William E. Jenner

Who was William E. Jenner?

William Ezra Jenner was a U.S. Republican Indiana State and U.S. Senator.

Jenner was born in Marengo, Crawford County, Indiana. He graduated with a Law degree from Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington in 1930, and set up practice in Paoli, Indiana. He was elected to the Indiana State Senate in 1934, serving as Minority Leader 1937 – 1939, and Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore 1939 – 1941. To serve in the military upon U.S. entry to World War II, he resigned his seat in 1942. He returned from overseas action to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate caused by the death of Frederick Van Nuys and served from November 14, 1944, to January 3, 1945; however, he was not a candidate for election to the full term. He did run for Indiana's Class I seat in the Senate in 1946; he won and was re-elected in 1952. His friendship with fellow Indiana University classmate Harold W. Handley meant he was able to help Handley secure the Republican nomination for and election to the offices of Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Indiana.

In Congress, he was a follower of Joseph McCarthy. He stated in 1954:

Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government – a bureaucratic elite. We have a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state... The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization. It is a dynamic, aggressive, elite corps, forcing its way through every opening, to make a breach for a collectivist one-party state. It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government without suspecting that change is under way... If I seem to be extremist, the reason is that this revolutionary clique cannot be understood, unless we accept the fact that they are extremist. It is difficult for people governed by reasonableness and morality to imagine the existence of a movement which ignores reasonableness and boasts of its determination to destroy; which ignores morality, and boasts of its cleverness in outwitting its opponents by abandoning all scruples. This ruthless power-seeking elite is a disease of our century... This group ... is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.