Richard Russell Jr.
Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| File:RichardRussellJr.jpg | |
| United States Senator from Georgia | |
| In office 1933-1971 | |
| Preceded by | William J. Harris |
| Succeeded by | David H. Gambrell |
| Personal details | |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Profession | Attorney |
Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. (November 2, 1897 – January 21, 1971) was an American Democratic Party politician who was a long-time United States Senator from the state of Georgia. He represented Georgia in the Senate from 1933 until his death. He was a founder and leader of the Conservative coalition that dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963.
Biography
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2007) |
Russell was born in Winder, Georgia, the fourth of 13 children of Richard Brevard Russell, Sr., a prominent lawyer and later chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. The younger Russell graduated in 1914 from the Seventh District Agricultural and Mechanical School in Powder Springs, Georgia, and from Gordon Institute in Barnesville, Georgia the following year. Russell then enrolled in the University of Georgia School of Law in 1915 and earned a Bachelor of Laws (B.L.) degree in 1918.
Russell served in the enlisted ranks of the United States Naval Reserve Forces in 1918 and, in 1919, set up law practice with his father in Winder. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives (1921-31), serving as its speaker (1927-31). His meteoric rise was capped by election, at age 33, as Governor of Georgia, serving from 1931 to 1933. He was a progressive governor who reorganized the bureaucracy, promoted economic development in the midst of the Great Depression, and balanced the budget. In 1932 one Robert E. Burns, serving time on a Georgia chain gang, escaped to New Jersey and wrote a book entitled I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang, condemning the Georgia prison system as inhumane. It became a popular movie but Russell demanded extradition. New Jersey refused and Russell was attacked from all quarters.
Following the death of U.S. Senator William J. Harris in 1932, Governor Russell defeated Congressman Charles Crisp to serve the remainder of Harris' term; he was elected on his own to serve a full term in 1936 and was subsequently reelected in 1942, 1948, 1954, 1960 and 1966. During his long tenure in the Senate, Russell served as chairman on Committee on Immigration (Seventy-fifth through Seventy-ninth Congresses), Committee on Manufactures (Seventy-ninth Congress), Committee on Armed Services (Eighty-second and Eighty-fourth through Ninetieth Congresses), and Committee on Appropriations (Ninety-first Congress). As the senior Senator he became President pro tempore of the Senate during the Ninety-first and Ninety-second Congresses.
Russell at first supported the New Deal and in 1936 he defeated the demagogic Governor Eugene Talmadge by defending the New Deal as good for Georgia. By 1937, however, Russell became a leader of the Conservative coalition, which controlled the Congress from 1937 to 1964. He proclaimed his faith in the "family farm" and supported most New Deal programs for parity, rural electrification, and farm loans. He supported promoting agricultural research, providing school lunches, giving surplus commodities to the poor, and harshly treating Japan during and after the war. He was the chief sponsor of the National School Lunch Act of 1946 with the dual goals of providing proper nutrition for all children and of subsidizing agriculture. He ran as a regional candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952, winning widespread newspaper acclaim but few delegates. He was a member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
A prominent supporter of a strong national defense, Russell became in the 1950s the most knowledgeable and powerful congressional leader in this area. He used his powers as chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969 and then as chairman of the Appropriations Committee as an institutional base to add defense installations and jobs for Georgia. He was dubious about the Vietnam War, privately warning President Johnson repeatedly against deeper involvement.
