47 Facts About Claude Pepper

Claude Denson Pepper was an American politician of the Democratic Party, and a spokesman for left-liberalism and the elderly.

Claude Pepper represented Florida in the United States Senate from 1936 to 1951, and the Miami area in the United States House of Representatives from 1963 until 1989.

Claude Pepper became one of the most prominent liberals in Congress, supporting legislation such as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Claude Pepper lost the 1950 Senate Democratic primary to Congressman George Smathers, and returned to private legal practice the following year.

In 1962, Claude Pepper won election to a newly-created district in the United States House of Representatives.

Claude Pepper emerged as a staunch anti-Communist, and strongly criticized Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Claude Pepper served as chairman of the House Committee on Aging, and pursued reforms to Social Security and Medicare.

Claude Pepper died in office in 1989, and was honored with a state funeral.

Claude Denson Pepper was born on September 8,1900, in Chambers County, Alabama, the son of farmers Lena Corine Talbot and Joseph Wheeler Pepper.

Claude Pepper was the fourth child born to his parents; the first three died in infancy.

Claude Pepper was an only child until he was ten years old; his younger siblings were Joseph, Sara and Frank.

Claude Pepper attended school in Dudleyville and Camp Hill, and graduated from Camp Hill High School in 1917.

Claude Pepper then operated a hat cleaning and repair business, taught school in Dothan and worked in an Ensley steel mill before beginning studies at the University of Alabama.

The war ended before he saw active service, and after the SATC was disbanded, Claude Pepper joined the ROTC.

Claude Pepper was a member of the Florida Democratic Party's executive committee from 1928 to 1929.

Claude Pepper was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 1928 and served from 1929 to 1931.

Claude Pepper was among those who opposed Carlton's program, and popular support was with Carlton, so Claude Pepper was among many legislators who lost when they ran for renomination in 1930.

Claude Pepper served on the Florida Board of Public Welfare from 1931 to 1932, and was a member of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners in 1933.

In 1934, Claude Pepper ran for the Democratic nomination for US Senate, challenging incumbent Park Trammell.

Claude Pepper was unusually articulate and intellectual, and, collaborating with labor unions, he was often the leader of the liberal-left forces in the Senate.

Claude Pepper's campaign based on a wages-hours bill, which soon became the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Claude Pepper joined other Southern senators to filibuster an anti-lynching bill in 1937, but broke with them to support anti-poll tax legislation in the 1940s.

Claude Pepper is equally Russophile and apt to be critical of British Imperial policy.

Claude Pepper is an out and out internationalist and champion of labour and negro rights and thus a passionate supporter of the Administration's more internationalist policies.

Claude Pepper is occasionally used by the President for the purpose of sending up trial balloons in matters of foreign policy.

Claude Pepper was more successful in promoting an international foreign policy based on friendship with the Soviet Union.

In 1946, Claude Pepper appeared frequently in the national press and began to eye the 1948 presidential race.

Claude Pepper considered running with his close friend and fellow liberal, former Vice President Henry A Wallace, with whom he was active in the Southern Conference for Human Welfare.

In 1948, Pepper supported not his friend Henry A Wallace but Eisenhower.

In 1950, Claude Pepper lost his bid for a third full term in 1950 by a margin of over 60,000 votes.

The contest was extremely heated, and revolved around policy issues, especially charges that Claude Pepper represented the far left and was too supportive of Stalin.

Claude Pepper returned to law practice in Miami and Washington, failing in a comeback bid to regain a Senate seat in the 1958 Democratic primary in which he challenged his former colleague, Spessard Holland.

However, Claude Pepper did carry eleven counties, including populous Dade County where he later staged a remarkable comeback.

Claude Pepper remained a member of the House until his death in 1989, rising to chair of the powerful Rules Committee in 1983.

Claude Pepper voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Claude Pepper would be the only Representative from Florida who would vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1980 the committee under Claude Pepper's leadership initiated what became a four-year investigation into health care scams that preyed on older people; the report, published in 1984 and commonly called "The Claude Pepper Report", was entitled "Quackery, a $10 Billion Scandal".

In 1988, Claude Pepper sponsored a legislation to create the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Claude Pepper became known as the "grand old man of Florida politics".

Claude Pepper was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1938 and 1983.

Four days later, Claude Pepper died in his sleep from stomach cancer.

Claude Pepper's body lay in state for two days in the Rotunda of the US Capitol; he was the 26th American so honored and was the last person to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda with an open casket.

The Claude Pepper Building at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland is named for him.

Claude Pepper's wife Mildred was well known and respected for her humanitarian work and was honored with a number of places in Florida named in her honor.

In 1982, Claude Pepper received the Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an annual presentation of the Jefferson Awards.

Claude Pepper would be posthumously inducted into the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame on February 29,2012 in a ceremony held by Florida Governor Rick Scott in the Florida State Capitol.

Claude Pepper was one of the first three along with Mary McLeod Bethune and Charles Kenzie Steele Sr to be inducted into it.