Barkley, Alben William, 1877-1956

<p>BARKLEY, ALBEN WILLIAM, a Representative and a Senator from Kentucky and a Vice President of the United States; born near Lowes, Graves County, Ky., November 24, 1877; attended the public schools and graduated from Marvin College, Clinton, Ky., in 1897; attended Emory College, Oxford, Ga., and the University of Virginia Law School, Charlottesville, Va.; admitted to the bar in 1901 and commenced practice in Paducah, McCracken County, Ky.; prosecuting attorney for McCracken County, Ky. 1905-1909; judge of McCracken County Court 1909-1913; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-third and to the six succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1913-March 3, 1927); did not seek renomination in 1926, having become a candidate for United States Senator; elected to the United States Senate in 1926; reelected in 1932, 1938, and again in 1944, and served from March 4, 1927, until his resignation on January 19, 1949; majority leader and Democratic caucus chairman 1937-1947; minority leader and Democratic caucus chairman 1947-1949; Democratic Policy Committee chairman 1947-1949; elected Vice President of the United States on the Democratic ticket with President Harry S. Truman in 1948; inaugurated January 20, 1949, for the term ending January 20, 1953; again elected to the United States Senate and served from January 3, 1955, until his death in Lexington, Va., April 30, 1956; interment in Mount Kenton Cemetery, on Lone Oak Road, near Paducah, Ky.</p>

<p><b>Alben Barkley:<br>
Congressional Voice of Liberty</b></p>

<p>"A good story," said Alben Barkley, "is like fine Kentucky bourbon, it improves with age and, if you don't use it too much, it will never hurt anyone." One of Congress' most proficient storytellers, Barkley used his booming baritone, endless repertoire of anecdotes, and rousing speech-making ability to propel himself from congressman to senator to majority leader and vice president. Well liked, he earned the esteem of his colleagues in 1944, when he dared to criticize Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Senate floor and transformed himself from the president's "errand boy" into a beacon of congressional independence.</p>

<p>In 1877, Alben Barkley was born in a log cabin on his father's tobacco farm near Lowes, Kentucky. As a young man he worked as a janitor to support his way through Marvin College and to study law at Emory University and the University of Virginia Law School. Setting up a law practice in Paducah, he began his political career in 1905 when he rode a one-eyed bay horse over the back hills of McCracken County, campaigning for the office of prosecuting attorney. He also served as judge of the McCracken County Circuit Court before his election in 1912 to the United States House of Representatives.</p>

<p>On Capitol Hill, Barkley wholeheartedly supported the administration of Woodrow Wilson and took a leading role in the passage of Wilson's roads bill and farm credit bill. A party-line Democrat, he resisted the tide of conservativism in the 1920s, commenting that if the Harding administration had returned America to normalcy, "then in God's name let us have abnormalcy." He ran for governor of Kentucky in 1923, but lost the primary. Barkley vigorously campaigned for his party's chosen candidate, and in the process boosted his statewide reputation. In 1926, he sponsored the Howell-Barkley Act to set up the federal Board of Mediation and Conciliation for labor disputes. That same year Kentucky voters sent him to the United States Senate.</p>

<p>Handpicked by Roosevelt, Barkley was the keynote speaker at the 1932 national Democratic convention. The following year, he became vice chairman of the Democratic Conference and assistant to Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson. When Robinson died suddenly of a heart attack in July of 1937, FDR addressed a "Dear Alben" letter to Barkley, encouraging him to take up Robinson's fight for the controversial Supreme Court "packing plan" and, by implication, to take over as majority leader. Roosevelt's support helped Barkley win a narrow one-vote victory over Mississippi's Senator Pat Harrison for the majority leadership.</p>

<p>As FDR's majority leader, the "long suffering" Barkley endured the scorn of colleagues and journalists. Conservative Democrats, led by Harrison, banded with the Republicans to kill the controversial Court packing plan at the start of Barkley's leadership. The following month, he experienced an embarrassing procedural defeat when the Senate chose to follow Minority Leader Charles McNary's motion to recess. Senators who considered Barkley an illegitimate leader referred to him as "Dear Alben" to underscore his subordinate relationship to Roosevelt. Over time, however, Barkley effectively marshaled his colleagues in support of the administration. He was particularly successful in defending Roosevelt's foreign policy in the tense times just before World War II, leading the fights for repeal of the Neutrality Act, and the Arms Embargo Act, and for extension of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements. In January 1941, he sponsored the crucial Lend-Lease Act, and skillfully maneuvered it around numerous crippling amendments.</p>

<p>Barkley dramatically broke with FDR on February 23, 1944. At issue was the president's veto of a tax relief bill which Roosevelt charged was "not for the needy but for the greedy." Having helped shape the bill, Barkley denounced the president's statement as "a calculated and deliberate assault upon the legislative integrity of every member of Congress." He called upon his colleagues to override the veto, and then he resigned as majority leader. The next day, Senate Democrats unanimously reelected him to the post. "Make way for liberty!" shouted the burly senator from Texas, Tom Connally, when a delegation of senators pushed their way out to notify Barkley in his office. Barkley then appeared before the cheering conference. "By his one-vote margin in the 1937 contest when he was first elected leader the impression was given, and it has been the impression ever since, that he spoke to us for the President," said Senator Elbert Thomas. "Now he speaks for us to the President."</p>

