Kent, Roger, 1906-1980

Roger Kent was born in Chicago, on June 8, 1906. He was the son of William and Elizabeth Kent. His father served in Congress between 1910 and 1917. Roger was prepared for college at the Thatcher School and graduated from Yale College in 1928. He stayed in New Haven after graduation, attending Yale Law School, from which he graduated in 1931. Kent practiced law in California and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937. In 1952 and 1953, he served as general counsel for the Department of Defense. Kent served the Democratic Party in various other capacities throughout his life, most significantly as co-chairman of Lyndon Baines Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. He was a close, personal friend of Johnson's vice-president, Hubert Humphrey. Kent married Alice Cooke in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 26, 1930. They had four children together, one of whom died at a young age. Roger Kent died on May 16, 1980.

Biographical Sketch

Roger Kent was born on June 8, 1906, in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of seven children of William and Elizabeth (Thacher) Kent. William Kent (1864-1928) was a prominent Progressive Republican who served as independent Congressman from the California First Congressional District from 1911 to 1917 and later was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to a four year term on the U.S. Tariff Commission. Elizabeth (Thacher) Kent (1868-1952) was a leader in the women's suffrage movement.

Roger Kent attended Washington D.C. and Marin County public schools and Thacher School at Ojai, California. He was graduated from Yale in 1928 and from Yale Law School in the class of 1931. In 1930, he married Alice Cooke of Honolulu.

Starting in 1931, Kent was employed as an attorney with the San Francisco law firm of Chickering & Gregory until he resigned in 1936 to become senior attorney in the San Francisco regional office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Following 3 1/2 years of service in the Navy, Kent became a partner in the new San Francisco law firm of Crimmins, Kent, Bradley & Burns in April 1946. Kent has been associated with the firm to the present with the exception of a leave of absence from March 1952 to May 1953 when he was General Counsel for the Department of Defense and, briefly, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Kent registered in the Democratic Party in 1928 and ran for Congress in the First Congressional District in 1948 and 1950. Though not nominated, he received more votes than any other candidate on both political tickets in the 1948 primary. In 1950 he lost to the Republican incumbent after nomination. From December 1953 to August 1954, Kent was the Northern California chairman of the Richard Graves for Governor Committee and was elected chairman of the Northern California Division of the Democratic State Central Committee later in 1954.

Because of his outspoken California political leadership, Kent served an unprecedented tenure, alternating every two years as either chairman or vice chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee from 1954 to 1965. During this period, he was also active in the 1956 Presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson, and served as state chairman of the 1960 Kennedy-Johnson campaign, Northern California chairman of the 1962 Edmund G. Brown for Governor campaign, Northern California chairman of the 1964 Johnson-Humphrey campaign and as co-chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect Governor Brown. He also served as a member of the Postmaster General's Stamp Advisory Committee in 1961 and as chairman of the Western States Democratic Conference from 1962 to 1965.

The Kent family resides at Kentfield in Marin County, California.