Claude Pepper

Claude Denson Pepper
Chairman of the House Rules Committee
In office January 3, 1983 – May 30, 1989
Preceded by	Richard Walker Bolling
Succeeded by	Joe Moakley
U.S. Representative for the 3rd Congressional District (since renumbered several times) (Miami and Miami Beach)
In office January 3, 1963 – May 30, 1989
Preceded by	Robert Lee Fulton "Bob" Sikes
Succeeded by	Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
United States Senator for Florida
In office November 4, 1936 – January 3, 1951
Preceded by	William Luther Hill
Succeeded by	George Smathers
Member of the Florida House of Representatives
In office 1929–1931
Born	September 8, 1900 Near Dudleyville Chambers County, Alabama
Died	May 30, 1989 (aged 88) Washington, D.C.
Political party	Democrat
Spouse(s)	Mildred Webster Pepper (married 1931–1979, her death)
Children	No children Parents: Joseph Wheeler Pepper (1873–1945) Lena Corine Talbot Pepper (1877–1961)
Alma mater	Camp Hill High School University of Alabama Harvard Law School
Occupation	Attorney, Professor
Military Service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army (the former Student Army Training Corps)
Battles/wars	World War I

Claude Denson Pepper (September 8, 1900 – May 30, 1989) was a prominent leader of liberals in the U.S. state of Florida from the 1930s to the 1980s. A Democrat, he served in the United States Senate from 1936 to 1951 and the United States House of Representatives for a district in Miami and Miami Beach. He was also known for support of issues important to the elderly.^[1]

Pepper was born on a farm near Dudleyville in Chambers County, Alabama, and graduate in 1917 from Camp Hill High School. For a time, he operated a hat cleaning and repair business, taught school in Dothan in southeastern Alabama, and worked in a steel mill before he began his studies at the University of Alabama. He served in the United States Army in World War I, and in 1921 received a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. He taught law at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where one of his students was later senatorial colleague J. William Fulbright, subsequently the UA president. In 1924, he graduated from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later opened his legal practice in Perry in Taylor County in northern Florida.^[2]

Liberal segregationist senators Tom Connally, Walter F. George, Richard Russell, Jr., and Claude Pepper filibustering an anti-lynching bill in 1938.

After one term as a state representative, Pepper won the 1936 special election to succeed Senator Duncan U. Fletcher. Pepper was a strong advocate for the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and backed the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the last of the major New Deal legislation. He also opposed anti-lynching legislation of Blacks to appease Southern racists, vowing for maintaining white supremacy following the Supreme Court ruling in Smith v. Allwright that banned white primary elections.^[3]

Charles Kramer, a KGB agent and member of the Perlo group of Soviet spies, transmitted to the Soviet Union vital war production and weapon design information while serving on his staff.^[4] When World War II ended, Pepper was conciliatory toward Joseph Stalin despite Stalin's broken promise to President Franklin Roosevelt to hold democratic elections and respect the right of self-determination of peoples. Pepper opposed Truman's policy of Containment to stop the spread of Soviet Communism. Pepper supported progressive Henry Wallace against Harry Truman for president in 1948.

After the theft of U.S. atomic secrets by New Deal Democrats and communists began killing American servicemen in the Korean War with Soviet-built weapons, Pepper was unseated in the regular 1950 Senate election by the more conservative George Smathers, then a two-term U.S. Representative from House District 4. Pepper returned to his law practice in 1951, this time in the capital city of Tallahassee.^[5]

Thirteen years later, Pepper was elected from the then newly established District 3 (since renumbered multiple times) seat in the U.S. House. as a representative, he then began espousing anti-communist positions and was critical of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who was unpopular in south Florida. He chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Aging and attempted to strengthen Social Security and Medicare. From 1983 to 1989, he chaired the House Rules Committee. Upon his death at the age of eighty-eight, he was honored with a state funeral. Eleven years later, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.^[1]

• Edward Fitzgerald

• Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Obituary via the Washington Post
• Biography at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
• Plans for B:29 Also Were Ruahed To Russian Agents, Congress Is Told; White, Former Official at Treasury, Is Called A Contact,