Talk:George Smathers

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Contents 1 Oldest living 2 1950 election 3 Money 4 Dead 5 Father

[edit] Oldest living

"He is currently the oldest living former US senator."

Replaced with

"He is currently the earliest living former US senator."

Smathers is NOT the oldest living former seantor, that honor belongs to Clifford P. Hansen of Wyoming. Smathers is the earliest living US senator, as in that nobody is alive who was appointed senator before he was in 1951.

[edit] 1950 election

Cut from article:

It is also widely claimed that Smathers won the election by using linguistic tricks to attack Pepper before uneducated audiences, such as stating that Pepper had a "thespian" sister and a "Homo sapiens" brother, although Smathers repeatedly denied these claims during his term in the Senate.

This was apparently cribbed from a 1970 article in Mad Magazine:

• His youngest brother wrote an essay extolling the virtues of being a homo sapiens.
• His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the act in front of paying customers. [1]

It could not have been "cribbed" from a 1970 article, because Time reported it in 1950[2]. While the quote is most likely apocryphal, considering that it is probably the one thing Smathers is most famous for, it seems strange to cut the mention of it completely. That would be like having an entry on Louis XIV and not mentioning, "L'etat c'est mois." Better to discuss the issue and evaluate its veracity.

[edit] Money

What I'd like to know more about is how this politician came into millions of dollars he could afford to give away. While acting as a public servant, how was he fortunate enough to acquire such vast sums of money?

[edit] Dead

He is dead. Perhaps we should fix this?

[edit] Father

I see there are a number of sources (some seemingly reliable) stating that his father (unnamed in the sources) was a federal judge, but the Federal Judicial Center site indicates that no one named Smathers has ever been a federal judge [3]. I'm going to delete the reference in the absence of the father's name and evidence to the contrary. Maybe he was a state judge? MisfitToys 21:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)