"12th Governor Of Oklahoma" Robert S. Kerr Hand Signed TLS Dated 1954 For Sale

Up for sale "Oklahoma Senator" Robert S. Kerr Signed TLS Dated 1954. 

ES-3849D

Robert Samuel Kerr (September

11, 1896 – January 1, 1963) was an American businessman and politician

from Oklahoma. Kerr formed a petroleum company before turning to politics. He served as the 12th Governor of Oklahoma and

was elected three times to the United States Senate. Kerr

worked natural resources, and his legacy includes water projects that link

the Arkansas River via

the Gulf of Mexico. He was the

first Oklahoma governor born in the territory of the state. Kerr was born in a

log cabin in Pontotoc County —

near what is now Ada — in Indian Territory, the son of William Samuel Kerr, a farmer,

clerk, and politician, and Margaret Eloda Wright. Kerr's upbringing as a

Southern Baptist had a profound influence on his life. Not only did his

religious beliefs lead him to teach Sunday school and to shun alcohol

throughout his adulthood, it also aided his political aspirations in a

conservative state where Baptists were the single largest denomination. He

enrolled at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee as a junior in high school. He later attended and

graduated from East Central Normal School in

Ada. He briefly studied law at the University of Oklahoma until

poverty forced him to drop out in 1916. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Kerr was commissioned as a second

lieutenant in the army.[1] He never saw combat, but he used his

active involvement in the Oklahoma National Guard and the American Legion to

forward his business and political careers. He then returned to study law under

an Ada judge. Kerr passed the bar exam in 1922, but a business failure the previous

year had left him deeply in debt. In 1924, his wife of more than four years,

Reba Shelton, died in childbirth, along with his twin daughters. The next year

he married Grayce Breene, the youngest daughter of a wealthy Tulsa family. They

had four children. Kerr

used his new family connections to enter the oil business with his brother-in-law,

James L. Anderson, as his partner. By 1929 the Anderson-Kerr Drilling Company

had become so prosperous that Kerr abandoned his law practice to focus on oil.

Anderson retired in 1936, and Dean A. McGee, former chief geologist for

Phillips Petroleum, joined the firm, which changed its name in 1946 to Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Incorporated. Kerr-McGee

diversified into global drilling for petroleum and processed other fuels and

minerals, including uranium and helium. Kerr's growing wealth and business ties

made him a power in state Democratic politics during the 1930s. He worked to

raise funds for both Governors E.W. Marland and Leon C. Phillips. In 1940, he was elected as Democratic

national committeeman for Oklahoma. Two years later he ran for the

Democratic nomination for governor, campaigning as a supporter both of the New

Deal and of a vigorous U.S. role in World War II. Oklahoma's Democrats were

divided over President Franklin Roosevelt's

policies, leading to a bitter campaign. Kerr narrowly won the primary and went

on to win by a small margin in the general election. He was the first

native-born governor. Kerr's

four-year term as governor served as a turning point for Oklahoma's politics

and economy. For the first time in the state's history, executive-legislative

relations remained cordial, largely due to Kerr's patient leadership. When not cultivating legislators, the

governor prepared his state to weather postwar economic storms. Kerr traveled

more than 400,000 miles to sell Oklahoma's products and potential throughout

the nation. Not coincidentally, Kerr's boosterism also promoted his own

political fortunes. In 1944 he was chosen to deliver the keynote address at the

Democratic National Convention, where he played a back-room role in the

selection of Harry S. Truman as

vice president. During World War II, despite the tendency of

Oklahomans to keep the federal government at arm's length, Kerr promoted ties

to the government, knowing how important the jobs and activity were to create

prosperity. Oklahoma became home to many wartime

industries and was a training site for military personnel. After the war, he

called for increased spending to allow for post-war development of the state. Kerr traveled around the country to

promote Oklahoma at his own expense. Kerr was among 12 nominated at the 1944 Democratic

National Convention to serve as Roosevelt's running mate that year.  He used his success as governor to

catapult himself into the U.S. Senate in 1948. Although Kerr had national ambitions,

he always put what he considered to be the interests of his state first. Unlike

many of his peers he generally neglected headline-grabbing issues, including

anticommunism, foreign affairs, and civil rights (although Kerr did not sign

the 1956 Southern Manifesto and

voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1957),[9] in favor of more mundane topics such as

oil policies and public works. He believed Oklahomans would benefit most, and

support him strongly, if he concentrated on concrete economic matters. In a

closely contested race, Kerr became the first Oklahoma governor elected to the

Senate. He in 1952, but he failed to win the Democratic nomination. Instead he

devoted his energies to building his Senate career. Kerr's activism on natural

gas regulation quickly won him a reputation among his colleagues for being a

staunch defender of his region and its special interests, including his own

petroleum company. His personality reinforced these first impressions. Kerr's

colleagues widely considered him a brilliant debater who overwhelmed his

opponents with his passion and his mastery of policy detail.