Word: barkleys
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...Rebellion. But his critics didn't know what made Alben Barkley tick. They found out on Feb. 23, 1944. Barkley had worked faithfully to get through a $10.5 billion Administration tax bill, came out with $2.3 billion, which he knew was the best that Congress could produce in an election year. Roosevelt rejected the $2.3 billion bill with a stinging veto message, penciling in the taunt that the bill was really "a tax-relief bill, providing relief not for the needy but for the greedy...
...Barkley this was a high-handed, impetuous insult to the Democratic majority. Solemnly he rose at his front-row desk in the Senate and, in a low and sometimes choking voice, told off Franklin Roosevelt for "his effort to belittle and discredit Congress." He concluded: "Mr. President, let me say . . . that if the Congress of the United States has any self-respect yet left, it will override the veto." The Senate roared, cheered and stamped. The veto was overridden in both houses. At a party caucus Barkley resigned as F.D.R.'s majority leader and, minutes later, was unanimously...
Franklin Roosevelt mumbled a half-apology in a "Dear Alben" telegram. But five months later, when Barkley was getting ready to nominate Roosevelt for a fourth term at the Democratic Convention, Barkley got the news that Roosevelt had passed him over as a candidate for Vice President in favor of Harry Truman. This was a personal hurt, but not an affront to the party, so Barkley pulled himself together and made the hall echo with his eulogy of the Chief...
Chances are good that Alben Barkley would be President of the U.S. today if he had not crossed Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. But without that trial by fire, he could never have fully qualified as the best-loved Democrat, as the symbol of the Democratic mutual-security pact...
...went back to his job of Senate majority leader to bear an increasing personal burden. Dorothy Brower Barkley, whom he had married in Tennessee when he was 25 years old, fell ill with heart trouble. As her condition worsened, she required day & night nurses and extensive medical attention. Barkley's finances were exhausted, and he made ends meet by taking on a heavy schedule of out-of-town speeches. After a day's work in the Senate he would fly out of town to deliver a lighthearted speech, pick up a fee ranging from...