Tom Connally | |
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| United States Senator fromTexas | |
| In office March 4, 1929 – January 3, 1953 | |
| Preceded by | Earle B. Mayfield |
| Succeeded by | Price Daniel |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromTexas's11th district | |
| In office March 4, 1917 – March 3, 1929 | |
| Preceded by | Robert L. Henry |
| Succeeded by | Oliver H. Cross |
| Member of theTexas House of Representatives | |
| In office January 8, 1901 – January 10, 1905 | |
| Preceded by | Sam Little |
| Succeeded by | Austin Milton Kennedy W. C. O'Bryan |
| Constituency | 72nd district (1901–1903) 69th district (1903–1905) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Thomas Terry Connally (1877-08-19)August 19, 1877 Hewitt, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | October 28, 1963(1963-10-28) (aged 86) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Ben Clarkson Connally |
| Alma mater | Baylor University (AB) University of Texas at Austin (LLB) |
Thomas Terry Connally (August 19, 1877 – October 28, 1963) was an American politician, who representedTexas in both theU.S. Senate and theHouse of Representatives, as a member of theDemocratic Party. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1917 to 1929, and in the U.S. Senate from 1929 to 1953.
He was asegregationist who advocated in favor ofJim Crow laws, for example opposing equal education for black people, and againstanti-lynching legislation. In the House, Connally was a staunch Wilsonian Democrat who campaigned in favor of the League of Nations, and the World Court. In the Senate, he chaired the Committee on Foreign Relations from 1941, giving strong support to President Franklin Roosevelt's anti-German and anti-Japanese policies. He worked with Republican SenatorArthur H. Vandenberg to ensure bipartisan support for an internationalist policy, including the new United Nations. He led the committee in supporting theTruman Doctrine in 1947, theMarshall Plan in 1948 andNATO in 1949.[1]
Connally studied atBaylor University and earned his A.B. in 1896.[2][3] He later attended theUniversity of Texas School of Law, earning his LL.B. in 1898.[2][3] While there, Connally was a close friend of futureGovernor of TexasPat Neff and futureUnited States SenatorMorris Sheppard.[4] After earning his law degree, he enlisted in the 2nd Texas Volunteer Infantry to fight in theSpanish–American War.[3] After the end of the war, he established a law firm inMarlin, Texas, where he worked until his entry into politics.[3]
Connally ran unopposed and was elected to theTexas House of Representatives in 1900 and 1902.[5] During his tenure in the Texas House he was a prominent opponent of monopolies and co-authored the Texas Anti-Trust Law of 1903.[3] After 1904, he left state politics to pursue his legal career, and served as theprosecuting attorney forFalls County from 1906 to 1910.[5] In 1916, he made his first foray into national politics by running for the vacantHouse seat for the 11th Congressional District of Texas.[3][5] When first standing for Congress, Connally did so on a platform calling for (amongst other measures) higher taxes for these in upper-income brackets, new labor laws “favorable to the workingman,” and a child-labor law.[6]
After taking a leave of absence to fight inWorld War I, Connally returned to the House where he served on theHouse Committee on Foreign Affairs and worked against isolationist policies.[3]
In 1928 Connally was elected to theU.S. Senate.[3] During his time in the Senate he supported Roosevelt's New Deal legislation through the passage of theConnally Hot Oil Act of 1935, which attempted to circumvent theSupreme Court of the United States' rejection of a key part of New Deal legislation.
Connally was in theSouthern Caucus and opposed to federal action oncivil rights. Connally led a six week filibuster of theAnti-Lynching Bill of 1937.[7][8] He was also opposed to equal education for black people.[9] Connally was, however, opposed to the Dixiecrats, once reflecting in his autobiography (in regards to the 1948 presidential election) that “I strongly opposed the Dixiecrat movement during the Convention. A hard-boiled group of Southern Democrats, they were extremely conservative. All they talked about was states’ rights, their hatred of Roosevelt, even though he was dead, and their contempt for Truman."[10]
Although ideologically progressive, and generally supportive of theNew Deal,[11] Connally didn't always support Roosevelt. He opposed, for instance, Roosevelt's proposal to reform the Supreme Court. Connally opposed it partly on liberal grounds, arguing “Let some reactionary administration come to power,” I warned, “and it would immediately say: ‘The Democrats stacked the court, and now we have as much right to restack as they had. We will thereby add enough judges so that we will have a responsive court, a court that will do the bidding of this reactionary administration and repeal all the liberal laws placed on the statute books by the Democrats.’ ”[12]
Later he came into conflict withRichard Russell who chaired the caucus over Russell's more reasonable approach - a conflict which Russell won.[13]
In 1953, Connally retired from the Senate, ending his career in national politics.[3]
During most of his tenure in the Senate Connally was a member of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee, and served as chairman from 1941 to 1947, and 1949 to 1953.[3][14] As Chairman of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee, he was instrumental in the ratification of the treaty creating theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization.[5]
He was also a member and vice-chairman of theUnited Nations Conference on International Organization in 1945 thatchartered theUnited Nations.[3] He authored the noted "Connally Amendment," which amended the U.S. ratification of the U.N. charter to bar theInternational Court of Justice from having jurisdiction over domestic matters '"as determined by the United States"'.[15]
In 1943 a confidential analysis by British scholarIsaiah Berlin of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee for the British government characterized Senator Connally:
During his time in office, Senator Connally also served as the first delegate from the United States to the United Nations First Committee, known at the time in 1946 as The Political and Security Committee. Meetings of the First Committee were held from October to December 1946 in the village of Lake Success in New York. Mr. Connally was the first to move for the recommendation to the General Assembly to accept the applications of Afghanistan, Iceland, and Sweden, after they had been approved by the Security Council.[17]
On October 20, 1951, when GeneralMark Wayne Clark, an Episcopalian whose mother was Jewish,[18][19] was nominated byPresident Harry Truman to be theU.S. emissary to the Holy See, Connally protested against the decision on the basis that Clark was alleged to have caused a large number of needless deaths at theBattle of Rapido River.[20] Clark withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952.[21]
Connally's first wife wasCincinnati Conservatory-trained vocalist Louise Clarkson ofMarlin, Texas, who died in her husband's Senate office of a suddenheart attack in 1935.[3] The couple had one son, Houston attorneyBen Clarkson Connally, aU.S. district judge.[3] Connally later married Lucile Sanderson Sheppard, thewidow of his former Senate colleague,Morris Sheppard ofTexarkana, Texas.[22][23]
Tom Connally died ofpneumonia on October 28, 1963. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Marlin, Texas, next to his first wife.
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