November 24, 1877 – Birth of Alben Barkley, Vice President to Harry Truman

Alben Willie Barkley was born on this date in poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky. As a boy, Barkley had to spend a good deal of his time working rather than going to school, but he was determined to be educated, and studied when he could. By 1902, he had saved up enough money to attend a summer law course at the University of Virginia. According to a biography of Barkley on the Miller Center site [the Miller Center is a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history], while in Charlottesville, Virginia, Barkley studied the works of Thomas Jefferson and took from him an enduring ideal of the common man that informed his political beliefs throughout his career.

Alben Barkley

In 1905, Barkley was elected county attorney for McCracken County, Kentucky. He was chosen County Judge/Executive in 1909 and U.S. representative from Kentucky’s first district in 1912. As a representative, he was a liberal Democrat, supporting President Woodrow Wilson’s New Freedom domestic agenda and foreign policy.

In 1926, he unseated Republican senator Richard P. Ernst. In the Senate, he supported the New Deal approach to addressing the Great Depression and was elected as Senate Majority Leader in 1937.

When World War II focused President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s attention on foreign affairs, Barkley gained influence over the administration’s domestic agenda. A Senate biographical website reports that when Barkley criticized FDR’s veto of a tax bill in 1944 and resigned as majority leader in protest, the temporary break with Roosevelt earned him greater respect among his colleagues who unanimously reelected him as leader.

Barkley had a good working relationship with Harry S. Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt as president after Roosevelt’s death in 1945. With Truman’s popularity waning entering the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Barkley gave a keynote address that energized the delegates. Truman selected him as his running mate for the upcoming election, and the Democratic ticket scored an upset victory.

Truman and Barkley, via Getty Images

Barkley took an active role in the Truman administration, acting as its primary spokesman, especially after the Korean War required the majority of Truman’s attention. The Miller Center reports that Barkley admired the way President Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, John Nance Garner, had used his office and personal attributes to make the most of an office with few formal responsibilities. He believed a vice president “can exercise considerable power in the shaping of the program of legislation which every administration seeks to enact,” as long as they had the respect of the President and the Congress.

While in office, Barkley was a valued member of the administration and respected presiding officer of the Senate. (Barkley would be the last vice president to routinely preside over the Senate.). He was also the first vice president to sit on the newly-created National Security Council.

When Truman announced that he would not seek re-election in 1952, Barkley began organizing a presidential campaign, but labor leaders refused to endorse his candidacy because of his age, and he withdrew from the race. He retired but was coaxed back into public life, defeating incumbent Republican senator John Sherman Cooper in 1954. Barkley died of a heart attack during a speech at the Washington and Lee Mock Convention on April 30, 1956.