JFK SWORN IN AS US SENATOR

JFK+50:  Volume 6, No. 1817

JFK SWORN IN AS UNITED STATES SENATOR TWICE ON JANUARY 3RD

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) John F. Kennedy was sworn on January 3rd twice as United States Senator representing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The first came 62 years ago today, January 3, 1953 and the second came 56 years ago today, January 3, 1959.

In his first election to the United States Senate, Representative John F. Kennedy, a 35 year old three term 11th district congressman, narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. in the fall election.

The Lodge family had ruled political life in the Commonwealth for many years and JFK's grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, had been defeated by Cabot Lodge's grandfather for the United States Senate in 1916.

The Senate election of 1952 marked the end of the Lodge dynasty and the beginning of the Kennedy dynasty in Massachusetts.  Since 1953, no member of the Lodge family has held political office in the Commonwealth.

Senator Kennedy served on the Government Operations and Labor as well as the Public Welfare committees during his 1st term.  The other senator representing Massachusetts was Republican Leverett Saltonstall*.

After being sworn in for his second Senate term, Senator Kennedy, age 41, joined the 86th Congress as a member for the Foreign Relations Committee, the Public Welfare Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

*Leverett A. Saltonstall (1892-1979) served as Governor of Massachusetts 1939-1945 and United States Senator 1945-1967.  LAS was born in Chestnut Hill, MA to a family that traced its roots back to the Mayflower.  He graduated from Harvard in 1914 and Harvard Law School in 1917.  LAS served in the US Army in WWI.