John Sherman Cooper - Second Term in The Senate

Second Term in The Senate

Cooper's supporters believed he would again seek the governorship of Kentucky or be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States in the early 1950s; some even formed a committee to elect Cooper president. Cooper considered running for governor in 1951, but when Senator Chapman was killed in an automobile accident on March 8, 1951, he decided to make another run for the Senate against Thomas R. Underwood, Governor Lawrence Wetherby's appointee to fill the vacancy. Underwood was considered a heavy favorite in the race. Some Republicans faulted Cooper for taking an appointment from Democratic president Harry Truman. Both the Louisville Times and the Louisville Courier-Journal recanted their statements in 1950 that Cooper should seek election to the Senate in 1954; they now feared that the election of a Republican would allow that party to organize the Senate, giving key committee chairmanships to isolationists opposed to continued U.S. involvement in the Korean War. Nevertheless, Cooper defeated Underwood by 29,000 votes in the election to serve out the remainder of Chapman's term. His victory marked the first time in Kentucky's history that a Republican had been elected to the Senate more than once.

Cooper was named to the Senate Committee on Labor, Education and Public Welfare and chaired its education and labor subcommittees. He sponsored a bill authorizing public works projects along the Big Sandy River, including the Tug and Levisa forks. He also supported the reconstruction of the locks and dams along the Ohio River and the construction of locks, dams, and reservoirs in the Green River Valley. He opposed the Dixon-Yates contract, which would have paid a private company to construct a new power station to generate power for the city of Memphis, Tennessee, calling instead for authorization for the Tennessee Valley Authority to issue bonds to finance the construction of new power stations. He supported a comprehensive program benefiting the coal industry and co-sponsored a bill to extending public library services to rural areas.

Cooper continued to be an independent voice in the Senate. During the Red Scare, he was critical of attempts to permit illegal wiretap evidence in federal courts and attempts to reduce the protections against self-incrimination granted by the Fifth Amendment. Nevertheless, he refused to support stripping Joseph McCarthy, the leading figure in the Red Scare, of his major Senate committee chairmanships, cautioning that "many of those who bitterly oppose Senator McCarthy call for the same tactics that they charge him with." He was the only Republican to oppose the Bricker Amendment, which would have limited the president's treaty-making power, because he concluded that the issues addressed by the amendment were not sufficient to warrant a change to the Constitution. He also opposed the Submerged Lands Act and the Mexican Farm Labor bill, both of which were supported by the Eisenhower administration. He denounced Eisenhower's appointment of Albert M. Cole, an open opponent of public housing, as Federal Housing Administrator and opposed many of the agricultural reforms proposed by Eisenhower's Agriculture Secretary, Ezra Taft Benson. Again, his independence did little to diminish his stature in the party. In 1954, he was named to the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

Cooper again sought re-election in 1954. Democrats first considered Governor Wetherby as his opponent, but Wetherby's candidacy would have drawn a primary challenger from the Happy Chandler faction of the Democratic Party, possibly leading to a party split and Cooper's re-election. Instead, party leaders convinced outgoing Vice-President Barkley, now 77 years old, to run for the seat in order to ensure party unity. There were few policy differences between Barkley and Cooper, who had been deemed the most liberal Republican in the Senate by Americans for Democratic Action. During the campaign, Cooper was featured on the cover of Time magazine on July 5, 1954. Cooper appealed to women voters who were concerned about the increasingly tense situation in Southeast Asia and to black voters because of his stands in favor of civil rights. He also claimed that he would be a less partisan Senator than Barkley. Barkley's personal popularity carried him to a 71,000-vote victory, however. Glenn Finch opined that "Barkley was unbeatable in his own state, and it is probable that no other candidate could have defeated Cooper."