Transcripts For CSPAN3 Life And Career Of Senator Alben Bark

Find out where cspan local content vehicles are going next, online at cspan. Org. You are watching American History tv. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] next, Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell speaks about the life of fellow kentuckian senator Albin Barkley who was majority leader of the u. S. Senate between 1937 and 1947 and was minority leader from 1947 to 1949. Democrat, Alben Barkley it was 35th Vice President of the United States elected with hair harry truman in 1949. This 45 Minute Program is part of a series of talks by Mitch Mcconnle about former u. S. Senators from kentucky. Thank you very much, linda. Its great to see all of you. I enjoyed my tour of the museum and i recommend you do it. Ive been doing a series of speeches over the last couple of years on some of the more significant members of the United States senate from kentucky. Weve had a bunch of them because we came into the union in 1792. But honestly some were way more significant than others. And the man im going to speak to you about today was by any estimate one of a handful of the most significant senators weve ever sent to washington. Ive been pleased to become a friend of his grandson, alvin, who is sitting here to my left. I had an opportunity take he and his wife around the capitol when they were up there a couple of years ago. And he noted that i had in my office in the capitol the leaders office, two portraits up on the wall, one of Alben Barkley and one of John Sherman Cooper. And of course barkley was quite bored frankly after serving as Vice President and going into private life, didnt like it. And defeated John Sherman Cooper in 1954. So their careers intersected in a competitive way toward tend toward the and of barkleys life. So cooper was my early role model and so those are the two portraits that i have up in my office. Some people are surprised i had a democratic majority leader in my office. But i thought he was of that significance that i was willing to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan gesture and welcome barkley to my office. On these remarks ive done on senators, they are a little bit like a college lecture. This is not about current events. This is about the past. And so whatever your views are of what is going on right now, what i think we allingt to do we ought to do today is turn off Current Affairs and go back and talk about one of our most significant figures in kentucky in u. S. History. Professor tom appleton and jim clouter have contributed to this as of course has Alben Barkley the third who ive already discussed. Our Common Wealth has had a our commonwealth has had a Rich Heritage and contributed much to our nations development. As such, what im going to do today is convey a bit of that political history through the lives of some of the distinguished individuals who served as senators from our state. Thats what ive been doing over a period of time here. But the subject of todays speech the Alben Barkley. He affords particular insight into a frequently misunderstood government institution, and that is Party Leadership in the United States senate. Barkley was as we all know leader of the democrats in the senate from 1937 until 1949 n. 1949. In fact, only three men have held that position longer, joe robinson of arkansas and robert bird of west virginia. And mike mansfield. Barkley enjoyed public speaking, perhaps a bit too much at times. Once, during a speech, he lost track of time and was caught quizzically looking at his watch. Barkley tried to figure out how long he had been speaking when a listener shouted, barkley if your watch has stopped running, there is a calendar on the wall behind you. [laughter] barkley quickly drew his speech to a close following that remark. Hopefully, i wont prompt any of you to look at your watch or at least not to look at a calendar. Its entirely fitting of course to have this talk take place in paducah, barkleys long time home. And barkleys name has become synonymous with this city. Alben barkley was born literally , literally in a log cabin on his fathers tobacco farm in 1877 not far from here. In graves county. The barkley family was not a family of means to put it mildly. Young alben grew up chopping wood, harvesting tobacco, and plowing fields. This hardscrabble upbringing instilled in them importance of in him the importance of hard work. Swapping stories with the hired hands he also developed the fun loving storytelling per son na persona for which he later became quite famous. As he got older, he worked odd jobs to make ends meet. Although he didnt graduate from high school, he studied at Marvin College while working as a janitor to pay for his school expenses. Marvin no longer exist today but reportededly one of its campus buildings held a sign boasting barkley swept here. Next came his study of law. And barkley was admitted to the bar in 1901. That same year marked another Important Development in his life. He met dorothy brower, a paducah native, and the two would soon wed. A happy marriage. They raised three children, david, marion, and laura, in a very lively household. One of their homes where barkley lived from 1937 until 1956 as we all know was called angles. As many of you know, its still a historical landmark here. The law led barkley to discover his true passion, which as we all know was politics. His political career started with a race for county attorney here in Mccracken County. He bought a oneeyed horse named dick who transported barkley across