Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin was an American politician.
Background
Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin was born on November 20, 1900 in Baltimore. He was the tenth of eleven children of James A. McKeldin and Dora Grief. His father, a Scotch-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was a stonemason and later a policeman. James McKeldin named his son for the newly elected Republican vice-president of the United States, who had recently campaigned in Baltimore. The McKeldin family was in straitened circumstances, and Theodore's father was overly fond of liquor, a fact that prompted his son to vow never to drink. In later years, despite his opposition to Prohibition, Theodore McKeldin would not permit any liquor in his own home.
Education
At the age of fourteen, Theodore finished grammar school. McKeldin continued his education at night, first at Baltimore City College, and later at the University of Maryland Law School, where he earned his law degree in 1925.
Career
McKeldin took his first job as a $20-per-week office boy for Alexander Brown & Sons. He subsequently went to work for the Fidelity and Deposit Company of Baltimore. McKeldin early developed a bent for oratory; after completing a Dale Carnegie course in public speaking at the local YMCA, McKeldin discovered that he was a proficient public speaker. Thus, Fidelity and Deposit employed him to travel around the country encouraging its agents. During vacations, he earned $2. 50 per day as a grave digger. He began practicing law and was a partner in the firm of McKeldin and Moylan. In 1927, he campaigned for William F. Broening, the successful Republican candidate for mayor of Baltimore. Appointed the mayor's executive secretary that year, McKeldin returned to his law practice in 1931. In 1939, he made an unsuccessful run for mayor of Baltimore. In 1942, he lost again in his first bid for the governorship; he was the only Republican willing to challenge Democratic Governor Herbert R. O'Conor. Undiscouraged by these losses, he returned to the hustings in 1943 to run against Howard Jackson, the incumbent mayor of Baltimore who had defeated him four years earlier. This time McKeldin triumphed by more than twenty thousand votes, a record margin for a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. During McKeldin's first administration, the city charter was overhauled; a slum clearance program was begun, as was the planning for a new municipal airport and civic center; and expansion of the city's water supply was initiated. Because of wartime conditions, however, McKeldin generally had to be satisfied with maintaining city services on a steady course. A liberal Republican, he appointed some Democrats to fill city jobs, angering some party regulars. In 1946, he made a second run for the governorship, defeating a more conservative primary opponent, but losing in the general election to the Democratic candidate, William P. Lane, Jr. Leaving office in 1947, McKeldin returned to his law practice and also pursued graduate work in economics at The Johns Hopkins University. However, in 1950, he once again won the Republican nomination for the governorship. Vigorously stumping the state, McKeldin won the general election by some ninety-four thousand votes over Lane, who had been responsible for legislative passage of an unpopular state sales tax. Upon entering office in January 1951, McKeldin discovered that the sales tax could not be repealed, and in fact found it necessary to raise both it and the state income tax during his first term. At the Republican National Convention in Los Angeles in 1952, McKeldin received a tentative offer of the vice-presidential nomination from Senator Robert A. Taft, the leader of the conservative wing of the party. Ever the moderate, McKeldin instead made a memorable speech nominating Dwight D. Eisenhower; nevertheless, McKeldin continued to harbor dreams of the vice-presidency for some years afterward. After a bruising campaign in 1954, McKeldin won a second term as governor by defeating the popular former president of the University of Maryland, Dr. Harry C. ("Curley") Byrd, by better than sixty-two thousand votes.
During his eight years in office, McKeldin launched an ambitious state highway construction program; established a state port authority; and created the state Commission on Administrative Organization. He also ensured the state's budget procedures were reorganized and that new state office buildings were constructed. McKeldin augmented his very modest gubernatorial salary of $4, 500 with a number of paid out-of-state speaking engagements. Because of a 1947 amendment to the state constitution, McKeldin could not seek a third term as governor. He tried to persuade the state's junior U. S. senator, J. Glenn Beall, Sr. , a fellow Republican, to run for the governorship so that he could make a bid for Beall's Senate seat, but Beall was not interested. McKeldin then decided to try for another term as mayor of Baltimore in 1959 but was soundly defeated by a Democratic newcomer. He returned to his law practice, but ran for mayor again in 1963, this time in an unusual fusion ticket with a Democratic reform candidate for city comptroller. McKeldin won by a narrow margin of some forty-five hundred votes in an election that saw Democrats chosen for all other elective city posts. McKeldin was also a supporter of New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in the latter's unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. Offended by remarks about immigrants allegedly made by Representative William B. Miller, the party's vice-presidential nominee, in the general election McKeldin bolted his party and backed Lyndon B. Johnson. In acknowledgment of that backing, Johnson sent McKeldin to represent the United States at the inauguration of the president of the Philippines in 1965 and named him to a group of American observers of the South Vietnamese elections in 1967. McKeldin also was appointed to the U. S. Indian Claims Commission by Johnson, but was denied reappointment in 1969 because of pressure placed by Senator Barry Goldwater, whom McKeldin failed to endorse in the 1964 federal election, by the new Nixon administration. McKeldin maintained an active interest in his native city during his years as a private citizen. His successor as mayor appointed him to the board of municipal zoning appeals in 1971, in which post he served until his death. McKeldin died on August 10, 1974 in Baltimore.
Achievements
McKeldin helped to bring about approval of a new city charter in 1964, which entailed improvements in the budget process and creation of a department of hospitals.
Politics
During his career as mayor and governor, McKeldin named as many Democrats as Republicans to appointive office. He placed a number of blacks in state positions and created a state commission to deal with interracial issues. The overwhelming support that he generally received from voters in Baltimore's black and Jewish precincts was noteworthy and was one reflection of his vigorous and consistent advocacy of civil rights for minorities. Despite his own staunch anti-Communism, McKeldin opposed the controversial efforts of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy to identify and remove alleged Communist sympathizers from federal government service, long before it was politically popular to do so.
Membership
a member of the United States Republican Party
Personality
McKeldin was a warm, compassionate, and ebullient man of firm convictions, who relished politics.
Connections
On October 17, 1924, McKeldin married a fellow bank employee, Honolulu Claire Manzer, who had taught him bookkeeping. The couple had two children.
