Lucas graduated from Wesleyan with a law degree in 1914 and was admitted to the bar the following year.[1] He served as a schoolteacher before entering private practice in Havana.[3] During World War I, he served in the US Army and rose to become a lieutenant.[1]
In 1938, after William Dieterich declined to run for re-election, Lucas was elected to the U.S. Senate over Republican Richard J. Lyons, with a 51%–48% victory. He was re-elected in 1944.[citation needed] Lucas was a favorite son candidate and among twelve nominated at the 1944 Democratic National Convention to serve as Franklin D. Roosevelt'srunning mate in the presidential election that year.[7] With support from Harry S. Truman, he was elected party whip in 1946. Lucas, a moderate, drew support from both conservative and liberal wings of the party. He took over the Midwest campaign for Truman and was credited with assisting Truman's 1948 re-election and bringing nine Democrats into the Senate. When Alben Barkley became vice-president and resigned his seat, Lucas became majority leader. However, he was unable to build a consensus as Senate Majority Leader with the onset of the anticommunist era, and lost in 1950, to Republican Everett Dirksen. Lucas had become a target of Republican wrath with loss of political power in the Senate and the White House. His 1950 reelection campaign featured the active intervention into Illinois politics of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who traveled the state with Dirksen saying that Senator Lucas was "soft on communism." Dirksen would go on to decisively defeat Lucas with a 54% to 46% victory. Privately, in later years, Dirksen attributed his victory to Lucas's responsibilities as Senate Majority Leader, at the apparent expense of his state; Dirksen was free to campaign locally, often debating Lucas's Illinois Democratic Party proxies and calling attention to Lucas's prolonged absence from the state.
Policy positions
Overall, as Congressman and Senator Lucas focused on civil rights, labor unions, foreign policy, and agriculture. He supported anti-lynching legislation, opposed the poll tax, and was a vocal advocate for desegregation. Lucas played a major role in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. It established a federal minimum wage and maximum hours, and required overtime pay under specified conditions. He supported Franklin Roosevelt's main foreign policy initiatives, including Lend-Lease in 1941 for military aid to the Allies, and the creation of the United Nations. Lucas supported the New Deal farm programs, which were popular in rural Illinois, especially the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. As Majority Leader of the Senate in 1949-1950 he supported Harry Truman's domestic and foreign agenda.[8]
Deason, Brian. "Scott Lucas, Everett Dirksen, and the 1950 Senate Election in Illinois." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 95.1 (2002): 33–51. online
Deason, Brian Scot. "Eye of the storm: A political biography of United States Senator Scott W. Lucas of Illinois" (PhD dissertation, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2001. 3021509).
Schapsmeier, Edward L., and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. "Scott W. Lucas of Havana: His Rise and Fall as Majority Leader in the United States Senate." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 70.4 (1977): 302–320. online