Russell was a mentor of Lyndon B. Johnson and promoted his Senate career. The two disagreed over civil rights. Russell, as the South's leader in the Senate, had repeatedly blocked and defeated civil rights legislation and had co-authored the Southern Manifesto in opposition to civil rights. He had not supported the States Rights party of J. Strom Thurmond in 1948, but he opposed civil rights laws as unconstitutional and unwise. (Unlike Theodore Bilbo, "Cotton Ed" Smith and James O Eastland, who had reputations as ruthless, tough-talking, heavy-handed race baiters, he never justified hatred or acts of violence to defend segregation. But he strongly defended white supremacy and apparently did not question it, nor ever apologize for his white supremacist views, votes and speeches.) Russell died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC due to complications from emphysema. He is buried in the Russell family cemetery behind the Russell home near Winder. This area was designated as the Russell Homeplace Historic District by the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Known as a personally kind man who sought consensus and was respectful of colleagues' feelings, Russell obviously was not sensitive to black civil rights nor the feelings of black people living under the harsh rule of white supremacists. He was very shy, rarely socialized and never married. Contemporary accounts make his life sound almost monastic: He lived in modest quarters, worked long hours at his office and frequently took more work home.
Considering how much power he wielded, and how many negative images there were of white Southern politicians during his time, Russell was remarkably popular with colleagues and the press. His civility and incorruptibility were renowned, and he was known as a man who kept his word and kept a confidence. (His reservations about the Vietnam War and the accuracy of the Warren Report were not known until decades after his death, because he expressed them through private channels and never leaked these discussions to anyone else.) One of the most frequently made observations about Russell was that he would have become president easily if he had not been a white supremacist during the last years of segregation. He was passionately interested in the history of classical Greece and Rome as well as the history of the Civil War.
Russell was the uncle of Betty Russell Vandiver, and his support aided the career of her husband, Ernest Vandiver, who was lieutenant governor of Georgia from 1955 to 1959 and governor from 1959 to 1963. After Russell's death in 1971, Ernest Vandiver was disappointed at not being named as an interim replacement. He ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 1972.
Legacy
Russell has been honored by having the following named for him:
- The Russell Senate Office Building, oldest of the three Senate office buildings
- The Richard B. Russell Federal Building in Atlanta
- Russell Hall dormitory and the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia.
- The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Southern Center in Athens, Georgia.
- Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake, located on the upper Savannah River between Elberton, Georgia and Calhoun Falls, South Carolina. A Georgia state park on the shores of that lake also bears Russell's name.[1]
- The regional airport serving Floyd County, Georgia.[2]
- A submarine of the United States Navy.
- A national scenic byway in the Georgia mountains.
- Richard B. Russell Parkway, the major commercial thoroughfare and commuter-connector to Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, Georgia.
- Russell Elementary School, an elementary school just off of Russell Pkwy (mentioned above) in Warner Robins, Georgia.
- Richard B. Russell Elementary School, an elementary school in Smyrna, Georgia.
- Richard B. Russell Jr. Middle School in Winder, Georgia.
A bronze statute of Russell stands on the lawn of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta.
Notes
References
Primary sources
- Logue, Calvin McLeod and Freshley, Dwight L., eds. Voice of Georgia: Speeches of Richard B. Russell, 1928-1969(1997)
Scholarly secondary sources
- Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: vol 3: Master of the Senate (2002).
- Fite, Gilbert. Richard B. Russell, Jr, Senator from Georgia (2002), the standard biography
- Goldsmith, John A. Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B. Johnson. (1993)
- Grant, Philip A., Jr. “Editorial Reaction to the 1952 Presidential Candidacy of Richard B. Russell.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 1973 57(2): 167-178.
- Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. (1996)
- Mead, Howard N. “Russell Vs. Talmadge: Southern Politics and the New Deal.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 1981 65(1): 28-45.
- Shelley II, Mack C. The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress (1983)
- Ziemke, Caroline F. "Senator Richard B. Russell and the "Lost Cause" in Vietnam, 1954-1968," Georgia Historical Quarterly 1988 72(1): 30-71.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress- United States Congress. "Richard Russell Jr. (id: R000536)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
External links
- letter from Senator Russell to President Truman 7 August 1945 after Bombing of Hiroshima
- The New Georgia Encylopedia entry for Richard B. Russell Jr.
- Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
- Russell Community and Hall at UGA
- Richard B. Russell State Park
|  | |
