First Term in The Senate and Early Diplomatic Career
Cooper's judicial district included his native Pulaski County, as well as Rockcastle, Wayne and Clinton counties. During his tenure, blacks were allowed to serve on trial juries in the district for the first time. Of the first 16 opinions he issued during his time on the bench, 15 were upheld by the Kentucky Court of Appeals, Kentucky's court of last resort at the time.
Cooper resigned his judgeship in November 1946 to seek the U.S. Senate seat vacated when A. B. "Happy" Chandler resigned to accept the position of Commissioner of Baseball. Cooper's opponent, former Congressman and Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives John Y. Brown, Sr., was better known and widely believed to be the favorite in the race. However, Brown had alienated Chandler's supporters in the Democratic Party during a hotly contested senatorial primary between Brown and Chandler in 1942, and this group worked against his election in 1946. Further, the Louisville Courier-Journal opposed Brown because of his attacks on former Senator J. C. W. Beckham and Judge Robert Worth Bingham, who were heads of a powerful political machine in Louisville. With these two factors working against Brown, Cooper won the election to fill Chandler's unexpired term by 41,823 votes, the largest victory margin by any Republican for any office in Kentucky up to that time. His victory marked only the third time in Kentucky's history that a Republican had been popularly elected to the Senate. The move to Washington D.C. proved to be too much for Cooper's already strained marriage. In 1947, he filed for divorce, charging abandonment.
Cooper described himself as "a truly terrible public speaker" and rarely made addresses from the Senate floor. He was known as an independent Republican during his career in the Senate. In the first roll-call vote of his career, he opposed transferring investigatory powers to Republican Owen Brewster's special War Investigating Committee. His second vote, directing that proceeds from the sale of war surplus materiel be used to pay off war debts, also went against the majority of the Republican caucus, prompting Ohio Republican Robert A. Taft to ask him "Are you a Republican or a Democrat? When are you going to start voting with us?" Cooper responded, "If you'll pardon me, I was sent here to represent my constituents, and I intend to vote as I think best."
A few days after being sworn in, Cooper co-sponsored his first piece of legislation, a bill to provide federal aid for education. The bill passed the Senate, but not the House. Cooper was made chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Roads, and helped draft a bill authorizing $900 million in federal funds to states for highway construction. In 1948, he sponsored a bill to provide price support for burley tobacco at 90 percent of parity. He insisted on an amendment to the War Claims Act of 1948 that benefits to veterans injured as prisoners of war of the Germans and Japanese during World War II be paid immediately using enemy assets. He also co-sponsored legislation allowing hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the Nazis to enter the United States legally. He opposed bans on industrywide collective bargaining for organized labor and on the establishment of closed shops. He voted against putting union welfare funds under government control, but helped to pass an amendment forbidding compulsory union membership for workers.
Cooper continued his independence from his party throughout his term, vocally opposing Republican plans to cut taxes despite record national budget deficits and resisting the party's efforts to reduce funding for the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe in the aftermath of the war. He worked with fellow Kentuckian Alben Barkley and Oregon Senator Wayne Morse to undermine Jim Crow laws enacted by the states and remove obstacles to suffrage for minorities. He also co-sponsored a bill to create the Medicare system, although it was defeated at the time. Although he had voted with the Republicans just 51% of the time during his partial term – the lowest average of any member of the party – Cooper headed the Kentucky delegation to the 1948 Republican National Convention. He supported Arthur Vandenberg for president, but Thomas E. Dewey ultimately received the party's nomination. Cooper himself was mentioned as a possible candidate for vice-president, but ultimately did not receive the nomination and sought re-election to his Senate seat instead. Also in 1948, Centre College awarded Cooper an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.
Cooper was opposed in his re-election bid by Democratic Congressman Virgil M. Chapman, an ally of Earle C. Clements, who had been elected governor in 1947. As one of only a few Democrats who had voted in favor of the Taft-Hartley Act, Chapman had lost the support of organized labor, a key constituency for the Democrats. The Democratic-leaning Louisville Times endorsed Cooper, but the presence of Kentucky's favorite son, Alben Barkley, on the ballot as Harry S. Truman's running mate in the 1948 presidential election ensured a strong Democratic turnout in the state. Both Barkley and Clements stressed party unity during the campaign, and although Cooper polled much better than the Republican presidential ticket, he ultimately lost to Chapman in the general election by 24,480 votes.
Following his defeat, Cooper resumed the practice of law in the Washington, D.C. firm of Gardner, Morison and Rogers. In 1949, President Truman appointed Cooper as one of five delegates to the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly. He was an alternate delegate to that body in 1950 and 1951. Secretary of State Dean Acheson chose Cooper as his advisor to meetings that created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and at meetings of the NATO Council of Ministers in London in May 1950 and Brussels in December 1950. Political historian Glenn Finch observed that, while Cooper was well-qualified for his duties at the U.N. and NATO, his presence abroad also made him less available to campaign for the Senate seat vacated by Barkley's elevation to the vice-presidency. Speculation was raised that Clements, who won Barkley's old seat in a special election in 1950, may have influenced Truman and Acheson to make the appointments.
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