Albert Gore, Sr.
| Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Sr. | |
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| In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1971 |
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| Preceded by | Kenneth D. McKellar |
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| Succeeded by | Bill Brock |
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| In office January 3, 1939 – January 3, 1953 |
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| Preceded by | John R. Mitchell |
| Succeeded by | Joe L. Evins |
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| Born | December 26, 1907 Granville, Tennessee |
| Died | December 5, 1998 (aged 90) Carthage, Tennessee |
| Nationality | American |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Pauline LaFon Gore |
| Children | 2 |
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Sr. (December 26, 1907 – December 5, 1998) was an American politician, serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party from Tennessee.
Gore had two children, Nancy LaFon Gore, born in 1938, who died of lung cancer in 1984, and Albert Gore Jr., who served as Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
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[edit] Early years and Congressional career
Gore was born in Granville, Tennessee, the third of five children of Allen Gore and Maggie Denny Gore. Gore's patrilineal ancestors were Scots-Irish who first settled in Virginia in the mid 17th-century and moved to Tennessee after the Revolutionary War.[1][fn 1] Gore studied at Middle Tennessee State Teachers College and graduated from the Nashville Y.M.C.A. Night Law School, now the Nashville School of Law. He first sought elective public office at age 23, when he ran unsuccessfully for the job of superintendent of schools in Smith County, Tennessee. A year later he was appointed to the position after the man who had defeated him died.[3]
After serving as Tennessee Commissioner of Labor from 1936 to 1937 Gore was elected as a Democrat to the 76th Congress in 1938, re-elected to the two succeeding Congresses, and served from January 3, 1939 until his resignation on December 4, 1944 to enter the U.S. Army.
Gore was re-elected to the 79th and to the three succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1945 to January 3, 1953). In 1951, Gore proposed in Congress that "something cataclysmic" be done by U.S. forces to end the Korean War: a radiation belt (created by nuclear weapons) dividing the Korean peninsula permanently into two.[4]
Gore was not a candidate for re-election but was elected in 1952 to the U.S. Senate. In his 1952 election, he defeated six-term incumbent Kenneth McKellar. Gore's victory, coupled with that of Frank G. Clement for governor of Tennessee over incumbent Gordon Browning on the same day, is widely regarded as a major turning point in Tennessee political history and as marking the end of statewide influence for E. H. Crump, the Memphis political boss. During this term, Gore was instrumental in sponsoring and enacting the legislation creating the Interstate Highway System. Gore was re-elected in 1958 and again in 1964, and served from January 3, 1953, to January 3, 1971, after he lost reelection in 1970. In the Senate, he was chairman of the Special Committee on Attempts to Influence Senators during the 84th Congress.
Gore was one of only three Democratic senators from the 11 former Confederate states who did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing integration, the other two being Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (who was not asked to sign) and Gore's fellow Tennessean Estes Kefauver, who refused to sign. South Carolina Senator J. Strom Thurmond tried to get Gore to sign the Southern Manifesto, Gore refused. Gore could not, however, be regarded as an out-and-out integrationist, having voted against some major civil rights legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He did support the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He had easily won renomination in 1958 over former governor of Tennessee Jim Nance McCord, which at that point was still tantamount to election (because of the traditional weakness of the Republican party in the post-Reconstruction South); by 1964 he faced an energetic Republican challenge from Memphian Dan Kuykendall, who ran a surprisingly strong race against him.
By 1970, Gore was considered to be fairly vulnerable for a three-term incumbent Senator, as a result of his liberal positions on many issues such as the Vietnam War and Civil Rights. This was especially risky, electorally, as at the time Tennessee was moving more and more towards the Republican Party. He faced a spirited primary challenge, predominantly from former Nashville news anchor Hudley Crockett, who used his broadcasting skills to considerable advantage and generally attempted to run to Gore's right. Gore fended off this primary challenge, but he was ultimately unseated in the 1970 general election by Republican Congressman William E. Brock III. In this Senate race, Brock was perceived to have won by playing on white voters' fears of federal civil rights legislation and desegregation. Gore was one of the key targets in the Nixon/Agnew "Southern strategy"; Spiro T. Agnew traveled to Tennessee in 1970 to mock Gore as the "Southern regional chairman of the Eastern Liberal Establishment". Other prominent issues in this race included Gore's opposition to the Vietnam War, his vote against Sen. Everett Dirksen's amendment on prayer in public schools, and his opposition to appointing Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brock won the election by a 51% to 47% margin.
[edit] After Congress
After leaving Congress, Gore resumed the practice of law with Occidental Petroleum and became vice president and member of the board of directors, taught law at Vanderbilt University 1970–1972. He became chairman of Island Creek Coal Co., Lexington, Kentucky, in 1972, and in his last years operated an antiques store in Carthage. He died three weeks shy of his 91st birthday and is buried in Smith County Memorial Gardens in Carthage. Interstate 65 in the state has been named The Albert Arnold Gore Sr. Memorial Highway in honor of him.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ During a December 1987 interview with Playboy, Gore Vidal, a maternal grandson of Thomas Gore suggested that Albert Gore was of Anglo-Irish descent, rather than Scots-Irish. Vidal believed that Albert Gore was his a sixth or seventh-generation cousin.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Turque (2000), p. 8
- ^ Turque (2000), p. 378
- ^ Irvin Molotsky, Albert Gore Sr., Veteran Politician, Dies at 90, New York Times, December 7, 1998
- ^ George Mason University’s History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/9245.html,retrieved 29 December 2009
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.[edit] Bibliography
- Turque, Bill, Inventing Al Gore, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000, ISBN 0618131604
[edit] External links
- Albert Gore, Sr. at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Washington Post "Political Junkie" column: answers questions about Gore's civil rights record
- "Casting a Long Shadow", by David M. Shribman: Boston Globe article describing 1970 congressional races of Al Gore Sr., and George H. W. Bush.
- "Sons", by Nicholas Lemann: article on Albert A. Gore Jr., and George W. Bush, including some description of the former's relationship with his father.
- FBI FOIA
- The Life of Albert Gore, Sr.
- Oral History Interviews with Albert Gore [1], [2] from Oral Histories of the American South
| United States House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by John R. Mitchell |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 4th congressional district 1939–1953 |
Succeeded by Joe L. Evins |
| United States Senate | ||
| Preceded by Kenneth D. McKellar |
United States Senator (Class 1) from Tennessee 1953–1971 Served alongside: Estes Kefauver, Herbert S. Walters, Ross Bass, Howard Baker |
Succeeded by William E. Brock III |
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