R. Walton Moore

Voters in Alexandria, Fairfax and Prince William Counties elected Moore to the Virginia State Senate, where he served one term (1887-1890) in the part-time position, succeeding Elisha E. Meredith.[9] Active in Democratic Party politics, Moore was a presidential elector for Grover Cleveland in 1892. In 1896 Moore was mentioned as a candidate for the U.S. Congress, but did not receive the party's nomination (fellow Democrat John Franklin Rixey being elected instead). Although later known as a maverick within the state party, Moore declined to run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Democratic Senator Thomas S. Martin in 1898.[10]

Fairfax County voters elected Moore to the State constitutional convention in 1901 and 1902, in which his young law partner John S. Barbour represented Culpeper County.[11] As chairman of the committee on the legislative department and member of the finance and revision committees, Moore promoted better highways and funding for public schools.[12] That convention would become known for creating the State Corporation Commission, as well as for disenfranchising African American and poor white voters, contributing to the growth of Senator Martin's political organization that later became the Byrd Organization. Moore, despite personal misgivings about the proclamation method to put it into effect. Rather than submit it to voters as had the 1869 document it would supersede, he proposed that it would become effective when approved by the General Assembly, as eventually happened.[13] Nonetheless, Moore and state senator C. O'Conor Goolrick (of Fredericksburg, Virginia and first elected in 1908) were considered mavericks, beyond organization control.[14]

Moore served on the boards of visitors of both the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia. On December 7, 1922, he was appointed a member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. He also served as vice-president of the Virginia Historical Society and as a board member of the Library of Virginia.

Voters of Virginia's 8th congressional district elected Moore as a Democrat to the Sixty-sixth Congress in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Charles Creighton Carlin, who had succeeded Rixey for the seat that Moore had wanted in 1896. Moore was re-elected five times, serving from April 27, 1919, to March 3, 1931. He was a ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee although a member of the minority party. He declined re-election in 1930, as he was beyond normal retirement age. He nonetheless served two years as a member of the State Board of Education after his retirement.[15] His successor was Howard W. Smith, a lieutenant in the Byrd Organization during Massive Resistance.

Moore in his office at the State Department in 1937

His close friend and political ally, Secretary of State Cordell Hull convinced Moore to join the "Brain Trust" of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, succeeding Professor Raymond Moley.[16] He became an Assistant Secretary of State, where he worked under Secretary of State Hull beginning September 19, 1933, and took Hull's place during travels. Many other Virginia Democrats followed the lead of Senator Harry F. Byrd and opposed the New Deal. Moore handled some patronage in the state, and advised Roosevelt to help Governor James Hubert Price as well as Judge Floyd H. Roberts of Bristol, Virginia, whom Byrd's ally Senator Carter Glass found "personally offensive."[17]

In 1937, Hull needed to fill the most important position in the Department, Under Secretary of State. His two principal candidates were Moore and Sumner Welles, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (a close ally and favorite of the President). Hull promised Moore the post, but never forced the issue with President Roosevelt. Eventually, Welles won the position, but Moore's appointment as the Department Counselor was announced at the same time. Though both Moore and Welles gained new titles, Welles took the position they both wanted. Moore served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Import-Export Banks, as well as on the Central Committee of the American Red Cross, among other committees. In subsequent years (until his death in 1941), Moore worked on issues including legal questions, aviation, and arms control.[18]

In late 1940, when Welles made homosexual propositions to two railroad porters, the matter was initially hushed up. Moore learned of the incident from his friend Ernest Norris, president of the Southern Railway. Norris gave Moore affidavits from the men involved, and just before his death, Moore passed them to former ambassador William C. Bullitt, who eventually forced Welles' resignation in 1943.[19]