‘The Uncrowned King of the Senate’
Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma
By Ray Hill
Robert Samuel Kerr once, as a very young man, stated his life ambitions: “A family, to make a million dollars and to be Governor of Oklahoma – – – in that order.” And he accomplished his goals and more besides.
Robert S. Kerr really was born in a log cabin, an exact replica of which still exists. Kerr became immensely wealthy through hard work and oil. Tall and portly, Kerr once proclaimed his wife was nagging him about his waistline and he promised he would do anything in the world she wished to lose weight except for diet and exercise. A man of abiding faith, Kerr tithed at least 30% of his income to the Baptist church. Bob Kerr did not look like either an oil millionaire or a United States senator, preferring “baggy blue suits” that one writer for TIME magazine thought “looked as if they had been ordered from a Montgomery Ward catalogue.” Kerr was unabashed in promoting and fighting for those tax laws that would increase his own wealth. Senator Kerr pointed out that those same tax laws helped the people he represented and the state he represented. Everything Bob Kerr had invested in throughout his life was centered in Oklahoma. Kerr swatted away conflict of interest charges as if they were less troublesome than gnats. Oklahoma’s interests were his own interests. The only opinion that mattered was that of the people of Oklahoma, and they clearly agreed with Kerr. In reply to one newsman, Kerr once snapped, “You say I’m an Oklahoma Senator more than a national Senator? Yes, that’s what I’m here for.”
Bob Kerr was human. When his Black houseman was dying, Kerr sat for long hours at the bedside, holding his employee and friend’s hand with a sense of profound grief and love. Bob Kerr also regularly fought hard and neither expected quarter, nor gave any.
A man of formidable intellect and driving ambition, Bob Kerr seemed like a force of nature. When Kerr died, a writer for TIME thought Senator Kerr “defied description either as a liberal or a conservative.” The premier news magazine of the age thought the best political description that could be applied to Robert S. Kerr was “Oklahoman– and an oilman.”
Robert S. Kerr grew up in very modest circumstances, the son of a public schoolteacher. When Kerr was born on September 11, 1896, Oklahoma was not yet a state and was known as “the Indian Territory.” The log cabin in which he was born was located in Pontotoc County, near Ada. Growing up as a Baptist, Bob Kerr never drank alcohol, and his religion had a big impact on his life, as well as his politics. Kerr was still in high school when he enrolled in Oklahoma Baptist University. Kerr studied law at the University of Oklahoma until lack of funds ended his formal education. Bob Kerr was commissioned as a second lieutenant during the First World War, and he joined both the Oklahoma National Guard and the American Legion. Those same organizations widened his acquaintanceships throughout the Sooner State.
Bob Kerr’s young life combined hardship, hard work, grief and failure. Kerr managed to pass the bar exam after having “read law” in the office of a judge. Kerr married Reba Shelton, and the couple was happy for four years until Kerr watched helplessly as his wife and twin daughters died in childbirth. Kerr was also deeply in debt due to a business failure. Kerr never gave up, nor did he ever give in; he married again after Reba’s untimely passing to Grayce Breen. Together, Bob and Grayce Kerr had four children. Kerr started a new business, drilling for oil with a brother-in-law as his partner. In a few short years, the Anderson-Kerr Company became so successful that Bob Kerr closed his law office to concentrate on the oil business. The company was doing so well that Kerr’s brother-in-law opted to retire in 1936. That same year, Dean McGee joined the company. McGee was a geologist who had once worked for the massive Phillips Petroleum. By 1946, the company’s name had been changed to Kerr-McGee, and it became a behemoth of industry, drilling for oil across the globe and becoming interested in other minerals and fuels such as uranium.
Bob Kerr was becoming better known in Oklahoma, where he contributed heavily to the Baptist church and the Democratic Party. Kerr gave money to E. W. Marland and Leon Phillips during their successful gubernatorial campaigns. By 1940, Kerr was well enough known that he was able to get himself elected as Oklahoma’s Democratic National Committeeman. In 1942, Kerr began his campaign to become the chief executive of the Sooner State. A heavily Democratic state at the time, Kerr entered the crowded primary, facing six opponents for the nomination. Kerr’s most significant opponent was Gomer Smith, who had served a term in Congress, a brilliant speaker and one of the most successful attorneys in Oklahoma. Smith had become something of a perennial candidate for public office, but unlike most candidates running every two years, the lawyer had a big following in the state. Bob Kerr won the primary, besting Smith by a little more than 10,000 votes. Smith and Kerr would become deadly political enemies. Gomer Smith did damage himself politically by endorsing the candidacy of oilman Edward H. Moore, who was running as a Republican for the United States Senate in 1942. Moore, whose fortune in today’s dollars would equal roughly $1.5 billion dollars, spent freely from his own personal fortune and upset incumbent U. S. Senator Josh Lee in the general election. Bob Kerr only barely outdistanced his own GOP opponent in the general election, winning by just over 16,000 votes.