the whole county during the campaign. The secret to barkleys success was less his mode of transportation than his personality. Barkley truly enjoyed and empathized with people. As Lyndon Johnson recalled, he had a genuine and unaffected interest in the problem of others. Johnson observed that people rejoiced with him when he was happy, mourned with him when he was sad. And at all times they posed in they repost in him the trust and confidence that are according only to a very close and dear personal friend. At 27 years old the young lawyer toppled the incumbent and easily won the general election for county attorney in 1905. Barkley then won election as Mccracken County judge, essentially the same position we call county judge executive today, before going to the house of representatives in 1912. In the house, barkley was not only an avid progressive of e ofrogressive and devote h president Woodrow Wilson, but he befriended young lawmakers by the names of sam rayburn of texas and pat harrison of mississippi. Reelected six times to the house, barkley moved to the senate in 1926. I would note that his Campaign Manager for that senate race was none other than fred vincent who would later become chief justice of the United States. It was in the senate where barkley became widely aclaimed as a firstrate storyteller. Many recall senator barkley saying, a good story is like fine kentucky bourbon. It improves with age and if you dont use it too much, it will never hurt anyone. [laughter] one contemporary described his ability as a raconteur as follows. His restrained postures, the fy the finesse with which he takes tricks with his southern accent, his facility in corning coining a word if the immediately essential one is not in the dictionary, the eloquence of his eyebrows, his honest grin and gentleman and scholar contributed to his storytelling. Now his tendency to create words to suit his needs was evidenced in an address he once gave to the National Press club. Barkley described senators as primadonnas, that would be true today but noted that the press core was even more primadonna ical. In 1932 barkley was returned to the senate, the First Kentucky senator to be reelected in the 20th century. The next year he was chosen assistant majority leader. He served with joe robinson of arkansas. Now barkley was a strong new dealer and a loyal lieutenant of robinsons. The kentuckian even supported Franklin Roosevelts Court Packing plan, a scheme to exand if Supreme Court so roosevelt could tilt the balance more to his liking. This was a center piece of roosevelts agenda after his landslide reelection in 1936. Its boldness reflecting the huge, huge democratic majority returned in both houses after the election of 1936. Listen to this, my friends, when the 75th congress began in 1937, the democrats held a whopping 76 of 96 seats. There were only 48 states then. 76 of 96 seats. If youve ever been to the senate, you know there is an aisle down the middle and the republicans sit on one side and the democrats is it on the sit on the other. There were so Many Democrats after the election of 1936, they couldnt get them all on one side of the chamber. So they brought them over on the republican side in the back and they called at this time cherokee strip. They said they were off the reservation. But as often the case happens when you have a very large majority, the majority begins to splinter and the party was indeed badly divided. As one columnist said at the time, overwhelming majorities, like oversized amoebas, tend to split, and that is just exactly what happened. About half of the Democratic Caucus supported roosevelts new deal policies and the other half undermined them. The Court Packing plan it was straw that broke the camels back. People had enough and it split wide open n. Open. 1937, due to the strain of trying to manage the Court Packing legislation, majority leader robinson died of a heart attack, clearing a way for barkley potentially to become leader. Frequently politics abheres a vacuum. So ill add the way the campaign unfolded. Robinson dies of a heart attack. They put the entire senate on a train headed to arkansas. And the democrat politic all the way to the funeral and all the way back, to see who would succeed joe robinson. So as i said politics abheres a politics abhors a vacuum. The timing and manner of barkleys election to the top spot would prove highly challenging and would hamper barkleys effectiveness as leader for years to come. In this leaders race one faction lined up behind barkley, the other behind his old house colleague, the more conservative pat harrison of mississippi. Roosevelt preferred barkley over harrison because barkley was more supportive of the new deal policies. In fact the day after robinsons death, roosevelt sent barkley a letter that began my dear alben. In the letter roosevelt refered to barkley correctly but cheekily as the acting majority leader. F. D. R. Also dispatched aids to exert pressure on senators to vote for barkley. One week after robinsons death, all 75 democrats, one of them was an independent, all 75 democrats in addition to barkley met in the caucus to vote. They voted by dropping their ballots in an old panama hat of virginia senator carter glass. This prompted a quip about trying to ensure the secret ballot by using a glass hat. Senator barkley won by one vote. One vote. 37 to 36. But he lost much more with his colleagues. Because many senators took offense at the president s influence in barkleys election. And barkley finally paid something of a price for it. His colleagues granted