Frank G. Clement

Frank Goad Clement (June 2, 1920–November 4, 1969) served as governor of Tennessee from 1953 to 1959, and again from 1963 to 1967.

Early life

Clement was born in Dickson, Tennessee in the Hotel Halbrook, which was operated by his mother. His father, Robert Clement, was a local attorney and mayor, and his sister was Anna Belle Clement O'Brien, a senator. He attended Cumberland University, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He served in the United States Armed Forces during World War II, and subsequently graduated from the Vanderbilt School of Law. He traveled the state extensively in performance of his duties as a recruiter for the American Legion, making valuable contacts in all 95 Tennessee counties.

Career

Clement decided to challenge incumbent governor Gordon Browning in 1952 for the Democratic nomination for governor, which was then tantamount to election in Tennessee. Feeling that Browning was solidly backed by the railroad interests, Clement sought the endorsement and funding of road builders to counterbalance this, fundamentally changing the balance of power in Tennessee politics for half a century. Clement also obtained the crucial support of Memphis political "boss" E. H. Crump, who had broken with Browning during Browning's first term as governor in the 1930s. Clement, only 32 at the time, became the youngest governor in the country when he upset Browning in the August primary and won the election. Upon entering office, he showed himself, unlike most of his contemporary Southern governors, to be a moderate with regard to racial desegregation.

Clement had run as an opponent of the sales tax, then set at two percent in Tennessee, but reversed his opposition to it and supported an increase to three percent to better fund education, especially making the use of textbooks free in all Tennessee primary and secondary grades, a first for the state. He also supported road-building and improvement as an economic development measure, more than repaying his political debt to the road builders. As part of his improvements, outside lines on highways became commonly painted for the first time in Tennessee.

Governor

Amendments to the state constitution (the first ones since the document had been adopted in 1870, the longest such period in history) meant that Clement served the last two-year term as governor of Tennessee, but the amendment to the section affecting gubernatorial terms had been worded in such a way as to allow him to run for the first four-year term in 1954 and he did so, winning reelection easily. Clement was the keynote speaker at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, making a speech whose theme, "O, How long?", echoed William Jennings Bryan. Clement was a very active layman in the Methodist faith, and during his gubernatorial terms often taught Sunday School to overflow crowds at a church in downtown Nashville, finally requiring the class' removal to an adjacent movie theater.

During his second term, he led the establishment of the first State Department of Mental Health as a Cabinet-level position in the country. However, the constitutional amendment was worded in such a way as to make Clement or subsequent executives ineligible for reelection to a four-year term, so Clement's first administration ended in January 1959 with his succession by Buford Ellington, a former campaign manager and member of his Cabinet.

General election running

In 1962, now eligible to run for governor again, he easily won the Democratic nomination. In the general election, he defeated not only Republican attorney Hubert Patty of Maryville, but also the independent bid of retired naval captain William Anderson of Waverly, who was the skipper of the U.S.S. "Nautilus" when it became the first submarine to sail under the North Pole polar ice cap. It was Anderson, not Patty, who provided Clement with his major opposition in the western two-thirds of the state, but Clement nonetheless triumphed with a huge majority. (Anderson was later to serve in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat.)

Clement was always exceptionally close to his sister, Anna Belle, relying on her for advice and support, and during his second governorship she served as his chief of staff. When United States Senator Estes Kefauver died in office in August 1963, Clement surprised some by not appointing himself to the office, but rather a caretaker, Herbert S. Walters. However, Clement did enter the 1964 Democratic primary for the post, losing to Congressman Ross Bass of Pulaski in what most considered to be an upset. Since the 1964 election was for the balance of Kefauver's unexpired term, the seat was to be contested again in 1966, and Clement was again ineligible to succeed himself as governor, he decided to run against Bass again in the 1966 Democratic primary and this time defeated him for the nomination. However, he was defeated in November of the year by the Republican nominee, Howard Baker, in another upset and again found himself out of politics. He was once again succeeded as governor by Ellington in what the "Nashville Tennessean" derided as "leapfrog government", but remained active in Democratic circles and was widely rumored to be planning to run for a fourth term as governor when he was killed in an automobile accident in Nashville in 1969. Clement's 10 total years as governor of Tennessee are the longest any person served in the position in the 20th century, and longer than all but two 19th century governors, John Sevier and William Carroll. His remains were interred at Dickson County Memorial Gardens near Dickson, where his grave was once marked by an "eternal flame", which has since been extinguished.

Family

Clement had three sons, two of whom are still living. Bob Clement has served as a Tennessee Public Service Commissioner (supplanting his father as the youngest Tennessean ever elected to a statewide office), director of the Tennessee Valley Authority, president of Cumberland University, and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2003. Frank G. Clement, Jr. has been an attorney, a Probate Court Judge, and currently serves on the Tennessee Court of Appeals.