Paul A. Dever
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Paul Andrew Dever (January 15, 1903 - April 11, 1958) was a Democratic politician from Boston, Massachusetts. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1928, and served from 1929 to 1935, when he was elected the youngest Attorney General of Massachusetts in the history of Massachusetts at age 31. In 1940, he challenged the popular incumbent Governor Leverett Saltonstall, coming within a small margin of creating an upset victory. As the Second World War began, Dever enlisted in the Navy. He lost the 1946 race for Lieutenant Governor, but two years later he defeated incumbent Governor Robert F. Bradford by a substantial margin. Governor Dever increased state aid to schools and issued an executive order to extend higher education benefits to Korean War veterans. Among his chief concerns were civil defense and resisting domestic communism. He advocated increasing old age and workers compensation insurance. Defeated in his second reelection attempt, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1952.
Governor Dever died in 1958 and was buried in Saint Joseph's Cemetery in the West Roxbury section of the City of Boston, Massachusetts.
| Preceded by Robert F. Bradford | Governor of Massachusetts (1949-1953) | Succeeded by Christian Herter |