SENATOR KNOWLAND

Monday, Dec. 13, 1954
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A Hard Man To Pigeonhole

When he called for a naval blockade of Red China and voted against censuring Joe McCarthy, the nation wondered more than ever about Senate Majority Leader William Fife Knowland. He is not an easy man to pigeonhole or explain. Some facts:

Born: June 26, 1908, in Alameda, Calif., the youngest of Joseph R. and Ellie Fife Knowland's three children. Billy's mother died soon afterward. He spent his first seven years in Washington, D.C., where his father was a Republican Congressman who later was defeated for the Senate. The elder Knowland grew wealthy as publisher of the Oakland Tribune.

Education: Graduated from Alameda High School, where he edited the newspaper and was elected president of the student body, and from the University of California (B.A. in political science, 1929).

Family: At 18, Sophomore Knowland eloped on New Year's Eve with 19-year-old Coed Helen Herrick. They have three children. Mrs. Knowland is the author of a murder mystery entitled Madame Baltimore, which deals with marital infidelities in the capital.

Business Career: Worked for his father's Tribune after college and, in 1933, became assistant publisher.

Military Service: Drafted in June 1942; commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry the next February, he was assigned to Europe, where he rose to the rank of major.

Political Career: Campaigned for Harding at 12, headed a local finance committee in the Coolidge campaign at 16, elected to the Republican State Central Committee at 22, became California's youngest assemblyman at 24, its youngest state senator at 26, the youngest Republican National Committeeman at 30, and, at 33, the Republican National Committee's youngest Executive Committee chairman ever. In 1945, Governor Earl Warren, who got his political start from old Joe Knowland, appointed Joe's son Billy to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Hiram Johnson. The news first reached Major Knowland in Paris when he read of his appointment in Stars & Stripes. At 37, he was the youngest U.S. Senator (see cut). The next year Knowland defeated Congressman Will Rogers Jr. by 260,906 votes. Running for a second full term in the 1952 primaries, Knowland won both party nominations, and, in the general election, he got more votes (3,982,448) than any candidate has ever polled in a single state.

Personality: Big (6 ft. 1 in.; 200 Ibs.) Bill Knowland walks with fast, seven-league strides which seem to symbolize his driving ambition and dedication to work. His well-written speeches are delivered in the unmodulated, protesting tone of an overworked undertaker. To reporters, he speaks largely in pompous platitudes. He does not smoke, is a Methodist and a joiner (a Mason, an Eagle, a Moose, and a Native Son of the Golden West).