John Nance Garner

November 22, 1868 – November 7, 1967

John Nance Garner (1868–1967), known as "Cactus Jack," was the 32nd Vice President of the United States, serving from 1933 to 1941 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A Democrat, he was the 39th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1931 to 1933, after serving as a U.S. Representative from Texas from 1903 to 1933.

Who else was alive Wikipedia

Biography

John Nance Garner was born in 1868 in a log cabin in Red River County, Texas. He spent one semester at Vanderbilt University, read law in Clarksville, Texas, and was admitted to the bar in 1890, later settling in Uvalde. In 1893 he was elected county judge of Uvalde County, and he married Mariette Rheiner, who later worked as his secretary throughout his congressional career.

In the Texas House of Representatives from 1899 to 1903 he backed the prickly pear as state flower, earning the nickname Cactus Jack, and voted for the poll tax. Elected to Congress in 1902 from a district drawn for him, he served fifteen terms, becoming Democratic floor leader in 1929 and Speaker of the House in December 1931.

At the 1932 Democratic convention he released his delegates to Franklin D. Roosevelt and became his running mate, winning in 1932 and again in 1936. He used his congressional friendships to steer early New Deal laws through Congress and took an active part in cabinet, but from 1937 he broke with Roosevelt over sit-down strikes, deficit spending and the plan to enlarge the Supreme Court.

He challenged Roosevelt for the 1940 nomination and lost heavily. Leaving office in January 1941, he retired to Uvalde, where he died in 1967, two weeks short of his 99th birthday, the longest-lived vice president.