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40 CURRENT BIOGRAPHY

CLEMENTS, EARLE C. - Continued
session (1946), he voted "yea" on providing additional funds for housing units for families of servicemen and veterans (March), and on extension of the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 (April).

On the House floor in the first session of the Eightieth Congress (1947) Clements spoke in support of the John E. Rankin amendment to increase the funds for the Rural Electrification Administration. In speaking about the Tennessee Valley Authority program, he told the House on June 11, 1947: "I consider this constructive program of regional development one of the outstanding contributions and accomplishments of the great Roosevelt Administration."

During 1947 Clement was recorded as "not voting" on either the recommittal or passage of the rent control bill (May), and on the bill to reduce the income tax rates, passed over President Harry S. Truman's veto (July). He voted against the Labor-Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) bill of 1947 (June). Clements resigned his Congressional post, following his election on November 4, 1947, as Governor of Kentucky for a four-year term, with a plurality of approximately 125,000 votes over his Republican opponent, Eldon S. Dummit, state attorney general.

Inaugurated as Governor of Kentucky on December 9, 1947, Clements succeeded Republican Governor Simeon Willis. He had the endorsement of both the CIO and AFL unions and the support of a Democratic-controlled state legislature. Under his administration, the Kentucky gasoline tax was increased two cents to help finance an extensive rural road improvement program. In addition, he enlarged the state education budget by $10,000,000, and secured an amendment of the Day Law to permit hospitals to accept Negroes for post-graduate training in nursing, medicine, and surgery.

During his campaign speeches as Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky in 1950, Clements said he would work "for a continuing progressive program of Federal aid to education, conservation extension services, road building and public health" (New York Times, November 1, 1950). His candidacy against Republican former circuit court judge Charles Dawson was supported by what the New York Times called "one of the most efficient political organizations" in Kentucky's history. Republicans complained to the U.S. Semate subcommittee on elections and privileges that more than $360,000 was allegedly spent on this campaign (New York Times, November 9, 1950). Clements won easily over his opponent on November 7, 1950.

Resigning as Governor, Clements was sworn in on November 27, 1950 as a member of the U.S. Senate and completed the unexpired term of Alben W. Barkley. He began his six-year term in January 1951, with the Eighty-second Congress. Described as a "Senate type," who "lives for the Senate," he was immediately accepted as a member of the "inner club," or "ultimate power," in this body, stated William S. White in the New York Times (November 7, 1954). He became chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee in the spring of 1952, and that year strongly supported Adlai E. Stevenson as Democratic Presidential candidate.

Senator Clements was named Democratic "whip" of the Senate in January 1953, and in that role "gained the confidence of most of his party colleagues" (New York Times, May 31, 1954). A member of the Democratic National Committee, in the reorganization of Congress in 1953 he was given a key position as liaison man between this committee and the Senate Democrats.

In the first session of the Eighty-second Congress (1951), Clements favored passage of the Defense Production bill (June), an amendment increasing payments provided by the Social Security Act (July), and control of exports to Iron Curtain countries (August). He did not vote on the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act amendment (May), and opposed a resolution advising the President to secure Congressional approval before sending more than four divisions of ground troops to Europe under the North Atlantic Security Pact (April).

Proposals which Senator Clements supported in the second session of the Eighty-second Congress (1952) included recommitting the bill for Alaska statehood (February), overriding the President's veto of the immigration bill (June), and ratification of the protocol to include Germany in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (July). The next year, during the first session of the Eighty-third Congress, he reversed his stand on Alaskan statehood, after visiting the territory as a member of the Senate Committee on the Interior, declaring on September 21, 1953 he would support the bill in 1954 if it were considered by Congress together with Hawaii's statehood claims.

The Senator's voting record during 1953 shows he opposed the Hendrickson and Case amendment to the tidelands bill to allow United States jurisdiction over the outer continental shelf (June). He voted "yea" on the McClellan amendment to the Mutual Security Act to accept foreign currency for surplus commodities (July), and on the constitutional amendment to provide equal rights for men and women (July).

In the following session (1954), with two other Senators, he drew up a joint bill to allow the U.S. Department of Agriculture to distribute surplus food in unemployment distress areas. In the Democratic-controlled Eighty-fourth Congress (1955), Clements declared he was "freely and willingly" supporting the Senate's authorization for President Eisenhower to defend Formosa, if necessary, by taking war action (New York Times, January 29, 1955). Clements and Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois toured the Far East in June 1955 to make an on-the-spot inspection of the U.S. foreign aid program.

As acting majority leader of the Senate in March 1955, during a brief illness of the majority leader, Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, Clements claimed the Senate Democrats would push "as vigorously as possible" and make a party fight for the $20-a-person income tax cut (New York Times, March 2, 1955). He became