As governor, Bob Kerr ushered in a new era of cooperation between the executive and legislative branches. Kerr became a vocal advocate for his state and its products, traveling more than 400,000 miles to herald the Sooner State and its goods. It was a sign of Kerr’s rising prominence in the Democratic Party that he was chosen as the keynote speaker for the 1944 Democratic National Convention that nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for the fourth time. That same convention stripped Vice President Henry A. Wallace of the vice-presidential nomination and nominated Senator Harry Truman instead. Governor Kerr worked quietly to help secure the vice-presidential nomination for Truman.
Kerr completed his term as governor and spent two years preparing himself for a campaign for the United States Senate for the seat held by Republican E. H. Moore. Moore had been 71 years old when first elected and few were surprised when the senator announced he would not seek a second term. Oklahoma Republicans moved behind the candidacy of Congressman Ross Rizley, who had served three terms in the House of Representatives.
Although he had been a successful chief executive and had made no real political mistakes, a host of ambitious Democrats entered the primary to compete for the senatorial nomination, men who had or held numerous state offices, including attorney general, secretary of state, and lieutenant governor, and two former congressmen. After a hiatus of six years, Gomer Smith also entered the Democratic primary. Oklahoma had enacted a run-off election provision stating a candidate had to win the nomination with a majority. In the first primary, the former governor only garnered 37% of the vote, although Gomer Smith trailed a very distant second. “Old Gomer,” as the attorney was known by tens of thousands of Sooners, put up a game fight, winning 42% of the vote in the run-off election.
At the time, the GOP presidential nominee, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, was widely considered the heavy favorite to win the presidency from Harry Truman. Dewey was even expected by some to have a good chance to carry border states like Tennessee and Oklahoma. Some prognosticators believed Dewey had a chance to carry the Sooner State because Mrs. Dewey was an Oklahoman by birth. Kerr campaigned hard and took nothing for granted. Ross Rizley ran a full-fledged and well-funded campaign, but it was a Democratic year, polls and pollsters notwithstanding. Kerr won the general election with better than 62% of the vote.
Bob Kerr entered the Senate with a freshman class that included Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Paul Douglas of Illinois, Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, and Russell Long of Louisiana. The freshman class also included two former U.S. senators who made it back to Capitol Hill, Guy Gillette of Iowa and Matthew Neely of West Virginia. Many of those freshmen senators would have a major impact upon American politics for decades to come.
Although a freshman senator, Kerr buckled down to work hard on his committee assignments and assembled a staff designed to communicate well with and serve the people of Oklahoma. The Oklahoman’s colleagues soon learned Kerr was a masterful and skilled debater with a brilliant mind, who thought fast on his feet, and had a sharp tongue that could easily pierce the pride of an opponent. Kerr was especially close to his fellow freshman colleague Lyndon Johnson, and both men built valuable relationships with Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who was the informal leader of perhaps the most powerful bloc inside the U.S. Senate: the Southern Democrats.
Almost from the beginning of his time in the United States Senate, Bob Kerr pushed for federal funding for a project which, at least initially, boggled the minds of many. Kerr wanted to open up the landlocked State of Oklahoma to the sea. Senator John L. McClellan had the same ambition for his own state of Arkansas. The project and Kerr’s vision outlived the senator but eventually, and $1.2 billion later, it became known as the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System and brought billions of dollars’ worth of development to Oklahoma. What had once been a rather stagnant section of the Sooner State became an economic oasis due to Kerr’s efforts.
So, too, was Bob Kerr a thorough conservationist, never forgetting his father’s admonition that, “To raise a family, you have to have three things – – – land, wood and water.” Kerr was the author of a book of the same name and became the Senate’s most vocal conservationist of natural resources while also its’ foremost capitalist.
After a brief flirtation with a quixotic bid for the 1952 Democratic presidential nomination, Kerr gave up whatever national ambitions he might have had to double down on his efforts on behalf of Oklahoma and Oklahomans. Kerr’s growing influence inside the Senate was not enough to deter a serious opponent in his 1954 reelection campaign. Governor Roy Turner fought a bitter primary with the senator in a nine-candidate free-for-all. Senator Kerr won with a plurality and won the general election handily.
Bob Kerr’s last campaign was in 1960, and his stature in the Senate and political prominence in Oklahoma were enough to allow him to sail through the primary with little opposition. Kerr campaigned less for himself in the general election than for Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kennedy. Oklahoma was an overwhelmingly Protestant state and had voted for Republican Herbert Hoover rather than Catholic Al Smith. Bob Kerr was the most prominent Baptist layman in the Sooner State, and he worked hard on behalf of Kennedy, but it was Richard Nixon who carried Oklahoma.
Senator Kerr was one of the most important members of the United States Senate during the brief administration of John F. Kennedy. Kerr also had the power to upset the Kennedy Administration’s plans, as he did with Medicare. The Oklahoman’s influence, according to one reporter, made him the “Uncrowned King of the Senate.”
Kerr experienced a mild heart attack which sent him to the hospital. On January 1, 1963, the senator suffered another heart attack, which cut short his life. Robert S. Kerr was a man who was larger than life. His legacy still lives on in the land, wood and water of his beloved Oklahoma.
© 2025 Ray Hill
