CLAUDE D. PEPPER "Champion of the Belligerent Democracy"
BY FRANCIS P. LOCKE
WHEN HITLER BEGAN HIS WARS OF CONQUEST, THE MOST lurid spreader of the alarm on this side of the Atlantic was Senator Claude Denson Pepper of Florida. To his Catoesque role he brought youth, insight, and a vigor that verged on recklessness. He was served by a forensic equipment seldom seen in the modern day of the United States Senate.
His crusade catapulted him into international fame and assured him a place in history. The exact size of his niche will hardly be known until the war years have settled into perspective.
Before the war issue arose, Senator Pepper already had attained some national note. Near the end of the first Roosevelt administration he came to the Senate and at once established himself as an articulate and, in the main, a dogged and forthright liberal. He gained fresh prominence in 1944 by winning renomination in a primary which was watched by millions as a barometer of national political trends. Shortly thereafter he led the fight for the renomination of Vice-President Wallace at the Democratic national convention. He took an important part in the subsequent presidential campaign. He is now forty-five years old and, barring the accidents that often cut short political careers, he has plenty of time either to add to or detract from his record.
Senator Pepper has built his attainments from small beginnings. He sprang from the semi-sterile red soil of eastern Alabama. Although his parents were of old Southern stock, they were neither wealthy nor aristocratic. Both grandfathers