Bourke B. Hickenlooper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bourke B. Hickenlooper
Bourke B. Hickenlooper

Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper (July 21, 1896September 4, 1971), was a member of the Republican Party, first elected to statewide office in Iowa as lieutenant governor, serving from 1939 to 1942 and then as Governor from 1943 to 1944. Hickenlooper was first elected to the United States Senate in 1944. He served in the Senate from 1945 to 1969.

Born in 1896 in Blockton, Iowa, Hickenlooper's college education at Iowa State College in Ames was interrupted by his service in the U.S. Army. He served as an officer in France during World War I. After his military service Hickenlooper continued his education at Iowa State and then went on to the University of Iowa College of Law, where he received a law degree in 1922. He practiced law in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In the Senate, Hickenlooper was known as part of the most conservative and isolationistic members of the Republican Party, and as possibly one of the most conservative American congressmen. He became one of the most powerful Republicans in the Senate, serving as the Republican Policy Committee Chairman from 1962 to 1969. In this position, he had an intense rivalry with Everett Dirksen, the liberal Senate Republican leader at the time. Hickenlooper opposed civil rights legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, largely because Dirksen was working on this legislation in collaboration with liberal Democrats and attempting to get Republicans to support it, which would threaten Hickenlooper's power.[citation needed] He died in 1971 in Shelter Island, New York and is buried at the Cedar Memorial Park cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

[edit] Legislation

1962 Hickenlooper Amendment to the foreign aid bill cuts off aid to any country expropriating US property.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
George A. Wilson
Governor of Iowa
January 14, 1943January 11, 1945
Succeeded by
Robert D. Blue
Preceded by
Guy M. Gillette
U.S. Senator (Class 3) From Iowa
19451969
Succeeded by
Harold E. Hughes