William "Wild Bill" Langer (30 September 1886 – 8 November 1959) was the Republican Governor of North Dakota from 31 December 1932 to 21 June 1934 (succeeding George F. Shafer and preceding Ole H. Olson) and from 6 January 1937 to 5 January 1939 (succeeding Walter Welford and preceding John Moses) and a US Senator from 3 January 1941 to 8 November 1959 (succeeding Lynn Frazier and preceding Norman Brunsdale).
Biography[]
William Langer was born in Casselton, North Dakota to a German Catholic family. He practiced law in Mandan before entering politics with the Nonpartisan League, serving as state's attorney of Morton County from 1914 to 1916 (during which time he backed a candidate for superintendent from schools opposed to the NPL), as Attorney General of North Dakota from 1917 to 1920, and as Governor from 1932 to 1934 and from 1937 to 1939. Langer, who had briefly defected to the conservative Independent Voters Association, mended his rift with party leader Arthur C. Townley, whom he accused of Bolshevism, but he was removed from office for defrauding the government by having all state employees donate part of their annual salaries to the NPL. Langer's convictions were overturned in 1935, and he returned to office from 1937 to 1939 and served in the US Senate from 1941 to 1959. Langer was a staunch supporter of isolationism, as were many of his German and Scandinavian voters who deeply distrusted Britain and the United Nations. Langer and Minnesota Senator Henrik Shipstead were the only two senators to vote against the UN Charter in 1945, and he was one of seven senators to oppose full US entry into the UN. Even after the NPL merged into the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party, Langer remained a Republican, and he voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and died two years later.