The Conservative coalition was a coalition in American politics bringing together Republicans (most of whom were conservatives) and the minority of conservative Democrats, most of them from the South. The coalition largely controlled Congress from 1937 to 1964. Its most important Republican leaders was Senator Robert A Taft. The chief Democrats were Senator Richard Russell, Jr. of Georgia and Congressman Howard Smith of Virginia. Robert Alphonso Taft I (September 8, 1889 - July 31, 1953), of the Taft family political dynasty of Ohio, was a United States Senator and Presidential candidate in the United States Republican Party. ... Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. ... Howard Kingsbury Smith (May 12, 1914 - February 15, 2002) was an American journalist and radio reporter. ...

References

Scholarly Secondary Sources

• MacNeil, Neil. Forge of Democracy: The House of Representatives (1963)
• Patterson, James T. Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974 (1997) well balanced scholarly synthesis.
• Shelley II, Mack C. The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress (1983)