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49 Nw. U. L. Rev. 62 (1954-1955)
Vinson in Congress

handle is hein.journals/illlr49 and id is 76 raw text is: Vinson in Congress William W. Oliver* F RED M. VINSON served with high honor in all three branches of our national government. It was in the Congress that he served first. That service, although not the highest to which he rose, is perhaps most significant, for he entered the Congress and the national scene an unknown. It was his climb from a freshman to one of the foremost Members of the House of Representatives that laid a foundation upon which many of his future accomplish- ments rested. Kentucky elects its governors in November of the odd numbered years immediately preceding the presidential election year. In November, 1923, William J. Fields, the Democratic candidate, was elected governor and resigned his seat as representative from what was then the Kentucky Ninth Congressional District. Vinson was then Commonwealth Attorney for the thirty-second judicial district of Kentucky, a position generally called district or state's attorney in other states (Kentucky is officially known as the Com- monwealth of Kentucky). Vinson, then thirty-three old, was nominated for the Congressional vacancy by the Democratic Exec- utive Committee for the Ninth District, and at a special election on January 12, 1924 he defeated the Republican candidate, Dr. Yasell of Maysville (the home of Mr. Justice Reed) by 10,000 votes, an unusually heavy majority for the district. The district then contained nineteen counties in northeastern Kentucky. The Kentucky legislature, always securely in Demo- cratic control partly because of under-representation of Republican areas, had conveniently omitted any of the one-party Republican counties of eastern and southeastern Kentucky from the old Ninth District. Still the district was far from automatically Democratic. Effort and organization were needed, and the thoroughness with which Vinson built an organization is almost legendary in the area. Patient and time consuming wooing of the local leaders in every county was a Vinson forte. It was not infrequent for prominent Republicans to be for Fred Vinson, or for opposing factions of Democrats in a county both to be in the Vinson camp. Geographically and economically the district was not outstand- ing. Some four or five counties on the western edge of the district lie within the storied, rich and beautiful, and gently rolling blue *Law Clerk to Chief Justice Vinson during 1952-53; Senior clerk to Chief Justice Warren during 1953 term; Assistant Professor of Law, Indiana University, effective September, 1954. Representatives Jenkins of Ohio, McCormack of Massachusetts, and Spence of Kentucky aided the author by furnishing information.