A Giant from Georgia: The Life of U.S. Senator Walter F. George, 1878–1957 by Jamie H. Cockfield

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Giant from Georgia: The Life of U.S. Senator Walter F. George, 1878–1957 by Jamie H. Cockfield Justin P. Coffey A Giant from Georgia: The Life of U.S. Senator Walter F. George, 1878–1957. By Jamie H. Cockfield. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2019. Pp. xiv, 521. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-88146-676-8.) When Walter F. George died in 1957, over thirty of his former U.S. Senate colleagues attended his funeral in Vienna, Georgia. The turnout was a testimony to the respect his fellow senators had for George, who served Georgia in the Senate for thirty-four years. Although George is little remembered today, Jamie H. Cockfield offers an insightful portrait of a public servant and, Cockfield argues, a true statesman. Born in 1878 to tenant farmers, George developed a love for politics at an early age. Intelligent and ambitious, George graduated from Mercer College (now Mercer University), read for the bar, earned his law degree, and practiced law. When Senator Thomas E. Watson died of a heart attack in 1922, George, a Democrat, ran successfully for the vacated seat. When George retired in 1956, he was the Senate’s senior member. Eventually rising to chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, George played a pivotal role in ensuring passage of the 1941 Lend-Lease Act. George’s championing of Lend-Lease was remarkable given the tension between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and George. A supporter of the early New Deal, George by 1935 had begun to express doubts about the direction of Roosevelt’s programs. Roosevelt’s proposal to pack the Supreme Court offended George’s cherished ideal of an independent judicial branch, and he helped lead the fight to quash the bill. Embittered at what he saw as George’s apostasy, Roosevelt targeted George in his 1938 purge of conservative Democrats, going so far as to travel to Georgia and publicly endorse his handpicked candidate in a speech that became known as the Barnesville Manifesto. Standing on the dais while Roosevelt denounced him, George waited stoically for the president to finish. When he did, George walked up to Roosevelt, handed him a written statement accepting his challenge, and left the usually unflappable Roosevelt flummoxed. The masterful handling of the situation helped George keep his seat, which he held until deciding not to run for reelection in 1956. Professor emeritus at Mercer University, Cockfield developed an interest in the university’s most famous alumnus and spent years researching George’s life. Writing a biography of George presents a challenge, because, for reasons [End Page 513] unknown, George had his personal papers burned after his death. Cockfield ably overcomes this disadvantage by consulting an exhaustive array of sources. The bibliography runs nineteen pages, and the author diligently tracked down an impressive variety of materials, including interviews with George’s law partner and other close associates. Although a specialist in Russian history, Cockfield demonstrates a command of American politics, especially the peculiarities of Georgia’s byzantine electoral system. As the title attests, Cockfield is clearly partial to his subject. He notes that there was never a whiff of scandal in George’s career, though Cockfield does hint that in his later years George had a bit of a drinking problem. The one area in his career that George failed was the racial issue. A child of the Jim Crow South, George’s views on racial equality never evolved, but Cockfield argues that George was a moderate on the race question. Unlike Tom Watson and Herman E. Talmadge, his predecessor and successor in the Senate, George was no demagogue and rarely took part in the race-baiting campaigns that were endemic among his southern colleagues. Cockfield also contends that, compared with his Georgia colleague Richard B. Russell Jr., George had almost enlightened racial views, but that does not say much in light of George’s lifelong commitment to segregation. Though Walter George might not have been a giant of the Senate, he was a significant legislator, one respected and even a bit revered by his fellow senators of both parties. In this well-written account, George gets the biography he richly deserves. Justin P...