Scott Wike Lucas was born on February 19, 1892 in Cass County, Illinois, United States, the son of William Douglas Lucas, a tenant farmer, and Sarah Catherine Underbrink. The greatest influence during his youth was his oldest brother, Thurman, who encouraged him to study law and helped him to get started in the legal profession.
Lucas attended public schools in Bath, Illinois, and graduated from Virginia (Illinois) High School in 1911. Having already acquired some college credits, he entered Illinois Wesleyan University, majored in law, and graduated in 1914 with the Bachelor of Laws degree. During college, he was active in athletics. He lettered in football, basketball, and baseball and played semiprofessional baseball. After passing the bar exam on his second try, he began to practice law in Havana, llinois, in 1915.
During World War I Lucas entered the service as a private, leaving in 1918 as a lieutenant. In subsequent years he was active in the American Legion, serving as state commander and, from 1928 to 1932, as national judge advocate. He entered elective politics as state's attorney for Mason County, Illinois, in 1920. In 1932 he sought the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate, but he did not have the support of the powerful Kelly-Nash political machine in Chicago and lost the primary by a large margin. Nevertheless, Governor Henry Horner appointed him chairman of the Illinois State Tax Commission in 1933 and urged him to run for the vacant Twentieth District congressional seat in 1934. He did so successfully, entering Congress as a loyal supporter of the New Deal. He was reelected in 1936.
He also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention every four years from 1932 to 1964, except for 1936. Occasionally Lucas demonstrated an independent streak that strengthened his position in Illinois. On July 15, 1937, he rose in the House to ask, "Is there a single Democrat in this historic hall who believes that continuation of this fight will accomplish a single constructive thing?" With the support of downstate political forces, Lucas again took on the Kelly-Nash machine with a bid for the United States Senate in 1938. Upon winning the nomination, he reconciled with the machine, thereafter receiving its complete support. He served on the Joint Committee on Pearl Harbor, fully endorsing its conclusions in the assignment of responsibility for the disastrous events of December 7, 1941.
Strongly representing the interests of farmers and businessmen, Lucas garnered increasing political support in Illinois. He was proposed for vice-president by the Kelly-Nash machine at the Democratic conventions of 1940, 1944, and 1948, with his name actually voted upon in 1944. He was elected Democratic whip of the Senate in 1946, and following Alben Barkley's elevation to the vice-presidency in 1949, Lucas was unanimously elected majority leader.
Despite his popularity, Lucas could count on only forty of the fifty-four Democratic senators to support the Truman administration's domestic proposals. Indeed, a coalition of Republicans and southern Democrats was able to block the enactment of civil rights legislation, federal aid to education and housing, national health insurance (opposed by Lucas himself), and the nomination of Leland Olds to the Federal Power Commission. Although Lucas and Truman got along well, there were some instances when the president's behavior left Lucas at a disadvantage. For example, in 1950 Truman indicated that he would support a particular version of the natural gas bill; then, when it passed, he bowed to liberal opposition and vetoed the measure. Lucas, like most liberals, had difficulty grappling with the issue of domestic Communism. During his tenure as majority leader, a Republican proposal for registration of Communists, anathema to liberals, was countered by a Lucas-sponsored substitute plan to place Communists in detention camps in the event of a national security emergency. This measure was put forth as tougher than mere registration, but was believed less likely to be implemented. In the end Lucas and the other liberals outmaneuvered themselves; both provisions found their way into the Internal Security Act of 1950. Also, when Senator Joseph McCarthy aired his claim that card-carrying Communists were on the staff of the State Department, neither Lucas nor an investigating committee set up by Lucas and headed by Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland was able to obtain from McCarthy any substantiation of his charges. By successfully ducking the issue, McCarthy was able to remain viable. These occurrences coincided with an effort by McCarthy to target his opponents for defeat in 1950.
When Lucas, who had been tied up until September by Senate duties, began to campaign for reelection he found that his political base in Illinois had eroded. Republican Everett McKinley Dirksen wrested the seat from him. Many political observers attributed Lucas' defeat to his support of an unpopular administration and to a public reaction against the brutal Chinese offensive begun in October in the Korean War. Afterward, Lucas' physician observed that his defeat probably saved his life. While leader of the Senate he had suffered two heart attacks that were not revealed to the press; one, in fact, was reported as an ulcer.
He spent the next eighteen years practicing law in Washington, Springfield, and Havana, and serving as a lobbyist. Complications from diabetes led to the amputation of his leg in 1966 and to a fatal stroke on a train from Washington, D. C. , to Florida.
Lucas didn't accept the Primitive Baptist beliefs of his parents.
Lucas was a member of the Democratic Party. He supported Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, working to pass the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936 and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 but he opposed his plan to pack the Supreme Court.
Quotations: "I am an agnostic. I don't believe in a supreme being, but I do believe in a supreme power. There is an order that governs the universe. "
Lucas was a storyteller in the Lincoln tradition, nearly always captivating his listeners. A flamboyant dresser who favored double-breasted suits and a homburg, he was charming to women; Capitol Hill secretaries named him the congressman they would most like to see in a leopard-skin suit.
Lucas hunted regularly, and was renowned for having dispatched three ducks with one shot--a feat that was reported in Ripley's "Believe It or Not. " A dedicated golfer, he served as president of Washington's prestigious Burning Tree Golf Club. He enjoyed a weekly high-stakes poker game attended frequently by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He also wrote verse as a form of self-expression and he read constantly.
On January 21, 1923, Lucas married Edith Biggs. They adopted one child.
