1. Lee Warren Metcalf was an American lawyer, judge, and politician.
29 Facts About Lee Metcalf
1. 2.
Lee Metcalf was the first of Montana's US Senators to be born in the state, and was Permanent Acting President pro tempore of the Senate, the only one to hold that position, from 1963 until his death in 1978.
3.
Lee Metcalf's father was the cashier of the First State Bank of Stevensville.
4.
Lee Metcalf graduated from Stevensville High School in 1928, and then studied at the University of Montana where he played first-string tackle on the freshman football team.
5.
Lee Metcalf then enrolled at Stanford University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and economics in 1936.
6.
Lee Metcalf then commenced the practice of law, opening an office in Stevensville.
7.
Lee Metcalf served as Assistant Attorney General of Montana from 1937 to 1941, after which he resumed his law practice.
8.
In 1942, Lee Metcalf enlisted in the US Army, and was commissioned after attending officers' training school.
9.
Lee Metcalf participated in the Invasion of Normandy as a staff officer with the Fifth Corps.
10.
Lee Metcalf participated in later European campaigns, such as the Battle of the Bulge, with the 1st Army, Ninth Infantry Division, and 60th Infantry Regiment.
11.
Lee Metcalf was discharged from the Army as a first lieutenant in April 1946.
12.
In 1946, when Justice Leif Erickson resigned to run against Burton K Wheeler for the US Senate, Metcalf was elected an associate justice of the Montana Supreme Court.
13.
In 1952, when Mike Mansfield decided to run for the Senate against Zales Ecton, Lee Metcalf successfully campaigned for the US House of Representatives in Montana's 1st congressional district.
14.
Lee Metcalf became known as one of Congress's "Young Turks" who promoted liberal domestic social legislation and reform of congressional procedures.
15.
Lee Metcalf introduced legislation to provide health care to the elderly ten years before the creation of Medicare.
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Lee Metcalf earned the nickname "Mr Education" after sponsoring a comprehensive bill providing for federal aid to education.
17.
Lee Metcalf voted against legislation that would have raised grazing permits on federal lands, and led the opposition to a bill that would have swapped forested public lands for cutover private lands.
18.
Lee Metcalf was elected chairman of the Democratic Study Group in 1959.
19.
In 1960, after Democratic incumbent James E Murray decided to retire, Metcalf ran for Murray's seat in the US Senate.
20.
Lee Metcalf won the Democratic nomination over John W Bonner, a former Governor of Montana.
21.
Lee Metcalf helped pass the Wilderness Act of 1964, and supported the creation of the Great Bear Wilderness and the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.
22.
Lee Metcalf was a longtime member of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission.
23.
Lee Metcalf was reelected after competitive campaigns in 1966 and 1972.
24.
In 1977, Lee Metcalf announced that he would not seek a fourth Senate term in 1978.
25.
In June 1963, because of the illness of President pro tempore Carl Hayden, Senator Lee Metcalf was designated Permanent Acting President pro tempore of the United States Senate to carry out Hayden's duties at this time.
26.
Lee Metcalf was the only person to hold this title.
27.
At age 66, Metcalf died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Helena on January 12,1978, and was cremated; his ashes were scattered in one of his favorite areas in the wilderness of Montana.
28.
Lee Metcalf's death was overshadowed by the death the next day of his colleague from Minnesota, former Vice President Hubert H Humphrey.
29.
Lee Metcalf was ranked fifteenth on a list of the 100 Most Influential Montanans of the Century in the newspaper The Missoulian.