Douglass was a member of the Massachusetts State House of Representatives in 1899, 1900, 1906, and again in 1913. Douglass was delegate to the Massachusetts constitutional convention in 1917 and 1918; author and playwright; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1928 and 1932. Douglass was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-ninth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1925 – January 3, 1935); chairman, House Committee on Education (Seventy-second and Seventy-third Congresses). Douglass was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1934. Douglass resumed the practice of law; served as commissioner of penal institutions of Boston from 1935 until his death in West Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1939.
Douglass is buried in St. Joseph Cemetery. Survived by two sons; Paul Joseph Douglass [Manhasset,NY] and John Joseph Douglass [Newark, DE]
References
Notes
^Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, pp. 7, 11
^Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, p. 11
^Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, pp. 865, 971
^Bridgman, A. M. (1906), A Souvenir of Massachusetts legislators Volume XV, Stoughton, MA: A. M. Bridgeman, p. 167
* Alternately named Economic and Educational Opportunities in 104th Congress and Education and the Workforce in 105th through 109th and 112th through 115th Congresses.
