Estes Kefauver was born
in Madisonville, Tennessee, on 26th July, 1903. He graduated from
the University of Tennessee in 1924. Kefauver then moved on to the
law department of Yale University and was
admitted to the bar in 1926.
Kefauver became a lawyer
in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1927. A member of the Democratic
Party Kefauver was elected to Congress and served between September,
1939 and January, 1949. He was then elected to the Senate. As chairman
of the Senate crime investigating committee in 1950 and 1951, Kefauver
attracted nationwide publicity. His investigations resulted in the
book, Crime in America (1951).
Kefauver was an unsuccessful
candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956.
However, Adlai Stevenson selected
him to be his running mate in 1956, but they were defeated by Dwight
D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon of
the Republican Party.
A supporter of civil
rights legislation, Kefauver won reelection in 1960 after overcoming
the active opposition of the segregationists in Tennessee’s Democratic
primary.
Estes Kefauver died in
the naval hospital at Bethesda, Maryland, on 10th August, 1963.
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