Claude Pepper
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Claude Denson Pepper (September 8, 1900 - May 30, 1989) was an American attorney and politician.
Born in Dudleyville, Alabama, Pepper graduated from the University of Alabama and Harvard Law School. After completing his LL.B. in 1924, Pepper spent a year teaching law at the University of Arkansas, and then moved to Perry, Florida, where he opened a law practice. He was elected to the Florida state house in 1929 for a single term, and unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate in 1934, losing to Park Trammell. However, he won his second Senate bid just two years later, in a 1936 special election following the death of Senator Duncan Fletcher.
In the Senate, Pepper became a close ally of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, supporting the New Deal and the Lend-Lease Act. He was re-elected in 1938 and 1944, but lost his bid for a third full term in 1950 by a margin of over 60,000 votes. The race was marked by echoes of the Red Scare: rival George A. Smathers repeatedly attacked Pepper for having communist sympathies, pointing out his pro-civil rights platform and campaign for universal health care. It is also widely claimed that Smathers won the election by using linguistic tricks to attack Pepper before uneducated audiences, such as stating that Pepper had a "thespian" sister and a "Homo sapiens" brother, although Smathers repeatedly denied these claims during his term in the Senate.
Pepper returned to his law practice in Miami and Washington until 1962, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. He remained there until his death in 1989. In his House career, he is best known for strengthening the Medicare and Social Security programs. When he died, his body lay lay in state for two days under the Rotunda of the United States Capitol.
A number of places in Florida are named for Pepper, including the Claude Pepper Center at Florida State University (housing a think tank devoted to aging) and the Claude Pepper Federal Building in Miami, as well as several public schools. Large sections of US 27 in Florida are named Claude Pepper Memorial Highway.
External links
- Claude Pepper Foundation (http://www.claudepepper.org/)