Born on a farm near
St. Marys, West Virginia in
Pleasants County, Bailey attended the public schools, and
West Liberty State College,
West Liberty, West Virginia. He graduated from
Geneva College in
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, in 1908. High school principal at
Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1917 and 1918. He served as district supervisor of schools 1919–1922. Bailey was a councilman of Clarksburg, W.Virginia from 1921 to 1923. He worked as an
Associated Press editor in Clarksburg, West Virginia from 1923 to 1933. He served as assistant State auditor 1933–1941, and was the state budget director 1941–1944. Bailey served as delegate to the
Democratic National Convention at
Chicago in 1932. In 1955, he allegedly punched
New York Congressman
Adam Clayton Powell over a school construction bill rider. Powell's rider would have prevented federal education funds from being allocated to states with segregated schools; Bailey opposed the rider, which was defeated. One Congressman told reporters that Bailey had hit Powell and knocked him to the floor. Bailey denied it, and stated that while Powell and he had argued, no punches were thrown. Bailey was elected as a
Democrat to the Seventy-ninth Congress (January 3, 1945 – January 3, 1947). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1946 to the Eightieth Congress. State tax statistician in 1947 and 1948. Bailey was elected to the Eighty-first and to the six succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1963). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1962 to the Eighty-eighth Congress. Bailey did not sign the 1956
Southern Manifesto and voted in favor of
Civil Rights Act of 1960 and the
24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but did not vote on the
Civil Rights Act of 1957. He was a resident of Clarksburg, West Virginia. He died in
Charleston, West Virginia, July 13, 1965. He was interred in Greenlawn Cemetery, Clarksburg, West Virginia. He has an elementary school named in his honor in
Midwest City, Oklahoma. ==References==