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Clyde LaVerne Herring was Iowa’s 26th governor, the chief executive during a time when frustration over the depression lead to farm protests in western Iowa and the implementation of martial law.

Herring was born on May 3, 1879, in Jackson, Michigan.  He attended school in Michigan and served in both the Spanish American War and World War I, enlisting initially as a private in Company D of the 3rd Michigan Regiment. During World War I, he served on the Mexican border with the Iowa National Guard.  After working as a rancher in Colorado and a farmer in Iowa, Herring settled into a successful career in the automobile business.

Herring entered politics in 1920, but was unsuccessful in his bid for the governorship.  He also was unsuccessful in 1922, when he ran for the U.S. Senate.  Herring won the 1932 Democratic gubernatorial nomination and was sworn into the governor’s office on January 12, 1933.  He was reelected to a second term in 1934. 

Just why a rich, retiring realtor in his early 50's like Clyde Herring wanted to become Governor at such
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Clyde Herring depression-era leader
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an unhappy time is hard to say. His first job was carrying bundles at a Jackson drygoods store for $1.50 a week. Soon he rode his bicycle 80 miles into Detroit to become a jewelry clerk. Later he raised cattle in Colorado, fattened them in Iowa, finally "realized that I could hire a man to do the work for $30 a month and do something else myself." In Detroit he had fixed Henry Ford's watch, thus came to know that rising automobile manufacturer. From 1910 until the distributing system was reshuffled after the War, Clyde Herring was Ford agent for Iowa. By that time he had acquired $3,000,000 worth of Des Moines real estate.

Herring’s biggest test as governor came in 1932, when the Farmer’s Holiday Association advocated the withholding of farm products from the market- basically a farmers' strike.
The leader was Milo Reno. One person was killed when farmers began to blockade roads. Also farmers got together to resist foreclosure. They rallied to destroy and burn their crops, thus lowering supply and rising costs. In one account, the farmers used torpedoes to halt a train carrying livestock into Iowa. The highways into Sioux City and Council Bluffs were blocked by pickets who dumped any farm produce on the side of the road. At Le Mars, Iowa a bunch of angry farmers actually dragged a judge out of his courtroom, placed a noose around his neck, and threatened to hang him unless he stopped approving farm foreclosures.

In April at Primghar, 600 farmers battled the O’Brien County sheriff and his deputies to prevent a foreclosure.  A group of them turn up at the courthouse, drag a district judge from his chair, put a rope around his neck, and threaten to hang him unless he promises not to issue any more eviction notices.
That same month, when state officers in Crawford County are beaten and driven off, Herring put three counties under martial law, and the National Guard starts rounding up farmers who are fighting foreclosures.

To end the impasse, Herring halted bank foreclosures and pushed for a law to assist financially unstable banks. He also implemented a budget and financial control act to manage and condense state expenses; foreclosures were halted; and a law was passed that aided financially unstable banks. 
After finishing his term on January 14, 1937, Herring was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served from 1937 to 1943.  He also served as a senior assistant administrator in the Office of Price Administration in 1943.

Governor Clyde L. Herring died on September 15, 1945, and was buried in the Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.

Clyde Herring