Joseph T. Robinson

{{Infobox officeholder |name=Joseph Taylor Robinson |image=Joseph T. Robinson of AR.jpg |office=United States Senator for Arkansas |term_start=March 10, 1913 |term_end=July 14, 1937 |predecessor=William M. Kavanaugh |successor=John E. Miller |office2=Senate Majority Leader |term_start2=March 4, 1933 |term_end2=July 14, 1937 |predecessor2=James Eli Watson |successor 2=Alben W. Barkley |office3=Senate Minority Leader |term_start3=December 3, 1923 |term_end3=March 4, 1933 |predecessor3=Oscar Underwood |successor3=Charles L. McNary |office4=Chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus |term_start4=December 3, 1923 |term_en4=July 14, 1937 |predecessor4=Gilbert Hitchcock (acting) |successor4=Alben W. Barkley |office5=23rd Governor of Arkansas |term_start5=January 16, 1913 |term_end5=March 8, 1913 |predecessor5=George Washington Donaghey |successor5=William Kavanaugh Oldham (acting) |office6=U.S. Representative for Arkansas's former 6th district |term_start6=March 4, 1903 |term_end6=January 14, 1913 |predecesso6=Stephen Brundidge, Jr. |successor6=Samuel M. Taylor |birth_date=August 26, 1872 |birth_plac=Lonoke, Arkansas |death_date=July 14, 1937 (aged 64) |death_place=[[Washington, D.C. |party=Democrat |spouse=Ewilda Gertrude "Billie" Miller Robinson
|children=No children Parents:
James Madison and Matilda Jane Swaim Robinson

|alma_mater=University of Arkansas (Fayetteville)
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)}}

Joseph Taylor Robinson (August 26, 1872 – July 14, 1937), was a Democratic politician and attorney from his native state of Arkansas who served only fifty-five days as the 23rd governor of his state, a post that he relinguished to become a United States Senator from 1913 to 1937. He was named the Senate Majority Leader in 1933 and had earlier been his party's unsuccessful vice presidential nominee in 1928 on the ticket headed by Governor Al Smith of New York. The Democrats were defeated that year by a large margin by the Republicans Herbert Hoover and Charles Curtis.

Background

Robinson was born in Lonoke in central Arkansas, to the former Matilda Jane Swaim (1832-1899), a Tennessee native, and James Madison Robinson (1816-1892), a physician, farmer, and lay preacher originally from New York. Young Robinson chopped [[cotton] and worked in his father's apple orchard. He taught first grade for two years before he spent a year studying at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville but dropped out upon his father's death. Back in Lonoke, he studied law with Thomas Clark Trimble, III (1878-1965), later a federal judge. He also attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, after which he was admitted to the bar. He married the former Ewilda Gertrude "Billie" Miller; the couple had no children.Joseph Taylor Robinson. findagrave.com. Retrieved on February 24, 2021.</ref>

Career

In 1894, at the age of twenty-two, Robinson was elected to the Arkansas legislature and served one term. In 1902, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the since abolished 6th congressional district and was re-elected to four subsequent terms ending in 1913. In 1912, Robinson was elected governor, in which capacity over a few weeks he advocated funding to complete the new state capitol building in Little Rock, to establish a labor statistics board, to create the state highway commission, and adopt the official state flag. He left the governorship to succeed U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis, who had died on January 3, after the legislature had re-elected him to a new term beginning on March 4, 1913.

A progressive, Robinson was a staunch supporter of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. He was the chairman of the 1920 Democratic National Convention, which nominated the losing James M. Cox-Franklin D. Roosevelt ticket, defeated by Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. In 1923, Robinson's colleagues named him the Senate Minority Leader. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination as a favorite son candidate in 1924 but lost out to John William Davis (1873-1955), a conservative corporation attorney from West Virginia, who subsequently voted against Franklin Roosevelt.

When the Democrats took control of the Senate in 1933 with the election of Franklin Roosevelt as President Robinson was named Senate Majority Leader, in which capacity he helped to pass much of the New Deal agenda. He was the last U.S. Senator elected by a state legislature rather than by direct popular vote, mandated by the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which took effect on April 8, 1913.

In the Senate

From the outset, Robinson delivered well-crafted speeches and mastered the complicated rules and practices of the Senate. He arrived at the Senate early, left late, and studied legislation in his Washington, D.C., apartment. He championed the Keating-Owen Child Labor Act and the regulation of railroads and other industries. He led the Senate to arm merchant ships and voted to declare war on Germany. He also led the unsuccessful effort in the Senate to ratify the failed Treaty of Versailles.

Robinson gained influence in the Senate and later was the chairman of the 1920 Democratic National Convention.

Richard L. Riedel, a Senate press gallery attendant in the 1920s and 1930s, recalled that "When [Robinson] would go into one of his rages, it took little imagination to see fire and smoke rolling out of his mouth like some fierce dragon. Even when he kidded me, he spoke in loud gasps while puffing his cigar. Robinson could make Senators and everyone in his presence quake by the burning fire of his eyes, the baring of his teeth as he ground out the words, and the clenching of his mighty fists as he beat on the desk before him."

"Scrappy Joe," as the press called him, nearly came to blows with Senate colleagues Robert Marion LaFollette, Sr., of Wisconsin, Porter James McCumber (1858-1933) of North Dakota, James Thomas Heflin (1869-1951) of Alabama, and Huey Pierce Long, Jr., of Louisiana. Once the United States entered World War I, Robinson denounced his colleagues who opposed the war effort. After La Follette opposed it, Robinson questioned his patriotism on the Senate floor and La Follette had to be restrained in a near brawl with Robinson. Robinson even punched in the face a guard who questioned his credentials at the 1920 Democratic convention. Despite this temper, he still managed to court strong friendships across party lines.

Court-packing proposal

In 1937, Robinson supported Roosevelt's "Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937," also known as the Court Reorganization Act, the infamous court-packing scheme.. The plan would have permitted up to fifteen justices, one for each over the age of seventy who did not retire. It has been speculated that Roosevelt promised Robinson the next appointment to the high court, but Robinson's death made such a promise moot. Robinson pushed strongly for the court-packing plan, but it was killed by the bipartisan Conservative Coalition.

The strain of this fight over the court caused Robinson's friends to worry about his health. U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021 appointed a commission to study bringing back FDR's court-pacing plan.

On July 14, 1937, Robinson's housekeeper found his body lying face down on the floor of his apartment in the United Methodist building. Death came from heart failure. Two days after Robinson's sudden death, his funeral was held in the Senate chamber. Thousands of mourners came to the Arkansas capitol, where Robinson lay in state.

Legacy

He and Ewilda are interred at Roselawn Cemetery in Little Rock.

Robinson’s portrait hangs outside the Senate’s South Entrance. His home in Little Rock, the Joseph Taylor Robinson House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1994. He is the namesake of the Arkansas National Guard's Camp Joseph T. Robinson in North Little Rock, and several schools in northwestern Little Rock bear his name.

References

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