Albert Gore, Sr.

Albert Arnold Gore, Sr.
United States Senator from Tennessee
In office 3 January 1953 – 3 January 1971
Preceded by	Kenneth D. McKellar
Succeeded by	Bill Brock
Born	26 December 1907(1907--) Granville, Tennessee
Died	December 5 1998 (aged 90) Carthage, Tennessee
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Pauline LaFon Gore
Children	2

Albert Arnold Gore, Sr. (26 December 1907 – 5 December 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 A. Gore, Jr., Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

Early life and education

The son of farmers Allen Gore and Margie Denny, Gore was born in Granville, Tennessee. He attended public school and graduated from the State Teachers' College in Murfreesboro, Tennessee (now Middle Tennessee State University), in 1932 and from the Nashville Y.M.C.A. Night Law School in 1936. He taught in the rural schools of Overton County, Tennessee and his native Smith County (1926–1930).

Gore served as county superintendent of education of Smith County from 1932 to 1936, was admitted to the bar in 1936, and commenced practice in Carthage, Tennessee.

In 1937 Gore married the former Pauline LaFon.

Congressional career

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.

Re-elected to the 79th and to the three succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1945 to January 3, 1953), 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 the 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 eleven 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 Tennesseean Estes Kefauver, who refused to sign. South Carolina Senator J. Strom Thurmond tried to get Gore to sign the Southern Manifesto, but was told "Hell no" by Gore. 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. (Gore later claimed that the 1964 vote was his biggest mistake.) 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 widely perceived to have won by playing on white voters' fears of civil rights and desegregation for blacks. 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 and Gore's vote against Sen. Everett Dirksen's amendment on prayer in public schools.

After Congress

After leaving Congress, Gore resumed the practice of law with Occidental Petroleum Company 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.

References

This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

External links

• 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

United States Senators from Tennessee
Class 1	Cocke · A. Jackson · Smith · J. Anderson · Campbell · Eaton · Grundy · Foster · Grundy · Nicholson · Foster · Turney · Jones · Johnson · Patterson · Brownlow · Johnson · Key · Bailey · H. Jackson · Whitthorne · Bate · Frazier · Lea · McKellar · Gore, Sr. · Brock III · Sasser · Frist · Corker
Class 2	Blount · J. Anderson · Cocke · Smith · Whiteside · Campbell · Wharton · Williams · A. Jackson · White · A. Anderson · Jarnagin · Bell · Nicholson · Fowler · Cooper · Harris · Turley · Carmack · Taylor · Sanders · Webb · Shields · Tyson · Brock I · Hull · Bachman · Berry · Stewart · Kefauver · Walters · Bass · Baker · Gore, Jr. · Mathews · Thompson · Alexander

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