1937 Senate majority leader election

The 1937 Senate majority leader election turned a vacancy in Senate leadership into a test of presidential influence, political loyalty, and Harry S. Truman’s standing in Washington. After Joseph Robinson’s death halted the fight over Franklin D. Roosevelt’s court bill, Truman faced pressure to support Alben W. Barkley. He declined, honoring an earlier commitment to Pat Harrison; Barkley nevertheless won the secret ballot by one vote, and Truman’s frank conduct helped establish a lasting alliance between the two senators.

A vacancy amid the court fight

On July 14, Joseph Robinson, the Majority Leader who had been carrying Roosevelt’s campaign for his court plan, died of a heart attack in his apartment across from the Capitol. The leadership contest that followed was not an isolated personnel decision: the Senate’s choice could shape the future of the New Deal and determine who would lead it through the fight over the Court. The two principal contenders were Barkley and Pat Harrison of Mississippi, the conservative chairman of the Finance Committee.

Roosevelt made clear that he wanted Barkley to succeed Robinson. In an open letter addressed to “Dear Alben,” he called Barkley the “acting” majority leader. To senators, that wording looked like presidential interference in Senate business, and it helped make the succession contest another bitter struggle. The pressure was not confined to public signals. Jim Farley’s private poll suggested Harrison would win by a single vote, and the White House’s efforts to change that arithmetic grew intense.

Pressure and Truman’s promise

One senator’s change of position showed how the lobbying worked. William H. Dieterich of Illinois had pledged to Harrison, but Boss Kelly of Chicago called to offer him a say in the appointment of two federal judges if he voted as Roosevelt wished. Dieterich switched sides. Truman, however, received no such offer. On July 19, the day before the vote, Tom Pendergast told him that the White House had asked him to “tell” Truman how to vote.

Truman said he had already promised Harrison his support and could not go back on his word. He told William Helm that James A. Aylward had also phoned, but that refusing Aylward was easier than saying no to Pendergast: “to say No to Tom was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.” Truman described this as the only time Pendergast had ever called him about a vote; normally, he said, Pendergast made his views known by telegram. Pendergast apparently did not welcome the White House’s intervention any more than Truman did, and reportedly said that it “didn’t make a helluva lot of difference to him….”

The episode sharpened Truman’s frustration with how the administration regarded him. He was furious that the White House had gone through Pendergast instead of approaching him directly. The route of the request seemed to confirm that, in its eyes, he was still “the Senator from Pendergast.” Told that Roosevelt was unavailable, Truman spoke to press secretary Steve Early. He said he was tired of being “pushed around” and treated like an office boy, and expected the consideration due to his office. The source of his anger was thus not only the pressure to change his vote, but the assumption that his political relationship with Pendergast made him subject to instruction.

The secret ballot and an unusually candid exchange

Barkley believed Truman had pledged to support him. As Barkley later recalled, Truman came to him and said, “The pressure on me is so great [to vote for Harrison] that I am going to ask you to relieve me of my promise.” The exchange mattered because Truman did not conceal the competing commitment or quietly leave Barkley to discover his choice after the vote. Barkley later said he admired Truman’s courage and character, contrasting his directness with the political habit of striking an ally while continuing to smile.

On July 21, Democratic senators met in the white marble Caucus Room of the Senate Office Building and voted by secret ballot. Barkley won by a single vote. The narrow margin gives Truman’s dilemma particular weight: had he acted differently, the outcome might have changed, though the evidence does not establish how his vote was cast. Once Barkley had won, Truman immediately pledged him his support. The contest that had tested their trust instead became the beginning of a lasting friendship and political alliance.

The immediate consequence

The leadership vote did not rescue Roosevelt’s court plan. The following day, the Senate sent the bill back to the Judiciary Committee by a margin of 50 votes, and it died there. Truman regarded the defeat as deserved and the whole affair as a mistake badly managed by Roosevelt. The sequence linked the leadership struggle to a larger setback: pressure from the White House had failed to secure an easy victory in the Senate, while the court bill’s defeat marked Roosevelt’s first and worst loss since taking office.

The election also left Truman’s position more complicated than either simple loyalty to the President or obedience to Pendergast would suggest. He refused the White House’s request, but his stated reason was a promise already made to Harrison; he then dealt openly with Barkley and backed him after the result. His conduct did not erase the political associations that led others to call him Pendergast’s senator, but it showed him insisting that those associations did not make his vote available on command.