James Browning Allen

Background

James Browning Allen was born on December 28, 1912 in Gadsden, Alabama, United States. He was the son of George Columbus Allen and Mary Ethel Browning.

Education

Allen attended Gadsden public schools and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1931 and its law school in 1933.

Career

While in his twenties, Allen began a lifelong political career. Serving in the Alabama House of Representatives from Etowah County from 1939 to 1943, he resigned during World War II to become a naval officer.

After the war, Allen was elected in 1946 to the Alabama State Senate from Etowah and St. Clair counties. He served from 1947 to 1951 and was next elected lieutenant governor of Alabama (Gordon Persons was elected governor), a post he held from 1951 to 1955. In 1952 he was a state delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

He sought the Democratic nomination for the governorship in 1954 but lost to former governor James E. Folsom (1947-1951), who won the general election. Allen took a nine-year break from elected office to practice law full-time until 1963, when he successfully ran for lieutenant governor again with gubernatorial candidate George C. Wallace.

In 1968, when Lister Hill chose to retire after serving thirty years in the United States Senate, Allen ran for the seat in the Democratic primary against Congressman Armistead I. Selden Jr. , who was endorsed by Senator Hill, a distant cousin. Allen, a poor and easily embarrassed public speaker, was hampered by his pedestrian campaign style and personal shyness, but he had the advantage of a close association with Governor Wallace. On the strength of that association, as well as Allen's frequent attacks on the so-called "Washington crowd, " he won a close runoff primary against Selden and then, much more handily, the general election. Once in office Allen's popularity grew to such a degree that he was elected to a second term in 1974 almost without opposition.

One of his most noteworthy filibusters sought unsuccessfully over a five-week period to derail passage of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1972. Another filibuster stalled creation of a federal consumer protection agency for several years. Allen also led the unsuccessful fight against the Panama Canal treaties in 1978. Issues dear to the business community also regularly won his allegiance, as did the Constitutional issue of separation of powers.

Allen's tenure in the Senate followed the long-lived tradition of conservative southern senators whose allegiances to southern interests and right-wing principles made their loyalty to the national Democratic party a tenuous matter at best. In fact, demographic and political changes in the South had very nearly depleted the Dixiecrat ranks by the time Allen was elected. He was, therefore, somewhat of an anachronism even at the beginning of his career in Washington. Moreover, by entering the Senate at the age of fifty-six, Allen seemingly violated the southern practice of electing young legislators who, through the accumulation of seniority, ended up exercising a disproportionate degree of power for their numbers. Nevertheless, Allen quickly became an expert on the details of Senate procedure, another route to power for southern senators, who used their parliamentary skills to outmaneuver their northern colleagues. The success Allen enjoyed in the Senate owed as much to hard work as to procedural wiliness. Allen flew back home often, always traveling coach and carrying his own bags.

Allen died of a heart attack in Foley, Alabama, during of one of his visits back to the voters.

Achievements

• Allen was known as a master of Senate rules and an effective legislator. He revived the filibuster and used his expertise with Senate rules to battle against legislation he opposed.

Politics

Allen was a member of the Democratic Party. He often spoke out against school desegregation and busing.

Allen also enthusiastically supported Wallace's third-party 1968 presidential bid.

Personality

Allen became known among his colleagues as the "wizard of the rule book, " and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a longtime foe of Allen's who served with him on the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised him as "perhaps the greatest parliamentarian ever to sit in the United States Senate. "

Despite his modest speaking abilities, Allen became a master of the filibuster and emerged as a speaker who could outtalk nearly all of his fellow senators. The six-foot, 200-pound Allen, his red hair parted in the middle and worn slicked back, would occupy the Senate floor for days, sustained only by generous doses of cherry-flavored glucose.

Allen was notably courteous and spurned most of the perquisites of office. Despite his quiet and reserved manner, Allen kept his McLean, Virginia, residence telephone number publicly listed so that his constituents could reach him to express their views.

Quotes from others about the person

• "If I had to stand with one man at Armageddon and battle for the Lord, I hope that man would be Jim Allen. " - Sam Ervin

Connections

On March 16, 1940, Allen married Marjorie Stephens, who died in January 1956; they had three children. On August 7, 1964, Allen married Maryon Pittman Mullins, who was appointed to Allen's seat by Governor Wallace on June 13, 1978, after her husband's death.

Father:

George Columbus Allen

Mother:

Mary Ethel (Browning) Allen

Spouse :

Marjorie (Stephens) Allen

Spouse :

Maryon (Pittman) Allen

Daughter :

Debbie Allen

Daughter :

Mary Rebecca Allen

Brother:

George Columbus Allen