him the title of majority leader but not the accompanying authority and respect, viewing him as f. D. R. s man rather than the senate leader. And thats how he began his tenure as majority leader. Now the job of majority leader is a tough job. Id like to try it out, by the way. [laughter] but its a tough job. If your Party Controls the white house the majority leader usually tries to enact the president s programs and protect his priorities. Thats much hardener a second president ial term than a first one in which the incoming president has a full head of steam and strong popular support. Roosevelt was not only in his second term when barkley was elected leader but was politically damaged from the unsuccessful Court Packing fight. So let me digress for a moment just to discuss the position barkley assumed. The senate has always had leaders, but leaders with a lower case l. Unlike the speaker of the house, the jobs of Senate Majority leader and Senate Minority leader are nowhere to be found in the constitution. The positions are in fact only about a century old. Henry clay, john c. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster were Senate Leaders but never majority or minority leaders for the simple fact the positions did not then exist. As thenprofessor Woodrow Wilson wrote in the senate no one may speak for his party as well as for himself. No one exercises the special trust of acknowledged leadership. So you had a lot of different people who were prominent but the position of leader at the time did not exist. Now the origins of majority and minority leader are the product of several historical factors. Perhaps the main reason the two positions developed was in response to the rise of the activist president. That is to say that the office of party leader developed largely in response to the need for the senate to be able to work with and react to the president s legislative agenera. Agenda. And this notion really began to take hold in the early part of the 20th century, right around world war i. In the latter half of the 19th century, the agenda for the senate floor was set by the Majority Party within what is called its caucus, which is a meeting of the senate party members. In the late 19th and early 20th century each party began to elect caucus chairman. But these caucus chairman were not responsible for setting the legislative agenda. Scheduling what bills would be brought up and in what order, enforcing party discipline, managing legislation on the floor, or coordinating with the president. All attributes of modern Senate Leaders. Today, there is not universal agreement on who was the first majority or minority leader. Democrat john worth kern of indiana is often thought to be the first. His tenure is important because he was elected as head of the Senate Democrats in large part because he shared wilsons progressive views and was thought capable of shepherding through his legislative ageneral agenda. These reasons were actually groundbreaking at the time. What seems ordinary to us was groundbreaking at the time. Even with the novelty of his selection and subsequent success, the term majority leader as opposed to caucus chairman was not used in an official document until 1920 , with democrat oscar undererwood. In 1925, Charles Curtis became the first republican so named. Thus by the mid 1920s, the position of Senate Majority and minority leaders had become formalized. But even then the positions did not resemitble office folks know today. For example, senator harry reid and i currently occupy the two front aisle desks of the Senate Chamber on each side of the divide down the middle. We occupy those as the majority leader and we dont use the term minority in the senate, the republican leader. But the democratic leader did not occupy the center aisle until joe robinson did so in 1927, and the republican leader did not do so until a full decade after that. Before then, those desks had simply been assigned based on seniority. So today the main formal power that the majority leader and the leader of the minority enjoy is the power of prior recognition, the power of prior recognition. That means if a number of senators are all seeking to address the senate to speak or introduce a bill or amendment, the majority leader will be called on first and the leader of the minority will be called on second. That is prior recognition over all the other 98 senators. Now as a practical matter, that means the majority leader and the minority leader enjoy a leg up on the other 98 in trying to do what they want to get done. And being seated at the front of the chammer helps ensure the presiding officer see the two leaders seeking to address the senate. Just like having a desk in the front center aisle, the principle of prior recognition is fairly modern and you wont find it written in the senate rules. Its based on a precedent that dates from 1937 when the majority leader was a man named , you guessed it, Alben Barkley. That year, the Vice President as presiding officer announced that hence forth he would recognize the majority leader first and the minority leader second. It is upon this precedent that a great deal of the power of the majority leader and minority leader rests today. That simple thing, first recognition or second recognition. I would note this incident is one of the lesser known and lesser appreciated highlights of barkleys tenure as leader. But barkleys early days as leader particularly in 1937 were not easy. He kept finding himself on the losing end of votes, even worst and of votes. Even worse, washington journalists