Senate holds memorial service for Morris Sheppard, April 10, 1941
On this day in 1941, the Senate convened to hold a memorial service for Sen. Morris Sheppard. The Texas Democrat had entered Congress as a House member in 1902, replacing his deceased father, and moved to the Senate in 1913. He died in office of a brain hemorrhage on April 9, 1941, at the age of 65.
Before embarking on his long political career, Sheppard graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1895, from its law school in 1897, and from Yale Law School in 1898.
Sheppard gradually rose in Senate seniority and power while never betraying his conservative, populist, segregationist Texan roots. In the 1928 presidential election, Texas voters abandoned New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic nominee and a Catholic, carrying the state for his Republican challenger, Herbert Hoover.
In 1929, first lady Lou Hoover, following tradition, arranged to hold a series of five teas for wives of congressmen, also inviting Jessie De Priest, the wife of Rep. Oscar Stanton De Priest of Chicago (R-Ill.), the first African-American elected to Congress in the 20th century and the first ever from outside the South. Sheppard objected. He was quoted as saying, “I regret the incident beyond measure. It is recognition of social equality between the white and black races and is fraught with infinite danger to our white civilization.”
Although he served as the party whip for four years, Sheppard is remembered as the “Father of Prohibition.” He believed alcohol was a scourge on society and a threat to family life. In 1913, he introduced a constitutional amendment to ban the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” Congress enacted it in 1917 during World War I. Enough states ratified what became the 18th Amendment in 1919.
In 1933, the amendment was repealed. Sheppard continued to promote legislation to aid farmers and low-income (white) Americans while backing President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call for prewar military preparedness.
After his death, Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) ran for Sheppard’s Senate seat in a 1941 special election, losing to Texas Gov. Wilbert Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel.
The year following Sheppard’s death, his widow, Lucille Sanderson Sheppard, married Sen. Tom Connally (D-Texas). Connally also predeceased Lucille. When she died in 1980, she was buried with her first husband in Hillcrest Cemetery in Texarkana, Texas.
A Sheppard grandson, Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy III, a Florida Republican known as Connie Mack III, served in the House from 1983 to 1989 and in the Senate from 1989 to 2001. His son, Connie Mack IV (R-Fla.), served in the House from 2005 to 2013, before losing a Senate bid to Bill Nelson, the Democratic incumbent.
Another grandson, Richard Arnold, based in Little Rock, Arkansas, went on to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit. Arnold, a close friend of President Bill Clinton, died in 2004.