CONNALLY, Thomas Terry (Tom) (1877-1963)
Senate Years of Service: 1929-1953

CONNALLY, THOMAS TERRY (TOM), (step-grandfather of Connie Mack, III), A Representative and a Senator from Texas; born near Hewitt, McLennan County, Tex., August 19, 1877; attended the public schools; graduated from Baylor University, Waco, Tex., in 1896 and from the law department of the University of Texas at Austin in 1898; admitted to the bar in 1898 and commenced practice in Waco, Tex.; moved to Marlin, Falls County, Tex., in 1899 and continued the practice of law; served as sergeant major in the Second Regiment, Texas Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish-American War; member, State house of representatives 1901-1904; prosecuting attorney of Falls County, Tex. 1906-1910; during the First World War became captain and adjutant of the Twenty-second Infantry Brigade, Eleventh Division, United States Army 1918; permanent chairman of Texas Democratic State convention in 1938; elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-fifth and to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1917, until March 3, 1929); did not seek renomination in 1928, having become a candidate for Senator; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1928; reelected in 1934, 1940, and again in 1946, and served from March 4, 1929, to January 3, 1953, was not a candidate for renomination in 1952; chairman, Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Seventy-third through Seventy-seventh Congresses), Committee on Foreign Relations (Seventy-seventh through Seventy-ninth and Eighty-first and Eighty-second Congresses); member and vice chairman of the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization at San Francisco in 1945; representative of the United States to the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations at London and to the second session at New York in 1946; engaged in the practice of law in Washington, D.C., where he died on October 28, 1963; interment in Calvary Cemetery, Marlin, Tex.

Library of Congress
Manuscript Division
Washington, DC
Papers: 1896-1952. 251.68 linear feet. Correspondence, speeches, press releases, scrapbooks (1915-1952) available on microfilm only, legislative files (1929-1952), patronage files, constituent mail, some personal correspondence, voting records, clippings, photographs, and pamphlets. Chiefly concern Senate career especially United Nations, European Recovery program, North American Treaty Organization, aid to China, inter-American relations, tidelands oil controversy, taxes, national defense, labor bills, anti-lynching legislation, atomic energy, and veterans issues. Finding aid.
Additional Papers: Correspondence in Charl Ormond Williams papers, 1924-1959. Finding aid.

U.S. Senate
Historical Office
Washington, DC
Oral History: Discussed in interview (February 1-June 13, 1984) with Francis O. Wilcox, chief of staff, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 240 pages.

University of Michigan
Bentley Historical Library
Ann Arbor, MI
Papers: Correspondence in Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg papers, 1884-1974; Blair Moody papers, 1928-1954; and Albert Joseph Engel papers, 1911-1959. Finding aid.

University of Texas
Center for American History
Austin, TX
Papers: 1924-1952. Ca. 1 foot. Relate primarily to his personal life and Senate service. Also 1 inch in the Thomas S. Henderson papers relating to his 1916 campaign for Congress. Finding aid.

Yale University Libraries
Manuscripts and Archives
New Haven, CT
Papers: In Edwin Montefiore Borchard papers, 1910-1950.

  • Connally, Thomas Terry. My Name is Tom Connally. New York: Crowell, 1954.
  • Gulick, Merle L. "Tom Connally as a Founder of the United Nations.'' Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1955.
  • Matheny, David Leon. "A Comparison of Selected Foreign Policy Speeches of Senator Tom Connally.'' Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1965.
  • Patenaude, Lionel V. "Garner, Sumners, and Connally: The Defeat of the Roosevelt Court Bill in 1937.'' Southwestern Historical Quarterly 74 (July 1970): 36-51.
  • Schmelzer, Janet. "Tom Connally.'' In Profiles in Power: Twentieth-Century Texans in Washington, edited by Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr., and Michael L. Collins. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1993.
  • Smyrl, Frank Herbert. "Tom Connally and the New Deal.'' Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1968.
  • Welch, June Rayfield. "Tom Connally Signed the United Nations Charter.'' In The Texas Senator, pp. 56-59. Dallas: G.L.A. Press, 1978.