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Senate Years of Service: 1922-1957 Party: Democrat
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GEORGE, Walter Franklin, a Senator from Georgia; born on a farm near Preston, Webster County, Ga.,
January 29, 1878; attended the common schools; graduated from Mercer University, Macon, Ga., in
1900 and from its law department in 1901; admitted to the bar in 1901 and commenced practice in
Vienna, Ga.; solicitor general of the Cordele judicial circuit 1907-1912 and judge of the superior
court 1912-1917; judge of the State court of appeals from January to October 1917, when he
resigned; associate justice of the State supreme court 1917-1922, when he resigned; elected on
November 7, 1922, as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death
of Thomas E. Watson; reelected in 1926, 1932, 1938, 1944, and again in 1950 and served from
November 22, 1922, to January 2, 1957; was not a candidate for renomination in 1956; served as
President pro tempore of the Senate during the Eighty-fourth Congress; chairman, Committee on
Privileges and Elections (Seventy-third through Seventy-sixth Congresses), Committee on Foreign
Relations (Seventy-sixth, Seventy-seventh, and Eighty-fourth Congresses), Committee on Finance
(Seventy-seventh through Seventy-ninth Congresses and Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses),
Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation (Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses), Select
Committee on Case Influence (Eighty-fourth Congress), Special Committee on Foreign Assistance
(Eighty-fourth Congress); President Dwight Eisenhowers special ambassador to the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization until his death; died in Vienna, Ga., August 4, 1957; interment in Vienna
Cemetery.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
Mellichamp, Josephine. Walter George. In Senators From Georgia. Huntsville,
Ala.: Strode Publishers, 1976: 230-39; Zeigler, Luther. Senator Walter Georges 1938 Campaign. Georgia Historical Quarterly 43 (December 1959): 333-52; Fleissner, James P.
August 11, 1938: A Day in the Life of Senator Walter F. George. Journal of Southern
Legal History 9 (2001): 55-101.
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