House career Connally ran unopposed and was elected to the
Texas House of Representatives in 1900 and 1902. During his tenure in the Texas House he was a prominent opponent of monopolies and co-authored the Texas Anti-Trust Law of 1903. After taking a leave of absence to fight in
World War I, Connally returned to the House where he served on the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs and worked against isolationist policies. He was also opposed to equal education for black people. Connally was, however, opposed to the Dixiecrats, once reflecting in his autobiography (in regards to the 1948 presidential election) that “I strongly opposed the Dixiecrat movement during the Convention. A hard-boiled group of Southern Democrats, they were extremely conservative. All they talked about was states’ rights, their hatred of Roosevelt, even though he was dead, and their contempt for Truman." Although ideologically progressive, and generally supportive of the New Deal, Connally didn't always support Roosevelt. He opposed, for instance, Roosevelt's proposal to reform the Supreme Court. Connally opposed it partly on liberal grounds, arguing “Let some reactionary administration come to power,” I warned, “and it would immediately say: ‘The Democrats stacked the court, and now we have as much right to restack as they had. We will thereby add enough judges so that we will have a responsive court, a court that will do the bidding of this reactionary administration and repeal all the liberal laws placed on the statute books by the Democrats.’ ” Later he came into conflict with
Richard Russell who chaired the caucus over Russell's more reasonable approach - a conflict which Russell won. In 1953, Connally retired from the Senate, ending his career in national politics. As Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was instrumental in the ratification of the treaty creating the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 1943 a confidential analysis by British scholar
Isaiah Berlin of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the British government characterized Senator Connally: :The chairman of the Committee, Tom Connally of Texas, is a very typical, exuberant Southern figure with the appearance and mannerisms of an old-fashioned actor and a gay and hearty manner which conceals lack both of strength and of clear public principles. He is normally the spokesman of the Administration and, in particular, of the Department of State. His voting record is that of a straight interventionist. His principal point of deviation from [Secretary of State] Hull's policies is the subject to which Mr. Hull has dedicated a large portion of his life, namely, the policy of reciprocal trade. Representing as he does, a great cattle breeding State, his enthusiasm for free trade with, e.g., the Argentine, is not ardent. He has been a solid supporter of the department's policies toward, e.g., France and North Africa. His support of its economic policies is regarded as doubtful. On internal issues he shares all the beliefs and prejudices of the South. During his time in office, Senator Connally also served as the first delegate from the United States to the United Nations First Committee, known at the time in 1946 as The Political and Security Committee. Meetings of the First Committee were held from October to December 1946 in the village of Lake Success in New York. Mr. Connally was the first to move for the recommendation to the General Assembly to accept the applications of Afghanistan, Iceland, and Sweden, after they had been approved by the Security Council. On October 20, 1951, when General
Mark Wayne Clark, an Episcopalian whose mother was Jewish, was nominated by
President Harry Truman to be the
U.S. emissary to the Holy See, Connally protested against the decision on the basis that Clark was alleged to have caused a large number of needless deaths at the
Battle of Rapido River. Clark withdrew his nomination on January 13, 1952. ==Personal life==