John Little McClellan
John Little McClellan (
25 February 1896 –
28 November 1977) was a
Democratic Party politician from
Arkansas. He represented Arkansas in the
United States Senate from
1943 until
1977. He also represented Arkansas in the
United States House of Representatives.
McClellan was born in
Sheridan,
Grant County,
Arkansas. He came from a Democratic family who named him after Democratic Governor and Representative
John Sebastian Little. McClellan studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1913 at the age of 17, becoming the youngest lawyer in the United States. He started private law practice in Sheridan.
McClellan served in the
United States Army from 1917 to 1919 during
World War I as a
First Lieutenant in the aviation section of the
US Signal Corps.
After returning from the Army in 1919, he moved to
Malvern, Arkansas where he served as prosecuting attorney in the 7th judicial district from 1927 to 1930.
In 1935, McClellan was elected as a Representative of the
Democratic Party from the 6th District of Arkansas to the 74th Congress. He was re-elected to the 75th Congress in 1937.
He did not run for re-election to the U.S. House in 1938. Instead, he pursued an unsuccessful candidacy for the U.S. Senate against the sitting incumbent and the first elected female senator in
US History,
Hattie Caraway. In 1940, 1944, and 1948, McClellan was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from Arkansas. During this period, he moved to
Camden, Arkansas to practice law.
McClellan served as Senator from Arkansas from 1943 to 1977, when he died in office. During his tenure, he served as chairman of the Appropriations Committee and served 22 years as chairman of the Committee on Government Operations. McClellan was the longest serving United States Senator in Arkansas history. During the later part of his Senate service Arkansas had, perhaps, the most powerful Congressional delegations with McClellan as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee,
Wilbur Mills as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee,
Oren Harris as chairman of the House Commerce Committee, Senator
J. William Fulbright as chairman of the Senate foreign relations Committee,
Took Gathings as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and
James W. Trimble as a member of the powerful House Rules Committee.
McClellan also served for eighteen years as chairman of the
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (1955 – 1973) and continued the hearings into
subversive activities at
U.S. Army Signal Corps Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where
Soviet spies Julius Rosenberg,
Al Sarant and
Joel Barr all worked in the 1940s.
He was a participant of the famous
Army-McCarthy Hearings and led a Democratic walkout of that subcommittee in protest of Senator
Joseph McCarthy's conduct in those hearings. McClellan appeared in the
2005 movie
Good Night, and Good Luck., in footage from the actual hearings.
Under his leadership, the committee conducted the famous
Valachi Hearings investigating
Teamsters head
Jimmy Hoffa. During this period, he hired
Robert F. Kennedy as chief counsel and vaulted him into the national spotlight. McClellan investigated numerous cases of government corruption including numerous defense contractors and
Texas financier
Billie Sol Estes.
McClellan experienced many personal tragedies in his life. McClellan's second wife died of
spinal meningitis in 1935 and his son Max died of the same disease while serving in Africa during
World War II in 1943. His son John L. Jr. died in 1949 in an automobile accident. His son James H. died in a plane crash in 1958.
McClellan died in
Little Rock, Arkansas in 1977 and was buried at Roselawn Memorial Park in Little Rock.
The
Army Corps of Engineers maintained
McClellan-Kerr Navigation System on the
Arkansas River is named in his honor.
Ouachita Baptist University is the repository for his official papers.
