Jennings Randolph

Jennings Randolph

Jennings Randolph and Jimmy Carter

The Jennings Randolph Lake in Mineral County , West Virginia is named after Jennings Randolph

Jennings Randolph (born March 8, 1902 in Salem , Harrison County , West Virginia , †  May 8, 1998 in St. Louis , Missouri ) was an American politician who served as the representative of the state of West Virginia in both chambers of the United States of America States was represented.

Life

Jennings Randolph is a direct descendant of Edmund Randolph , the first United States Attorney General in the Washington cabinet . It was named after the three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan . Randolph's father Ernest was also a politician, who was mayor of Salem for two terms.

Jennings Randolph was raised in Salem, a small town in Harrison County, and was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist faith . After attending the Salem Academy , from which he graduated in 1918, he enrolled at Salem College , from which he graduated in 1924. During his college days he began working as a freelance sports reporter for a weekly newspaper in Clarksburg . In 1924 he moved to Charleston , where he worked full-time, also in the sports field, for the West Virginia Review , a monthly published paper. In 1926 he accepted a position at Davis & Elkins College in Elkins . Here he worked in the marketing department and was responsible for the sports orientation of the school as a technical director. Subsequently, he also taught journalism at the college and advised students on the production of the school newspaper .

In 1930, Randolph ran as a member of the Democratic Party for the first time for a seat in the United States House of Representatives . In the election against the Republican incumbent Frank L. Bowman, Randolph was defeated by around 1200 votes. Two years later, in 1932, he ran again, again against Bowman, and this time won. At the age of 30, Randolph became a member of Congress on March 4, 1933. Shortly before his inauguration, he married on February 18, 1933 in Keyser . With his wife Mary Katherine Babb he had two sons, Jennings (* 1934) and Frank (* 1938). Jennings and Mary Randolph were married for around 48 years. She died in March 1981 of cancer .

Randolph was one of those MPs in Congress who played a major role in Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal . With the Democrats holding a significant number of seats in the 73rd Congress , House Speaker Henry T. Rainey appointed no fewer than 15 assistants, including Jennings Randolph, spokesman for West Virginia and Ohio . Randolph was re-elected five times , but when the Republican Melvin C. Snyder , who had come home a World War II soldier and was considered a war hero in the eyes of many voters, ran against Randolph in 1946, he was defeated by Snyder .

After leaving Congress, Randolph moved into the private sector and worked in public relations from February 1947 to April 1958 and later as Vice President of Capital Airlines , which merged with United Airlines in 1961 . Under his responsibility, Capital rose to become the fifth largest civil airline in the United States. At the same time he was a guest speaker at various universities, spoke at federal party conferences of the Democrats and was considered one of the most influential political figures in West Virginia in the late 1950s.

In 1958, Randolph announced his intention to run for West Virginia as a US Senator . After the death of Senator Matthew M. Neely in January of that year, it was necessary to hold a by-election in which Randolph was elected along with Robert Byrd , who had run for the second Senate seat. Randolph then became a member of the Committee on Labor , a Senate committee in which he campaigned for the creation of new jobs. In 1960, Randolph was first confirmed in his mandate in a Senate election. Jennings Randolph sat in the Senate for 36 years before announcing in 1984 that he would not run again. He resigned from the US Parliament on January 3, 1985.

He spent the last years of his life in St. Louis, Missouri, where he died in May 1998 at the age of 96.

legacy

As early as 1941, during his time as a congressman, the 26th amendment to the constitution was passed under his leadership , according to which the right of US citizens to vote could be exercised from the age of 18.

Randolph also always stood up for the interests of the socially disadvantaged, for the rights of the disabled and the financial livelihood of the long-term unemployed. He also campaigned for human and civil rights.

Web links

• Jennings Randolph in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)