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EspañolFRANK PORTER GRAHAM
(Redirected from Frank P. Graham)
'Frank Porter Graham' (14 October 1886 - 16 February 1972) was a Democratic U.S. Senator from the U.S. state of North Carolina.
Born in Fayetteville in south central North Carolina in 1886, Graham graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1909. He thereafter studied law and received his licence in 1913. He received a graduate degree in 1916 from Columbia University in New York City. While he was studying law, Graham was a high school teacher in Raleigh, the North Carolina state capital. He later embarked on a career as a history professor at the University of North Carolina from 1915 until 1930. An active Presbyterian, Graham was a ruling elder in Chapel Hill's church of that denomination.
He interrupted his teaching profession to enlist in 1917 for service in World War I. He was discharged as a first lieutenant in 1919.
In 1930, Graham was named president of the University of North Carolina. He served until 1949 and was the first president of what was called the "Consolidated University".
In 1948, North Carolina shifted politically to the left. Former state Agriculture Commissioner W. Kerr Scott extinguished the control of the so-called "Shelby Dynasty" politicians, which included former Governor O. Max Gardner, all of whom who hailed from the small city of Shelby in Cleveland County in southwestern North Carolina. Scott, a pro-Truman Democrat who had supported the New Deal, defeated the Shelby Dynasty's candidate for governor, State Treasurer Charles M. Johnson, in the party primary.
On taking office in January 1949, Scott "cleaned house" of Shelby Dynasty appointees and brought into office his own perceived liberal reformers. Two months after Scott's inauguration, the state's former governor, then the junior U.S. Senator J. Melville Broughton, himself elected with Scott the previous year after a bruising primary campaign against former interim appointee William B. Umstead, died in office. Broughton's death provided Scott with a prime opportunity to make a mark not only in Raleigh, but in Washington, D.C.
After three weeks of intense speculation throughout March 1949 as to whom the governor might tap for the Senate, attention focused on individuals ranging from the senator's widow, who expressed no interest; Scott's former campaign manager, Capus Miller Waynick; another Scott supporter, Major Lennox Polk McLendon, a lawyer from Greensboro; former Senator Umstead; and the governor himself (though the latter was quickly ruled out on the assumption that his constituents would not favor such an abrupt turnover of offices). It was the 62-year old university president, Frank Graham who caught Scott's attention and won the appointment.
At the time of Graham's appointment, he had never sought nor served in any political office, an unusual phenomenon at the time for North Carolina senators. Also atypical was that the particular Senate seat Graham occupied was in a period of considerable turnover. Beginning with the death of Senator Josiah W. Bailey in 1946, and concluding with the election of B. Everett Jordan in 1958, no fewer than eight men served in the seat in a dozen years. Graham was the fourth occupant of the seat since 1946. Had Scott chosen former Senator William Umstead, there would have been another vacancy thereafter, for Umstead died in 1954.
Graham faced two opponents in the 1950 Democratic primary, including former Senator Robert R. Reynolds and former Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives Willis Smith. Reynolds received only 10 percent of the vote, but Smith garnered 41 percent. Graham polled 49 percent, one percentage point below the threshold of receiving the nomination outright. He therefore went into a runoff with Smith. Years later, North Carolina abolished runoff primaries if the leading candidate had at least 40 percent of the vote. Had that procedure been in effect in 1950, Graham would have become the Democratic senatorial nominee in the first primary.
In the runoff, Smith ran as an anti-Truman Democrat. Smith's anti-Negro speeches denounced Graham's racial moderate stances. The campaign was considered the most "racist" (though that term had not yet been coined) for a Senate race in North Carolina since the beginning of popular vote for senators. At the time of the election, few African Americans were voting in North Carolina because of Jim Crow laws designed to disenfranchise them. Those blacks who were registered usually were Republicans who cast ballots only in routine general elections. Graham was hence unable to appeal to many black voters. In the virtually all-white Democratic primaries, Smith's campaign tactics worked, and he prevailed by a narrow 52-48 percent.
Graham's supporters mounted a write-in candidacy for the November general election, but he received only one-half of one percent, and Smith won in a landslide against a desultory GOP opponent. In 1950, there were no Republican candidates holding federal or statewide offices, the last having been elected in 1928. The GOP would not become competitive in a statewide race for another dozen years and would not win for twenty-two more years. Smith himself would fall curse to the bad luck of that particular Senate seat. He died in office in June 1953, after having served only two and one-half years.
After his short Senate stint, Graham entered the field of world politics and diplomacy. He served as a mediator at the United Nations as a representative to India and Pakistan in the Kashmir dispute in 1965. He retired from U.N. service in 1967 at the age of eighty-one.
Graham died in Chapel Hill at the age of eighty-five. He is interred at the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Some nine months after Graham's death, his former Senate seat went to an aide to the late Willis Smith, Jesse Helms, who also became the first popularly elected Republican U.S. senator from North Carolina.
The student union building at the university is named in Graham's honor, as is the Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill. Graham, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and Hubert Humphrey and other anticommunist liberals of the era, was affiliated with the liberal interest group, the Americans for Democratic Action.
The baseball career of Graham's brother, Archibald Wright "Moonlight" Graham, was popularized in the 1989 film ''Field of Dreams''.
★ ''U.S. Congressional Biographical Directory''
★ ''The Political Graveyard''
★ ''Our Campaigns''
★ ''Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina'' (by Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns, III)''
'Frank Porter Graham' (14 October 1886 - 16 February 1972) was a Democratic U.S. Senator from the U.S. state of North Carolina.
