorities in every election save one. Only once did H. R. Gross face a close election contest inside his congressional district. Gross had no catalogue of bills passed bearing his name; in fact, there was no piece of legislation he sponsored or cosponsored that ever passed the Congress. Yet nobody could accuse H. R. Gross of absenteeism or not doing his job. The c

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