DEMOCRATIC VICE-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, 1956

Reputation as a Grassroots Campaigner and Antimob Crusader.

As a candidate for the 1952 and 1956 Democratic presidential nominations, Estes Kefauver employed a grassroots style of campaigning that won the hearts of many who had grown tired of party-machine politics. The senator from Tennessee had won a national reputation as a political crusader in 1950-1951, when he headed up a Senate investigative committee on organized crime. In 1939 Kefauver easily won a House seat.

An Independent Thinker.

Despite having been sent to Washington with the help of Tennessee's Democratic party machine, Kefauver soon established his independence as a political thinker. His voting pattern on issues of civil rights often ran counter to that of his southern colleagues. In 1942 he voted for anti-poll tax legislation (the poll tax being one method used by racist whites to keep poor...