<p>Although President Roosevelt sent a hasty apology and endorsed his reelection as leader, the break probably cost Barkley the vice presidential nomination in 1944, which went instead to Missouri's Senator Harry Truman. After Roosevelt died and Truman became President, Barkley continued to support the administration, both as majority leader, and in the 80th Congress as minority leader.</p>

<p>In 1948, once more the keynote speaker before a Democratic convention, Barkley so lifted the delegates from their lethargy and defeatism with his fighting speech that they nominated him for vice president. At seventy-one, he demonstrated his physical endurance by conducting the first "prop stop" campaign by airplane. He covered twenty-six states, made innumerable speeches, and helped the Truman ticket win an upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey.</p>

<p>Nicknamed the "Veep" by his grandson, Barkley was the last vice president to routinely preside over the Senate. During Senate recesses, he traveled around the nation promoting Truman's Fair Deal program. The widower vice president also won a reputation as a romantic for his whirlwind courtship and marriage to the thirty-eight-year-old Jane Hadley, which received widespread national publicity. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952, but withdrew in the face of charges that he was too old for the job.</p>

<p>Still, Barkley refused to retire. He returned to Kentucky and ran again for the Senate, defeating the popular Republican incumbent, John Sherman Cooper. In doing so, he provided the single-vote margin that returned the Democrats to the majority. While his colleagues gave him back his assignments on the Foreign Relations and Finance Committees, he would not accept their offer of a front-row seat in the Senate chamber, and preferred to join the other freshmen in the back. "Now I am back again as a junior Senator and I am willing to be a junior," he said before a "mock" convention of students at Washington and Lee University on April 30, 1956. "I'm glad to sit in the back row. For I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." With those words, the crowd roared with applause, then fell back in stunned silence as Barkley collapsed and died on the stage, the victim of a massive heart attack.</p>

<p>Alben Willie Barkley was born on November 24, 1877, in a log cabin near Lowes, Kentucky. He was born Willie Alben Barkley, but went by Alben and had his names reversed when he was old enough. His father was a poor tobacco farmer and railroad worker. As a boy, Barkley had to spend a good deal of his time working and received a limited education in county schools. When he was fourteen, he was able to afford school at a small college in Clinton, Kentucky, by working as a janitor. When he graduated from Marvin College in 1897, he enrolled at Emory College in Georgia for a year but had to leave because of limited funds. By 1902, he had saved up enough money to attend a summer law course at the University of Virginia. While in Charlottesville, Virginia, he studied Thomas Jefferson and took from him an enduring ideal of the common man that informed his political beliefs throughout his career.</p>

<p>Barkley began his career as a prosecuting attorney in McCracken County, Kentucky, and then as a county judge. He served as a judge until 1912, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representative as a member of the Democratic Party. Barkley spent almost fifteen years there before being elected to the Senate in 1926. While in the House, he was a loyal supporter of President Woodrow Wilson's agenda and established a strong liberal voting record. After his election to the Senate, he rapidly rose to positions of leadership, becoming assistant majority leader by 1932. When Majority Leader Joseph Robinson died in 1937, Barkley entered into a contentious battle to succeed him. With strong support from President Franklin Roosevelt, Barkley won the contest by a single vote. During the Roosevelt years, Barkley was one of the most powerful men in his party and an indispensable ally in ushering critical components of the New Deal through Congress. By the time he took over as majority leader, however, Roosevelt's ambitious agenda had opened stark divisions in the Democratic Party between progressive and conservative factions. Despite a 76-16 Democratic majority, Barkley often had trouble forging workable coalitions.</p>

<p>Barkley may have contended for the vice presidential nomination in 1944 and eventually ascended to the presidency had it not been for a dramatic confrontation with President Roosevelt earlier that year. After Roosevelt offered stinging remarks and a veto in response to a tax bill he deemed insufficient, Barkley delivered a dramatic speech in which he rebuked the administration, rallied the Senate to override the bill, and resigned his post as majority leader. He was unanimously reelected the next day but the split with Roosevelt took him out of vice presidential contention.</p>

<p>In the 1948 presidential election, President Harry Truman wanted to select Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas as his running mate, but Douglas refused the offer. Truman then offered the job to Barkley, and he accepted. Both Truman and Barkley campaigned vigorously and pulled off one of the most stunning upsets in the history of American politics. At age seventy-one, Barkley was the oldest man ever to take the office of vice president. A year later, he also became the only incumbent vice president to marry when he wed Jane Hadley.</p>

<p>Barkley admired the way President Franklin Roosevelt's first vice president, John Nance Garner, had used his office and personal attributes to make the most of an office with few formal responsibilities. He believed a vice president "can exercise considerable power in the shaping of the program of legislation which every administration seeks to enact," as long as they had the respect of the President and the Congress. While in office, Barkley was a valued member of the administration and respected presiding officer of the Senate. He was also the first vice president to sit on the newly-created National Security Council.</p>

<p>When Truman declined to seek another term, Barkley sought the 1952 presidential nomination but attracted little support, mainly due to his age. He briefly retired from public life before being reelected to the Senate again in 1954. On April 30, 1956, Barkley traveled to Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, for a speaking engagement. At the end of his speech, he discussed the novelty of once again sitting with the freshmen Senators. "I am glad to sit in the back row," said Barkley, "For I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty." With these dramatic words, Barkley concluded his speech and collapsed dead of a heart attack.</p>