One hundred thirty-three years ago, Willie Alben Barkley was born in Wheel, Graves County, Kentucky, in a log cabin. When old enough, he reversed his name to Alben William because “just imagine the tribulations I would have had, a robust, active boy, going through a Kentucky childhood with the name of “Willie” and later trying to get into politics!” he explained in later years. Always a Democrat, his political ambitions took him from the House to the Senate to the position, at age 70, of Vice President of the United States (1949-1953, under President Harry S. Truman). And a grandson gave him his most famous moniker, “Veep”, which historically has remained Barkley’s alone.
Barkley attended Marvin College (a Methodist school) in Clinton, KY, Emory College, the University of Virginia law school and “read” law in a Paducah law office before beginning his own practice. He married in 1903 and eventually had two sons and a daughter. He ran for prosecuting attorney of McCracken County in 1905, then county judge in 1912, then a seat in the U.S. House which began a national political career that ran 42 years.
He denied the stories that he conducted parts of his first campaign from the back of a mule. “This story is a base canard, and, here and now, I wish to spike it for all time,” he said in his memoirs, “it was not a mule – it was a horse!”
Although he retired in 1953, in 1954 he campaigned and won a Kentucky Senate seat. In 1956 he was invited to deliver the keynote speech at Washington and Lee University students’ mock convention. After uttering the words, “…I would rather be a servant in the House of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty,” and amid the applause of the crowd, he collapsed and died of a massive heart attack. He is buried in Mt. Kenton Cemetery, Paducah, KY.
His legacy was that of a vice president who tried to be an activist, determined to reverse the trend of “a four year period of silence.” He accepted hundreds of invitations to speak at meetings, conventions, banquets and other partisan and nonpartisan programs. Barkley retained throughout his long political career the public’s confidence and affection.
You can read more about Alben Barkley in his memoirs, That Reminds Me.
(Information for this posting taken from websites at www.newspaper.archive.com, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Alben_Barkley, and www.nndb.com/people)
–This History Tidbit was suggested by Cecelia Edwards. Do you have any suggestions for future postings? Just email them to the address above!
