Meade Alcorn

Hugh Meade Alcorn, Jr. ( born October 20, 1907 in Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut, † 13 January 1992 ) was an American politician and 1957-1959 Chairman of the Republican National Committee, the party organization of the Republicans.

Lawyer and state politician

Alcorn initially proposed a legal career. After graduating from Dartmouth College and at Yale University, he worked at the law firm Tyler, Cooper & Alcorn, who had co-founded his father. Hugh Mead Alcorn was a prosecutor in Hartford County and competed unsuccessfully in 1934 for the post of Governor of Connecticut. Meade Alcorn in 1935 deputy prosecutor and succeeded his father in office after 1942, when he retired.

Previously, he had since 1937, the House of Representatives from Connecticut belongs since 1941 and serves as its Speaker. In Parliament, he was one of the leaders of the Republicans; his opponent was on the Democratic side, John Moran Bailey, who in the 1960s was chairman of the Democratic National Committee. 1948 Alcorn target to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, but was defeated in the primaries of his party James C. Shannon, then after the death of Governor James McConaughy took over his duties. When Shannon then in 1949 applied for its own term as governor, Alcorn was his running mate; However, they were subject to the Democrats Chester Bowles and William T. Carroll.

Party Political Engagement

As a result, Alcorn concentrated more on his intra-party activities and desired no more elective office at. In 1953 he was appointed to the Republican National Committee, which he chairs then finally in 1957 took over as successor to Leonard W. Hall. When he retired after 26 months in office on April 1, 1959, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower paid tribute to him in a letter as "outstanding speakers of our party." Alcorn belonged then to the campaign team of Vice President Richard Nixon, but just failed at the Democrat John F. Kennedy.

In the following years, Alcorn remained in the ranks of the Republicans a sought-after partner for political strategies. Prior to the presidential election in 1968, he was an advisor to Nelson Rockefeller, who was defeated as a representative of the liberal Republicans in the primaries, Richard Nixon. When three Republicans asked in advance of the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, George Bush and John Connally to its services, Alcorn refused all requests. He remained in retirement and died in 1992 at the consequences of a heart attack. Meade Alcorn was twice married and has one daughter. His brother Howard was also state politicians in Connecticut and a senior judge of the Supreme Court there were two great-grandnephew of James L. Alcorn, former Governor of the State of Mississippi.