70 Facts About Earle Clements

Earle Chester Clements was a Kentucky politician.

Earle Clements represented the Commonwealth of Kentucky in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate and was its 47th Governor, serving from 1947 to 1950, after serving in the state Senate.

Earle Clements's stand against Willis made him popular in the Democratic Party, and he was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1944 and 1946.

In 1947, Earle Clements succeeded the term-limited Willis, defeating Harry Lee Waterfield, Chandler's preferred candidate, in the Democratic primary.

Earle Clements achieved advancements in education, including some progress toward desegregation.

Earle Clements was defeated by Thruston Morton in his re-election bid in 1956; a lack of support from Chandler contributed to Clements' defeat.

At Johnson's insistence, Earle Clements resumed chairing the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee in 1957 and 1959.

Combs defeated Waterfield and rewarded Earle Clements by appointing him state highway commissioner.

When Combs canceled the deal Earle Clements took it as a public rebuke and soon after resigned to work on the presidential campaign of his friend, Lyndon Johnson.

Earle C Clements was born in Morganfield, Kentucky, on October 22,1896.

Earle Clements was the youngest of two sons and four daughters born to Aaron Waller and Sallie Anna Clements.

Earle Clements's father was a popular county judge and sheriff in Union County, but Clements at first shunned a political career.

Earle Clements obtained his early education in the public schools, and graduated from Morganfield High School in 1915.

Earle Clements was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Earle Clements was ordered to Camp Taylor near Louisville, Kentucky, where they were mustered into the infantry of the US Army.

Earle Clements first served as a guard at Camp Taylor and later entered the Officers Training School at Fort Benjamin Harrison near Indianapolis, Indiana.

Earle Clements graduated with the rank of first lieutenant and remained stateside as a professor of military science.

Earle Clements served for a total of 28 months, attaining the rank of captain, and was discharged on September 12,1919.

In 1925, Earle Clements' father died, and Earle Clements was appointed to serve out the remainder of his term as sheriff.

In 1935, Thomas Rhea of Russellville, a former state treasurer and highway commissioner, asked Earle Clements to serve as his campaign chairman for the 1935 gubernatorial race.

Chandler claimed that Earle Clements bolted the party and supported Republican candidate King Swope in the general election; Earle Clements denied this, but admitted that he gave Chandler's campaign only minimal support.

Earle Clements was elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1941, representing Union, Webster, and Henderson counties.

Earle Clements defeated Republican Otis White of Morgantown and was re-elected in 1946.

Earle Clements supported expansion of agricultural research and reorganization of the Farm Security Administration.

Earle Clements endorsed conservation and wildlife programs and additional funding to federal parks.

Earle Clements supported civil rights legislation, such as bans on lynching and poll taxes and he did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto despite school segregation being legally required in Kentucky prior to Brown v Board of Education.

Earle Clements opposed the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and voted to disband the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Not known for his oratory or personality, Earle Clements was a masterful campaign organizer.

Earle Clements secured the support of many Western Kentucky Democrats by allying himself with Logan County political boss Emerson "Doc" Beauchamp, an ally of the recently deceased Rhea.

Earle Clements chose Lexington Herald-Leader editor Tom Underwood as his campaign manager, strengthening his influence in Central Kentucky.

Earle Clements befriended Judge Lawrence Wetherby of Jefferson County, which helped him with the urban vote and Carl D Perkins of Knott County which helped him in rural eastern Kentucky.

Waterfield supported development of electric power through public utilities, while Earle Clements favored private development.

The Earle Clements campaign attacked Waterfield for being deemed physically unfit for military service.

Earle Clements won the election by a vote of 387,795 to 287,756.

Earle Clements resigned his seat in the US House to accept the governorship.

Earle Clements was one of several people who have been referred to as the "father of Kentucky's state parks".

Besides improving the roadways themselves, Earle Clements replaced the Kentucky Highway Patrol, which had become a corrupt vehicle of political patronage, with the Kentucky State Police.

