Alben W. Barkley

Alben W. Barkley

Alben William Barkley (November 24, 1877 – April 30, 1956) was a lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served in both houses of Congress and, from 1949 to 1953, as the 35th Vice President of the United States. He was elected county attorney for McCracken County, Kentucky, in 1905; county judge in 1909; and U.S. Representative from Kentucky's First District in 1912. As a Representative, he became a committed liberal Democrat, supporting President Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom domestic agenda and foreign policy.

Endorsing Prohibition and denouncing parimutuel betting, Barkley nearly secured the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1923, but lost in the primary to fellow Representative J. Campbell Cantrill. In 1926, he unseated incumbent Republican Senator Richard P. Ernst. In the Senate, he supported the New Deal approach to addressing the Great Depression and was elected to succeed Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson upon Robinson's death in 1937. The following year, he faced a reelection challenge from Kentucky's governor, A. B. "Happy" Chandler. During the campaign, Chandler accused Barkley of using employees of the Works Progress Administration to campaign for him, while Barkley accused Chandler of using state employees in a similar way. President Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned for Barkley, who won the election with 56% of the vote. Neither candidate was charged with any wrongdoing, but the following year, journalist Thomas Lunsford Stokes won the Pulitzer Prize for his investigation of the election, and Congress passed the Hatch Act, making it illegal for federal employees to campaign for political candidates.

When World War II focused Roosevelt's attention on foreign affairs, Barkley gained influence over the administration's domestic agenda. He resigned as floor leader after Roosevelt ignored his advice and vetoed a tax bill in 1944, but the Democratic caucus supported and unanimously reelected him. Barkley had a better working relationship with Harry S. Truman, who ascended to the presidency after Roosevelt's death in 1945. With Truman's popularity waning entering the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Barkley gave a keynote address that energized the delegates, and Truman selected him as his running mate for the upcoming election. The Democratic ticket scored an upset victory in the election, and Barkley took an active role in the Truman administration, acting as the its primary spokesman, especially after the Korean War necessitated the majority of Truman's attention. When Truman announced that he would not seek reelection in 1952, Barkley began organizing a presidential campaign, but key labor leaders refused to endorse his candidacy because of his age, and he withdrew from the race. He retired but was coaxed back into public life to challenge incumbent Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper in 1954. Barkley unseated Cooper but exerted little influence on congressional proceedings during his partial term, which ended when he died of a heart attack while giving a speech at the Washington and Lee Mock Convention on April 30, 1956.