Peace and Progress: The Life and Political Contributions of Senator Jennings Randolph

Abstract

Peace and Progress: The Life and Political Contributions of Senator Jennings Randolph Christopher Price In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the bill that led to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a massive public works project that contributed to flood control and rural electrification. Fifty years after that historic event, a group of individuals met in the House Caucus room in the US Capitol to celebrate the achievements of the TVA. Among those in attendance was a long-time senator from West Virginia, Jennings Randolph. Senator Randolph held an important distinction as he neared the end of his career in the Senate. He was the last of the New Deal Democrats who had voted for the creation of the TVA to remain active in the halls of Congress. When he finally stepped away from public office in 1985, he was the last remaining legislator who had served during the First 100 Days of the FDR administration.1 Randolph was an influential legislator who left his mark on American history, yet the scholarly investigation of his life has been quite thin to this point. Outside of a short biographical sketch by Nicholas Kersten and an unpublished biography, there is little written regarding his achievements.2 Throughout his career in Congress, Randolph made visionary and progressive contributions to legislation that led to important and lasting change in American society. Randolph’s legislative efforts included support for disabled people and people who were disfranchised and discriminated against. Additionally, the senator was remarkably prescient in proposing efforts at creating a governmental department that might ensure a lasting peace after World War II. While Senator Randolph was legislatively innovative in many ways, his life in politics also tended to be representative of the period in which he served. The era between the New Deal and the period in which the New Right really began to gain traction was largely a period in which many Americans felt that government had the expertise, the ability, and even the responsibility to solve problems.3 Jennings Randolph fell within this milieu, and he did much to shape it. [End Page 1] Early Life Jennings Randolph, the son of Ernest Fitz and Idell Randolph, was born into an influential political family on March 8, 1902.4 The Randolph family had deep roots in Harrison County and had been prominent in the founding of New Salem, Virginia (now Salem, West Virginia). The congregation of the Seventh Day Baptist Church of Shrewsbury, New Jersey, moved to western Virginia as a group in 1789, and the Randolph family was among the prominent families who made the trek to the mountains.5 Jennings Randolph’s father and grandfather both served as mayors of Salem, West Virginia. Additionally, his grandfather, Jesse Fitz Randolph, won election as a state legislator and was known as a “natural leader” in both his church and political endeavors.6 Randolph’s father, Ernest, was a one-time candidate for Congress, and counted three-time Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan as a friend. Indeed, he even asked the famous orator and Democratic presidential nominee to name his newborn son.7 The Randolphs were a deeply religious family and held leadership positions in Salem’s Seventh Day Baptist congregation. While agreeing with other Baptist groups on many major points of doctrine, the Seventh Day Baptists held to Saturday as the proper day for worship and rest from labor. The Baptist churches that follow Sabbatarian teachings had their origins in seventeenth-century England just after the rise of the more mainstream Baptist movement.8 Jennings Randolph was active in his Seventh Day Baptist church from an early age, and he drew heavily from the church’s theology in his political career. The future legislator appeared in his local church’s annual report for the Seventh Day Baptist denomination as early as 1919, serving as a chorister for the youth and as an usher.9 Throughout his career in Congress, the West Virginia politician published occasional articles in the Sabbath Recorder, and this organ of the denominational press published a lengthy eulogy of the former senator upon his death in 1998. This remembrance of Jennings Randolph’s life...