Earle Clements used some of the revenue generated from his tax increases to raise the salaries of the state's public school teachers.

Earle Clements worked to help these colleges maintain their accreditation and to secure re-accreditation for Morehead State Teachers College.

Earle Clements supported a 1948 bill that allowed blacks to pursue medical training at the University of Louisville.

Earle Clements curbed fraud in the insurance industry by reorganizing the state Insurance Commission and hiring a national prominent expert to rewrite the state's entire insurance code.

Earle Clements created the Kentucky Agriculture and Industrial Board, which attracted 250 new industries to the state and created 40,000 new jobs during its first three years.

Earle Clements created the Kentucky Building Commission to manage and plan all new state buildings.

In both the 1948 and 1950 legislative sessions, Earle Clements failed to convince the General Assembly to regulate strip mining.

Earle Clements failed in his attempts to establish statewide pension and civil service programs, and was unable to enact a merit system to give civil-service protection to state employees.

Earle Clements won the election over Republican Charles I Dawson by a vote of 300,276 to 256,876.

On November 27,1950, Withers resigned as senator, Earle Clements resigned as governor, and Lt.

Lawrence Wetherby appointed Earle Clements to fill the vacancy to allow him to gain seniority over other senators elected that month.

Earle Clements advocated better cooperation between his committee and the Democratic National Committee in 1952.

Earle Clements instead advised that his committee's responsibilities be expanded and that its activities become year-round rather than seasonal.

In 1953, Clements was appointed Democratic party whip, serving under party leader Lyndon B Johnson.

Democrats regained control of the Senate in 1954, and Earle Clements instituted the practice of having his committee provide transition services for freshman senators.

Earle Clements remained active in state politics, leading a faction of the Democratic Party that opposed Happy Chandler, who had been less involved in politics when he was baseball commissioner from 1946 to 1951.

When Chandler announced in 1955 that he would seek a second term, the Earle Clements faction scrambled to find a candidate.

Earle Clements went on to win the general election and a second gubernatorial term.

Earle Clements began his campaign for re-election in 1956 by defeating Joe Bates, the candidate favored by Chandler, in the Democratic primary.

Journalist John Ed Pearce later recorded that Earle Clements had favored Chandler's choice, Frankfort lawyer Joseph Leary, over Wetherby.

Earle Clements thought Leary, one of the few political figures who remained on good terms with Earle Clements and Chandler, didn't have a very good chance of winning, but his selection would keep Chandler from throwing his support to the Republican candidates.

Earle Clements devoted much time to Wetherby's campaign, since Democrats believed Clements would be re-elected easily while Wetherby faced much stiffer odds.

Cooper defeated Wetherby by 65,365 votes, while Earle Clements lost to Morton by a margin of 6,981 votes out of more than 1 million that were cast in the election.

Earle Clements considered running for governor again in 1959, but ultimately decided against it.

Earle Clements united the faction behind Combs, making Wilson Wyatt their candidate for lieutenant governor and promising him support for later races.

Some state newspapers charged that Earle Clements had demanded this post at the head of the state's largest executive department in exchange for supporting Combs, a charge Combs denied.

Still others believed that, from his powerful post, Earle Clements would be the real governor and Combs only a puppet.

Earle Clements was offended by this action and considered it a public rebuke.

Earle Clements appeared on stage with Chandler at a rally where Chandler claimed that Combs had arranged the truck deal to discredit Earle Clements.

Earle Clements's strategy was unsuccessful; Breathitt won the primary and went on to win the general election.

Earle Clements' waning influence was evidenced by the fact that Breathitt carried Earle Clements' home county of Union 2,528 to 1,913.

From 1961 to 1963, Earle Clements was a consultant for the American Merchant Marine Institute, a coalition of US shipping companies.

Earle Clements stepped down as presidnet in 1970 but remained a consultant to the institute until his death.