In 1921, Crumpacker was appointed special deputy district attorney for Multnomah County, and ran unsuccessfully for the
Republican nomination for U.S. Congress in 1922.[1] In 1924, he won the nomination, and was elected representative for Oregon's 3rd congressional district. He was re-elected in 1925 for the sixty-ninth and seventieth Congresses.[1]
Mysterious death
In July 1927, Crumpacker was invited by House speaker Nicholas Longworth to journey down the west coast from Seattle in a special train car as the guest of a Northern Pacific Railroad director. Crumpacker, who was 6' 2" tall and weighed 200 pounds (1.88 m, 91 kg), was uncomfortable during the travel through California's hot Central Valley. The train arrived in San Francisco on July 22, with plans to travel on to Salinas and then to California Senator James D. Phelan's ranch the next day. But when it was time to depart, Crumpacker could not be found, and the party left without him.[5]
He was found later that day on a curb, acting strangely and claiming he had been poisoned.[6] He was eventually subdued, handcuffed, and taken to the hospital, where the evaluating physician noted that he appeared to be "under a great nervous strain" and showing "symptoms of a paranoiac."[5] Crumpacker eventually persuaded hospital officials to release him the next morning.
Word of Crumpacker's strange behavior had reached Thomas Smart, a Seattle newsman on vacation, and he agreed to accompany Crumpacker back home to Portland that night. But as Smart went for a walk with Crumpacker along San Francisco Bay, Crumpacker suddenly ran and jumped into the Bay. By the time Smart and others pulled him from the water, he was dead.[5][7] Crumpacker left several notes indicating that he believed he had been murdered by his friends.[5]
Legacy
The Maurice Crumpacker House in Portland's Dunthorpe neighborhood
Crumpacker's body was returned to Portland amid effusive praise for his service.[5] He was buried in River View Cemetery in Portland.[1] He left a wife, Cully Cook Crumpacker, and three sons, James, Edgar, and Peter.[8]