Born in Fayetteville in south central North Carolina in 1886, Graham graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1909. He thereafter studied law and received his licence in 1913. He received a graduate degree in 1916 from Columbia University in New York City. While he was studying law, Graham was a high school teacher in Raleigh, the North Carolina state capital. He later embarked on a career as a history professor at the University of North Carolina from 1915 until 1930. An active Presbyterian, Graham was a ruling elder in Chapel Hill's church of that denomination.
He interrupted his teaching profession to enlist in 1917 for service in World War I. He was discharged as a first lieutenant in 1919.
In 1930, Graham was named president of the University of North Carolina. He served until 1949 and was the first president of what was called the "Consolidated University".
In 1948, North Carolina shifted politically to the left. Former state Agriculture Commissioner W. Kerr Scott extinguished the control of the so-called "Shelby Dynasty" politicians, which included former Governor O. Max Gardner, all of whom who hailed from the small city of Shelby in Cleveland County in southwestern North Carolina. Scott, a pro-Truman Democrat who had supported the New Deal, defeated the Shelby Dynasty's candidate for governor, State Treasurer Charles M. Johnson, in the party primary.
On taking office in January 1949, Scott "cleaned house" of Shelby Dynasty appointees and brought into office his own perceived liberal reformers. Two months after Scott's inauguration, the state's former governor, then the junior U.S. Senator J. Melville Broughton, himself elected with Scott the previous year after a bruising primary campaign against former interim appointee William B. Umstead, died in office. Broughton's death provided Scott with a prime opportunity to make a mark not only in Raleigh, but in Washington, D.C.
After three weeks of intense speculation throughout March 1949 as to whom the governor might tap for the Senate, attention focused on individuals ranging from the senator's widow, who expressed no interest; Scott's former campaign manager, Capus Miller Waynick; another Scott supporter, Major Lennox Polk McLendon, a lawyer from Greensboro; former Senator Umstead; and the governor himself (though the latter was quickly ruled out on the assumption that his constituents would not favor such an abrupt turnover of offices). It was the 62-year old university president, Frank Graham who caught Scott's attention and won the appointment.
At the time of Graham's appointment, he had never sought nor served in any political office, an unusual phenomenon at the time for North Carolina senators. Also atypical was that the particular Senate seat Graham occupied was in a period of considerable turnover. Beginning with the death of Senator Josiah W. Bailey in 1946, and concluding with the election of B. Everett Jordan in 1958, no fewer than eight men served in the seat in a dozen years. Graham was the fourth occupant of the seat since 1946. Had Scott chosen former Senator William Umstead, there would have been another vacancy thereafter, for Umstead died in 1954.
Graham faced two opponents in the 1950 Democratic primary, including former Senator Robert R. Reynolds and former Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives Willis Smith. Reynolds received only 10 percent of the vote, but Smith garnered 41 percent. Graham polled 49 percent, one percentage point below the threshold of receiving the nomination outright. He therefore went into a runoff with Smith. Years later, North Carolina abolished runoff primaries if the leading candidate had at least 40 percent of the vote. Had that procedure been in effect in 1950, Graham would have become the Democratic senatorial nominee in the first primary.
In the runoff, Smith ran as an anti-Truman Democrat. Smith's anti-Negro speeches denounced Graham's racial moderate stances. The campaign was considered the most "racist" (though that term had not yet been coined) for a Senate race in North Carolina since the beginning of popular vote for senators. At the time of the election, few African Americans were voting in North Carolina because of Jim Crow laws designed to disenfranchise them. Those blacks who were registered usually were Republicans who cast ballots only in routine general elections. Graham was hence unable to appeal to many black voters. In the virtually all-white Democratic primaries, Smith's campaign tactics worked, and he prevailed by a narrow 52-48 percent.
Graham's supporters mounted a write-in candidacy for the November general election, but he received only one-half of one percent, and Smith won in a landslide against a desultory GOP opponent. In 1950, there were no Republican candidates holding federal or statewide offices, the last having been elected in 1928. The GOP would not become competitive in a statewide race for another dozen years and would not win for twenty-two more years. Smith himself would fall curse to the bad luck of that particular Senate seat. He died in office in June 1953, after having served only two and one-half years.
After his short Senate stint, Graham entered the field of world politics and diplomacy. He served as a mediator at the United Nations as a representative to India and Pakistan in the Kashmir dispute in 1965. He retired from U.N. service in 1967 at the age of eighty-one.
Graham died in Chapel Hill at the age of eighty-five. He is interred at the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. Some nine months after Graham's death, his former Senate seat went to an aide to the late Willis Smith, Jesse Helms, who also became the first popularly elected Republican U.S. senator from North Carolina.
The student union building at the university is named in Graham's honor, as is the Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill. Graham, along with Eleanor Roosevelt and Hubert Humphrey and other anticommunist liberals of the era, was affiliated with the liberal interest group, the Americans for Democratic Action.
The baseball career of Graham's brother, Archibald Wright "Moonlight" Graham, was popularized in the 1989 film ''Field of Dreams''.
| Contents |
| References |
| Sources |
| External links |
References
Sources
★ ''U.S. Congressional Biographical Directory''
★ ''The Political Graveyard''
★ ''Our Campaigns''
★ ''Frank Porter Graham and the 1950 Senate Race in North Carolina'' (by Julian M. Pleasants and Augustus M. Burns, III)''
External links
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