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Senate Years of Service: 1950-1957 Party: Democrat
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MLK Library |
CLEMENTS, Earle C., a Representative and a Senator from Kentucky; born in Morganfield, Union County,
Ky., October 22, 1896; attended the public schools and the University of Kentucky at Lexington;
during the First World War served in the United States Army, attained the rank of captain; engaged in
agricultural pursuits; sheriff of Union County 1922-1925; clerk of Union County 1926-1933; judge of
Union County 1934-1941; member, State senate 1942-1944, serving as majority floor leader in 1944;
elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses and served from January 3,
1945, until his resignation on January 6, 1948, having been elected Governor; elected Governor of
Kentucky in 1947 for the term ending December 1951, but resigned in November 1950 having been
elected on November 7, 1950, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by
the resignation of Alben W. Barkley; at the same time was elected for a six-year term and served from
November 27, 1950, to January 3, 1957; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1956; Democratic
whip 1953-1957; director of the United States Senate Democratic Campaign Committee 1957-1959;
highway commissioner of Kentucky 1960; consultant for the American Merchant Marine Institute
1961-1963; consultant to tobacco industry and president of the Tobacco Institute, Inc. 1964-1976;
died on March 12, 1985 in Morganfield, Ky.; interment in Morganfield Independent Order of Odd
Fellows Cemetery.
BibliographyScribner Encyclopedia of American Lives; Syvertsen, Thomas H. Earle Chester Clements and the Democratic Party, 1920-1950.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kentucky, 1982.
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