Culberson, Charles A. (Charles Allen), 1855-1925

Charles Allen Culberson (1855-1925), son of prominent lawyer and legislator, David Browning Culberson, was a Texas state attorney general, Texas governor, and a United States senator. After attending the Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia law school, Culberson was elected county attorney of Marion County, Texas, in 1877. Culberson and his wife, Sally Harrison, moved to Dallas in 1887, where he practiced law. From 1890 to 1894, Culberson served two terms as Texas state attorney general. A conservative, Culberson was elected governor in 1894 with the help of Edward Mandel House, a prominent Austin banker and landowner. In 1899, the Texas Congress made Culberson a United States Senator. In his twenty-four year senatorial career (1899-1922), he served as Senate Democratic minority leader (1907-1910) and sat on many committees, including the Committee on the Judiciary (1913-1919). His ill health and alcoholism forced him to resign as minority leader in 1910 and earned him the nickname of “sick man of the senate.” Increasingly over the next twelve years, Culberson relied on his friends and status as an incumbent to win reelection. In 1922, his health and dislike of the Ku Klux Klan caused him to lose his seat in the Senate.

Source: Wagner, Robert L. “Culberson, Charles Allen.” Handbook of Texas Online . http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/fcu2.html.

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