Walter Franklin George (January 29, 1878 – August 4, 1957) was an American politician from the state of Georgia. He was a longtime Democratic United States senator from 1922 to 1957 and was President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1955 to 1957.
Born near Preston, Georgia, George practiced law after graduating from Mercer University. He served on the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1917 to 1922, resigning from the bench to successfully run for the Senate. Philosophically a conservative Democrat, Nevertheless, George not only signed the Southern Manifesto opposing integration, he formally presented it to the Senate.
By the end of his Senate career, George was one of the most powerful U.S. Senators and was well-regarded by both political parties and by liberals and conservatives. George was an early and leading champion of vocational education, a strict constitutionalist who believed in limited federal government, a fiscal conservative. During the course of his Senate career, he transitioned from being a foreign isolationist to a fervent supporter of internationalism, including playing an important role in the Senate's 1945 approval of the United Nations Charter. He attended public schools and then Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He received his law degree from Mercer in 1901 and entered the practice of law. George served as a judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals in 1917 and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1917 to 1922. While he was a judge he was a "vociferous reader" of serious history as well as historical novels.
Senator
1920s
When Senator Thomas E. Watson died on September 26, 1922, George resigned from the Supreme Court of Georgia to run for the vacant seat. George won the resulting special election. He did not take his seat immediately when the Senate reconvened on November 21. Instead he waited one day. Thus Rebecca Latimer Felton, who had been appointed by governor Thomas W. Hardwick on October 3, could be sworn in and be the first woman seated in the Senate. Felton served one day, until George was sworn in on November 22.
George was re-elected to his first full six-year term in 1926. He served in the Senate from 1922 until 1957, declining to run for a sixth full term in 1956. In this period, the Republican Party in Georgia was very weak, so the real re-election contests for George were in the Democratic primaries.
During the 1920s, George, a Democrat, tended to vote conservatively. George supported prohibition, opposed civil rights legislation, the Rural Electrification Administration, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. and during Roosevelt's time in office, he supported 34 New Deal bills that went through the Senate, opposing only 10.
From July 31, 1941 to August 2, 1946, Senator George was the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, and one of Washington's most powerful legislative forces. As chairman of this powerful committee, George defeated many of Roosevelt's efforts to increase taxes and enact very progressive tax regimes. George and Roosevelt were in greater agreement on foreign affairs;