Background
George was born on January 29, 1878 in Preston, Georgia, the son of Robert Theodoric George and Sarah Stapleton.
George was born on January 29, 1878 in Preston, Georgia, the son of Robert Theodoric George and Sarah Stapleton.
George attended public schools and then Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He received a bachelor's degree at Mercer University in 1900 and a law degree at Mercer the following year.
George established a law practice at Vienna, Georgia, in 1901 and maintained a residence there for the rest of his life. In 1907 George became solicitor general and, in 1912, judge of the Superior Court for the Cordele Judiciary Circuit of Georgia. In January 1917 he became judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals but resigned in October to become an associate justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In 1922 he resigned his position and in November won his campaign to fill an unexpired term in the United States Senate. Thereafter between 1926 and 1950 he was re-elected five times. George entered Congress as an old-fashioned Democrat, determined to defend the interests of the South. He favored stronger prohibition measures and opposed every effort on behalf of racial equality, including all antilynching laws. With the gracious manner of a Southern aristocrat - which he was not - and a resonant, compelling voice, he quickly emerged as one of the Senate's leading orators. Throughout his career he remained a conservative, and in time the Senate regarded him as its leading constitutional authority. After 1926, as a member of the tax-writing Finance Committee, he became the Senate's tax expert, leaving his imprint on every tax measure. In 1928 George attended the Democratic National Convention at Houston as Georgia's "favorite son" candidate in opposition to New York's Alfred E. Smith. He opposed the liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination in 1932 but backed him during the campaign. George supported much of the early New Deal but rebelled at some of its economic heresies, especially those that contributed to the power of labor. He opposed the wage-hours bill and denounced the industrial warfare of 1936 and 1937 as evidence of a declining respect for the law. His veneration for the Supreme Court compelled him to attack Roosevelt's court-packing plan of 1937. By 1938 he had piled up so extensive a record of resistance to the president's program that Roosevelt entered Georgia to campaign against George's reelection - an invasion that George termed "the second march through Georgia. " Defending his allegiance to the Democratic Party, George accepted the challenge and conducted the campaign with his usual dignity and style. He won easily. George favored the early neutrality legislation. In July 1939 he cast the deciding vote in the Foreign Relations Committee to terminate any further Senate consideration of Roosevelt's request for cash-and-carry sales to the European democracies in case of war. With Hitler's invasion of Poland less than two months later, George changed his mind on the question of aid, symbolizing the shift of conservative Southerners who had harassed the New Deal before 1938 to vigorous support of Roosevelt's post-1939 interventionist policies. Following the death of Key Pittman in 1940, George became chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In this role he backed Roosevelt's program of aid to Europe short of war. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, George succeeded Pat Harrison of Mississippi as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Thereafter he managed the major wartime tax measures, including the pay-as-you-go income tax. Retaining his leadership role in foreign affairs, George supported the Connally Resolution of 1943, in which the Senate expressed its approval of general postwar international cooperation. As a member of the bipartisan Senate Committee of Eight, he urged Secretary of State Cordell Hull to continue his negotiations with foreign leaders on the creation of a postwar peace organization. After the war George's concept of an honorable peace demanded opposition to Stalin, just as earlier it had required a war against Hitler. George supported NATO, but, in opposition to President Harry Truman, he insisted that the United States could not send troops to Europe without specific congressional approval. George's strong internationalism helped to shape the postwar world by assuring Senate support for the country's basic postwar international policies. Like most conservative Southerners, George found his relations with Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower far more harmonious than those with liberal Roosevelt and Truman. With the Democratic resurgence of 1954, he resumed the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee, permitting his friend, Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, to chair the Finance Committee. George helped to forge the strong bipartisan approach to foreign policy that characterized Eisenhower's first term. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles met privately with George at breakfast at least once a week to discuss foreign affairs. George prodded Eisenhower to attend the Geneva summit conference of 1955. His support of the administration's China policy was crucial. On January 24, 1955, the administration had asked Congress for authorization to use American forces to protect Formosa, if necessary, by defending the offshore islands against an assault from the mainland. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota attached an amendment to restrict the grant of authority to the more distant Formosa. George crushed the Democratic revolt by placing his prestige behind the administration's request. The president signed the Formosa Resolution on January 29. When George arrived for the ceremony, those present used the occasion to celebrate his seventy-seventh birthday. Senate Democrats condemned George for denying them an independent role in the formulation of foreign policy. George was instrumental in inaugurating talks with Peking in 1955 by reminding Dulles that he could not satisfy those domestic groups that insisted on a Nationalist Chinese presence and still maintain United States leadership of the noncommunist world. In January 1956, George broke with the administration for the first time on the question of long-term foreign aid - largely because the issue was not popular in Georgia. Thereafter Dulles failed to gain his support for his Middle East policies. George believed the issues in that region too confused to identify a clear United States interest or to win the needed congressional support. By the mid-1950's George had achieved a preeminent position in American political life. As president pro tempore of the Senate he could command any of that body's offices. On such critical issues as the Taft-Hartley Act he always supported the traditional Democratic stance. Nevertheless, as the 1956 senatorial campaign approached, George's friends warned him that he could not defeat the younger, more energetic, and more segregationist Governor Herman Talmadge. George had joined ninety-five other Southern members of Congress in pledging resistance to the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation decision, but he was growing more moderate on racial issues. His national leadership role, moreover, had weakened many of his ties to Georgia; one banker complained that he had not visited his country in eighteen years. Finally, in May 1956, George announced his retirement, declaring that another campaign would be too taxing. To prolong George's bipartisan role in foreign policy, Eisenhower appointed him ambassador to NATO, with headquarters in Washington. In March 1957, George attended the Bermuda Conference between the president and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. He died in Vienna, Georgia on August 4, 1957.
George spoke seldom, but always with careful preparation and moving eloquence, and eventually became the country's leading exponent of the Southern congressional style. Friendly yet aloof, he was known from the beginning for his integrity and independence.
On July 9, 1903, George married Lucy Heard. They had two children.
