Information AboutJohn C. Stennis |
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John Cornelius Stennis ( August 3 , 1901 - April 23 , 1995 ) was a U.S. Senator from the state of Mississippi . He was a Democrat . Born in Kemper County, Mississippi , Stennis received a bachelor's degree from Mississippi State University (then Mississippi A&M) in 1923 , and a law degree from the University Of Virginia , where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Chi Rho , in 1928 . While in Law School , he won a seat in the Mississippi House Of Representatives , where he served until 1932 . Stennis served as a prosecutor from 1932 - 1937 , and as circuit Judge from 1937 - 1941 , both for Mississippi's sixteenth judicial district. Upon the death of Senator and William M. Colmer ). He would remain in the Senate until 1989 . From 1947 to 1978 , he served alongside fellow Democrat James Eastland . They were the second-longest serving Senate duo in American history, behind only Strom Thurmond and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina . Stennis wrote the first Senate ethics code, and was the first chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee . Stennis' record on Civil Rights was mixed throughout his long career. As a prosecutor, he sought the conviction and execution of three Black men whose Murder confessions had been extracted by Torture . The convictions were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of '' Brown V. Mississippi '' (1936) that banned the use of evidence obtained by torture. The transcript of the trial indicates Stennis was fully aware of the methods, including Flogging , used to gain confessions. In the Senate, Stennis was not as virulently Racist as Eastland, one of the leading Segregationists in that chamber. However, in the 1950s and 1960s he opposed such legislation as the Voting Rights Act , as did most of the Southern senators. He also signed the Southern Manifesto of 1954 . He openly supported Barry Goldwater 's presidential bid in 1964 , as did most of the state's prominent Democrats. However, by the 1980s he regularly supported legislation to extend the civil rights of women and minorities, though he opposed the Martin Luther King holiday. He also campaigned (along with Governor Bill Allain for Mike Espy in 1986 during Espy's successful bid to become the first black congressman from the state since the end of Reconstruction . Earlier in his career, he had been the first Democrat to publicly criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy on the Senate floor during the Red Scare , while Eastland supported McCarthy. On balance, he was far more supportive of civil rights than Eastland, who never really moderated his views during his career. Still, Stennis never supported Civil Rights when there was any political risk in doing so. In 1973 Stennis was almost fatally wounded by two gunshots after being mugged outside his Washington home. In October 1973 during the Watergate Scandal the Nixon Administration proposed a plan wherein Stennis would listen to the contested Oval Office tapes and report on their contents, but this plan went nowhere. Stennis lost his left leg to Cancer in 1984 . He was unanimously selected President Pro Tempore Of The Senate during the 100th Congress ( 1987 - 1989 ). During his Senate career he chaired, at various times, the Select Committee On Standards And Conduct , the Armed Services Committee , and the Appropriations Committee . It was due to his work with the Armed Services committee ( 1969 - 1980 ) that he became known as the "Father of America's Modern Navy ." Declining to run for re-election in 1988 , Stennis retired from the Senate and took a teaching post at Mississippi State. He died in Jackson, Mississippi at the age of 93. Stennis had a political career spanning 60 years, and never lost an Election . His was one of the longest Senate careers in history; his continuous tenure of 41 years and 2 months in the Senate was, at his retirement, second in longevity only to that of Carl T. Hayden . (It has since been surpassed by Strom Thurmond , Robert C. Byrd , Edward Kennedy , and Daniel K. Inouye , leaving Stennis sixth). The John C. Stennis Space Center , the John C. Stennis National Student Congress , the aircraft carrier USS ''John C. Stennis'' , and the John C. Stennis Lock And Dam are named in his honor. John Stennis is buried at Pinecrest Cemetery in Kemper County, Mississippi . He and his wife, the former Miss Coy Hines, had two children, John Hampton and Margaret Jane. QUOTE "I want to plow a straight furrow right down to the end of the row." REFERENCES
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| {{succession Box Title | Dean Of The US Senate |
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| align | "center" colspan= 3 '''Served in Senate Alongside:''' James O Eastland , Thad Cochran |
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