Tom Connally

Thomas Terry Connally (August 19, 1877 – October 28, 1963) was an American politician who represented Texas in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic 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 a segregationist who advocated in favor of Jim Crow laws, for example opposing equal education for black people, and against anti-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 Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg to ensure bipartisan support for an internationalist policy, including the new United Nations. He led the committee in supporting the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the Marshall Plan in 1948 and NATO in 1949.

Early life and education Connally studied at Baylor University and earned his A.B. in 1896. He later attended the University of Texas School of Law, earning his LL.B. in 1898. After earning his law degree, he enlisted in the 2nd Texas Volunteer Infantry to fight in the Spanish–American War. During his tenure in the Texas House he was a prominent opponent of monopolies and co-authored the Texas Anti-Trust Law of 1903.

After taking a leave of absence to fight in World War I, Connally returned to the House where he served on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and worked against isolationist policies. He was also opposed to equal education for black people. Later he came into conflict with Richard Russell who chaired the caucus over Russell's more reasonable approach - a conflict which Russell won. 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."

Although ideologically progressive, and generally supportive of the New Deal, 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.’ ”

In 1953, Connally retired from the Senate, ending his career in national politics. As Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was instrumental in the ratification of the treaty creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In 1943 a confidential analysis by British scholar Isaiah Berlin of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the British government characterized Senator Connally: The chairman of the Committee, Tom Connally of Texas, is a very typical, exuberant Southern figure with the appearance and mannerisms of an old-fashioned actor and a gay and hearty manner which conceals lack both of strength and of clear public principles. He is normally the spokesman of the Administration and, in particular, of the Department of State. His voting record is that of a straight interventionist. His principal point of deviation from [Secretary of State] Hull's policies is the subject to which Mr. Hull has dedicated a large portion of his life, namely, the policy of reciprocal trade. Representing as he does, a great cattle breeding State, his enthusiasm for free trade with, e.g., the Argentine, is not ardent. He has been a solid supporter of the department's policies toward, e.g., France and North Africa. His support of its economic policies is regarded as doubtful. On internal issues he shares all the beliefs and prejudices of the South.

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.

On October 20, 1951, when General Mark Wayne Clark, an Episcopalian whose mother was Jewish, was nominated by President Harry Truman to be the U.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 the Battle of Rapido River. Clark withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952.

Personal life Connally's first wife was Cincinnati Conservatory-trained vocalist Louise Clarkson of Marlin, Texas, who died in her husband's Senate office of a sudden heart attack in 1935.

Death Tom Connally died of pneumonia on October 28, 1963. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Marlin, Texas, next to his first wife.