President pro tempore of the United States Senate
What was the position of Kenneth McKellar (politician) in Oct 1945?
Kenneth McKellar ( politician ) Kenneth Douglas McKellar ( January 29 , 1869October 25 , 1957 ) was an American politician from Tennessee who served as a United States Representative from 1911 until 1917 and as a United States Senator from 1917 until 1953 . A Democrat , he served longer in both houses of Congress than anyone else in Tennessee history . Only a few other congressmen in American history have served longer in both houses . Early life and career . McKellar was a native of Dallas County , Alabama . He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1891 and its law school in 1892 . He moved to Memphis , Tennessee and is related to Henry Nickey , an MUS Basketball star , and was admitted to the state bar the same year . McKellar joined the Democratic Party , which dominated the politics of West Tennessee , where plantations were historically and economically important . He was first elected to the House in a special election in November 1911 to succeed George W . Gordon in Tennessees 10th congressional district , which included Memphis . He won the seat in his own right in 1912 and was reelected in 1914 , serving until his election to the United States Senate . United States Senate . McKellar ran for the Senate in 1916 , defeating incumbent Senator Luke Lea in the Democratic primary and winning the general election against former Republican Governor Ben W . Hooper . He was reelected to the Senate in 1922 ( defeating former Senator Newell Sanders ) , 1928 ( defeating former U.S . Assistant Attorney General James Alexander Fowler ) , 1934 ( again defeating Ben Hooper ) , 1940 ( against Howard Baker , Sr. , father of future Senator Howard Baker ) , and 1946 when he defeated William B . Ladd . McKellar was considered a moderate progressive in his early days in the Senate , and he supported many of President Woodrow Wilsons reform initiatives as well as ratification of the Treaty of Versailles . During President Franklin D . Roosevelts administration , McKellar staunchly supported the New Deal , especially the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority ( TVA ) , to provide flood control and generate hydropower for rural electrification in the Tennessee Valley . McKellar was close ally of Memphis Democratic political boss E . H . Crump . Kenneth McKellar was a crusader for free trade ; he supported the repeal of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff after 1930 . Despite his early support for the policies of Franklin D . Roosevelt ( FDR ) , McKellar became more conservative in his political stances . He opposed several of the administrations appointments . He had a prolonged feud with FDRs appointee to head the TVA , David E . Lilienthal . As ranking member of the Appropriations Committee McKellar , who was an avid supporter of property rights , successfully forced the TVA to properly reimburse landowners whose property was taken over by the TVA for such purposes as dam building and creation of lakes or reservoirs . Prior to McKellars threats to withhold Federal appropriations for the purchase of uranium early in World War II , the TVA was commonly offering to give landholders pennies on the dollar for their properties . As head of the Appropriations Committee , McKellar knew about the appropriations needed for the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb . He was often called upon to keep the secret of the Manhattan Project by mingling funds for the bomb project with other projects , or through carefully planned ( secret ) War Projects Funding . As the Tennessee Valley Authority was centered in Tennessee , his home state , McKellar reacted to what he thought was harsh TVA treatment of his constituents as a personal affront by Lilienthal . McKellars threat to withhold funding for purchases of uranium had a much deeper meaning , though . Lilienthal was also closely associated with the Manhattan Projects work to electromagnetically enrich uranium , coincidentally at the facility later known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory . Ernest Lawrences electromagnetic enrichment of uranium at Oak Ridge would eventually use the electricity created by the TVA to enrich the uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima . By threatening to withhold funding for the purchase of uranium , McKellar was demonstrating to Lilienthal that the politician , as ranking member and Acting Chairman of the Appropriations Committee , held the power . He forced Lilienthal to have the TVA pay fair market value for land it appropriated . McKellar twice served as President pro tempore of the United States Senate . Beginning in 1945 , he was the first to hold the position under the seniority system that has prevailed since of reserving it for the majority party . When Harry Truman became president in April 1945 , upon FDRs death , the vice presidency became vacant . ( The mechanism for filling intra-term vacancies had not yet been created by the 25th Amendment. ) McKellar became the permanent Presiding Officer of the United States Senate . Also , as the President pro tempore of the Senate had , prior to 1886 , been second in the presidential line of succession , behind only the vice president , Truman viewed McKellar as the logical wartime replacement for himself , and asked McKellar to attend all Cabinet meetings . In 1947 Truman successfully lobbied Congress to pass a new Presidential Succession Act , restoring both the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate to the succession ahead of Cabinet secretaries . By the time the law came into effect , McKellar was no longer in the position of President pro tempore , as the Republicans had gained the majority in the 80th Congress . Truman vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 to restrict labor unions , which McKellar had favored . Truman selected Alben Barkley of Kentucky as his running mate in the 1948 presidential election . When Democrats regained control of the Senate following the 1948 elections , McKellar again became President pro tempore . He was second in line for the presidency ( behind the Speaker of the House ) from January 3 , 1949 until January 20 , 1949 , when Alben Barkley took office as Vice President of the United States . McKellar also served as chairman of the Civil Service Committee , Post Office and Road Committee , and , most notably , the powerful Appropriations Committee from 1945–1947 , and again from 1949–1953 . Longevity . McKellar is the only Tennessee senator to have completed more than three full terms . Except for McKellar , Tennessee has generally not joined in the Southern tradition of reelecting senators for protracted periods of service . Before the era of popular election of U.S . Senators , Senator William B . Bate was elected to a fourth term by the Tennessee General Assembly , but he died five days into this term , while Senator Isham G . Harris also died early in his fourth term . Senator Joseph Anderson was elected by the General Assembly to three full terms plus the balance of the term of William Blount , who had been expelled from the Senate . 1952 election . In 1952 McKellar stood for a seventh term ( the first Senator to do so ) , despite being 83 . He was opposed for renomination by Middle Tennessee Congressman Albert Gore . McKellars reelection slogan was Thinking Feller ? Vote McKellar , which Gore countered with Think Some More – Vote for Gore . Gore defeated McKellar for the Democratic nomination in August in what was widely regarded as something of an upset . At this point in Tennessee history , the Democratic nomination for statewide office was still tantamount to election . Most African Americans had been disenfranchised by discriminatory laws and practices , resulting in the Republican Party being active chiefly in East Tennessee . This had been the case since the Civil War . Gore served three full terms in the Senate . McKellars defeat was part of a statewide trend of change in 1952 . That year incumbent governor of Tennessee Gordon Browning was defeated by Frank G . Clement . Browning , who had served a total of three terms as governor , the last two successive , had also at one point been a close ally of Crumps but had since broken ranks with him . As Clement and Gore were both considerably younger and regarded as more progressive than their predecessors , some historians cite the 1952 elections as an indication that Tennessee entered into the New South era of Southern politics earlier than most of the other Southern states . Legacy . McKellar wrote a book about his Tennessee predecessors in the Senate called Tennessee Senators as Seen by One of Their Successors ( 1942 ) . In recent years it has been updated by one of his successors , former Senate Majority Leader Dr . Bill Frist . Lake McKellar , bordering the Memphis Presidents Island industrial area along the Mississippi River and McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport ( originally McKellar Field ) in Jackson , Tennessee ( MKL ) are both named in his honor . McKellar died on October 25 , 1957 . He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis , Tennessee . Representation in other media . Some have speculated that Senator McKellar was the inspiration for the character South Carolina Senator Seabright Cooley in Allen Drurys novel Advise and Consent . McKellar was portrayed by actor/country singer Ed Bruce in the film Public Enemies ( 2009 ) and Michael ONeill in the film J . Edgar ( 2011 ) .