alderman
Burnet R. Maybank took which position from 1927 to 1931?
Burnet R . Maybank Burnet Rhett Maybank ( March 7 , 1899September 1 , 1954 ) was a US senator , the 99th governor of South Carolina , and mayor of Charleston , South Carolina . He was the first governor from Charleston since the Civil War and one of only twenty people in United States history to have been elected mayor , governor , and United States senator . During his tenure in the Senate , Maybank was a powerful ally of President Franklin D . Roosevelt . His unexpected death on September 1 , 1954 , from a heart attack , led to Strom Thurmond being elected senator . Early life and family . Maybank was born in Charleston , South Carolina , into one of the citys most prominent and wealthy families . He was the direct descendant of five former South Carolina governors : Thomas Smith , Rawlins Lowndes , Robert Gibbes , James Moore and William Aiken , Jr . Additionally , he was related to U.S . Senator Robert Barnwell Rhett . Maybank graduated from the Porter Military Academy ( now known as Porter-Gaud ) and went on to earn a degree from the College of Charleston . He served in the United States Navy during World War I . Burnet Maybank was born to Dr . Joseph Maybank VI and Harriet Lowndes Rhett , the first of ten . He married Elizabeth deRosset Myers on June 28 , 1923 . They had three children . After the death of his first wife Maybank married Mary Roscoe Randolph Pelzer Cecil . The second marriage produced no children . His son , Burnet R . Maybank Jr. , went on to become lieutenant governor of South Carolina and a later candidate for governor . Career . Mayor of Charleston . Prior to becoming interested in politics and public service , Maybank had established himself in the cotton export business from 1920 to 1938 . A lifelong Democrat , Maybank entered politics for the first time in 1927 , when he was elected to a four-year term as alderman in Charleston . He rose to mayor pro tempore in 1930 and was then elected mayor of Charleston in 1931 , serving until 1938 . As mayor , Maybank balanced the budget during the Great Depression . He refused an increase of his own salary to $6,000 from $3,600 , and reduced local taxes . Maybank took advantage of federal financing under President Franklin D . Roosevelts administration for slum clearance , construction of public housing and other infrastructure , and support for unemployment payments . He also used a Works Progress Administration ( WPA ) grant to restore the historic Dock Street Theatre , and other grants went to such infrastructure improvements as the city docks and a city incinerator . During this period Maybank was also appointed as a member of the State Board of Bank Control ( 1932–1933 ) and was chairman of the South Carolina Public Service Authority ( 1935–1939 ) . It supervised a state-sponsored power project on the Santee River . This project , known as the little TVA , was built to control floods as well as provide hydroelectric power for the state . Maybank was a conservative supporter of President Roosevelts New Deal , which funded public works and job programs . But he opposed a share of the presidents labor policies . In addition , he was appointed by the governor as a member of the South Carolina State Advisory Board of the federal Public Works Administration from 1933 to 1934 . Governor of South Carolina . With the favorable publicity from the Santee project , a strong political base in Charleston , and support from his mentor , U.S . Senator James F . Byrnes , Maybank was elected as governor in 1938 . As governor , Maybank tried unsuccessfully to create an adequate state police force , but he did supervise a vigorous prosecution of the criminal element in the state . He strictly enforced liquor and gambling statutes . Maybank personally interceded to prevent to destruction of a high wall around the historic jail in Charleston when it became threatened by a housing project expansion . He fought the Ku Klux Klan , which had reached its peak of revival in the 1920s but was still active . Maybank expanded economic opportunities for blacks in the racially segregated society and tried to improve the quality of black schools in the state , which were historically underfunded . He did nothing to alter the disfranchisement of blacks due to provisions in the state constitution and electoral laws since the turn of the twentieth century . Senator and premature death . In January 1941 President Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the U.S . Supreme Court . Maybank won a special election to fill Byrness US Senate seat in September 1941 , defeating former governor Olin D . Johnston with 56.6 percent of the vote . In 1942 Maybank was elected to the full six-year term , and in 1948 he was reelected without opposition , and served until his death in 1954 . Maybank was a powerful senator , part of the southern Democratic block . Maybank served as chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency and as co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Defense Production . As chair of the Subcommittee on Independent Offices , under the Appropriations Committee , Maybank provided critical support to continue the U.S . nuclear weapons program in the early 1950s . He introduced the Maybank Amendment , which was tacked onto the 1953 Defense Appropriations Bill . The amendment relieved the Department of Defense from federal legislation to target a percentage of its expenditures to high unemployment areas . Shortly before his death , Maybank was voted as one of the 20 Most Influential Americans by Fortune Magazine . Maybank died of a heart attack at his summer home in Flat Rock , North Carolina in 1954 . He was interred in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston . Several dignitaries attended including then-Governor James F . Byrnes , Strom Thurmond , Ernest F . Hollings , thirteen United States senators , congressmen , and state and local officials . Maybanks sudden death two months before Election Day threw open the 1954 Senate election in South Carolina . Strom Thurmond won as a write-in candidate against the nominee chosen by Democratic party leaders to replace Maybank . Following Maybanks death , numerous places throughout the state were named in his honor including Maybank Highway , the Burnet Maybank Bridge , and the Maybank Hall at the College of Charleston . Recent news . Bertie Bowman , who became a hearing coordinator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , published his memoir , Step by Step : A Memoir of Hope , Friendship , Perseverance , and Living the American Dream , in 2009 . He noted the personal support he had received from Senator Maybank . A poor black farmers son , he went to Washington from South Carolina in 1944 as a runaway at age 14 and went to Senator Maybank . He got the youth a janitors position , and took a personal interest in Bowman ( who then had no family in Washington ) . Gradually the young black man advanced while working for the Senate , as he describes in his memoir . In March 2009 Senator Maybanks granddaughter , Elizabeth Parker , traveled to D.C . to meet with Bowman for the first time . A month later , more of the Maybank family met Bowman and his wife , Elaine , in Charleston . Vice President Joe Biden mentioned Maybank at the dedication ceremony for the Ernest Hollings Special Collections Library at the University of South Carolina on July 23 , 2010 . He said , You know , an old governor of yours , Burnet Maybank , once wrote an essay entitled , Who Is the South Carolinian ? And heres what it said . He said , theres a deal—there is a deal of kindness about him , describing the South Carolinian . He feels favored when asked for personal assistance . A neighborly spirit prompts him to render service with a scorn for remuneration .