Winfield
Kirkpatrick Denton
Winfield Denton attended DePauw University until the United States' entry into World War I. He then enlisted in the Army as a private, but later transferred to the Air Corps where he was commissioned a second lieutenant and served as a pilot in France. After the war, Denton returned to DePauw and completed his A.B. degree in 1919. He then entered Harvard Law School where he received his J.D. degree in 1922. Denton returned to Evansville and began a legal practice. In 1927 he married Grace L. Abernathy and they were the parents of two children. Denton served as Prosecuting Attorney for Vanderburgh County from 1932-1936 and was a member of the Indiana General Assembly from 1937-1942. While serving in the state legislature, Denton was Caucus Chairman in 1939, Minority Leader in 1941 and a member of the State Budget Committee from 1940-1942. At the outbreak of the second world war, he re-enlisted in the Army Air Corps and served in the Judge Advocate General's Department at Wright Field, Ohio. He was discharged from the service in 1945 as a lieutenant colonel. In 1948 Denton was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives from the 8th Indiana District and served two terms (81st-82nd Congresses) as a member of the Democratic Party before being defeated in the 1952 election. He returned to Congress in 1955 and served until 1967 (84th-89th Congresses). While in the House, Denton served on the House Appropriations Committee, the subcommittee on Labor, Health, Education & Welfare and the subcommittee on Interior and Insular Affairs. He was also a member of the NATO Parliamentary Conference from 1959-1966. After losing in the 1966 election, Denton returned to Evansville where he continued his legal practice until his death in 1971. Historical materials relating to the life and career of former U.S. Rep. Winfield K. Denton are available for use at the Indiana Historical Society's William Henry Smith Memorial Library. The collection, housed in 50 manuscript boxes, includes Denton's personal, legal, political and Congressional papers, as well as newspaper clippings, scrapbooks and photographs. Winfield K. Denton
died in Evansville, Indiana on November 2, 1971 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
George Kirkpatrick Denton, father of Winfield K. Denton, was also a United States Representative from Indiana. Born near Sebree, Webster County, Kentucky on November 17, 1864. George attended public schools and Van Horn Institute and was graduated from the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware in 1891 and from the law department of Boston University in 1893. He was admitted to the bar in 1893 and commenced practice in Evansville, Indiana where he served as counsel for the Intermediate Life Insurance Co. George Denton was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1917-March 3, 1919) after which he resumed the practice of law in Evansville, Indiana. He was also a candidate for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator in 1926, but died before the primary election in Evansville on January 4, 1926 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery.
In Defense
Of the Arts Endowment The first congressional hearing to consider National Endowment of the Arts funding in 1966 was presided over by Interior Subcommittee Chairman Winfield Denton who was from rural Indiana. Powerful and thoroughly conversant with the complexities of Interior Department programs, Denton suddenly had the endowment placed in his jurisdiction because the House didn't quite know what to do with it. Chairman Stevens presented a statement that I, as his deputy, had helped him prepare. As Stevens read to the bottom of the second page of 17, the venerable gentleman conducting the hearing appeared to meditate so profoundly that his head lowered and his breathing grew measured. Stevens, indignant, whispered to me for guidance. Sensing a disastrous wake-up call and its potential effect on our congressional relations, I whispered back that it was simply a case of deep thinking in progress. At the end of page 17, when Chairman Denton opened his eyes, he said the statement had been "illuminating" and asked if Stevens could expand on the second paragraph of page four for the record. Stevens complied. Rejection and Revival Word was passed to me from the committee that the proposed arts program was (a) incomprehensible and (b) the worst boondoggle the chairman had ever encountered. In his view, it merited zero funds. A negative opinion of that sort voiced by a chairman of in the House, was tantamount to the demise of the NEA before it ever got going. I requested a meeting to restate our case, persisted in the request and in due course was given an appointment of only five minutes. I was told it wouldn't do one speck of good to plead for the NEA. One five-minute meeting was followed by others until a day when I was greeted with a slight smile, called by name and invited into the chairman's private office. "I'm running for re-election," Denton said. "I know," I responded. Gazing at me, he began talking about a trip to his district over the previous weekend. He had traveled in an old car on one of the many country roads until he reached a fork with a dirt track sloping off to the right. There he spotted a handwritten sign that said "Art Auction." He continued: "This fellow, Biddle, I said to myself, has been trying to brainwash me for weeks. Maybe I owe him a trip down the hill." At the foot of the hill was an old barn. He entered. Facing him was a small painting of another old barn that he thought looked exactly like the barn on his grandmother's property when he was young. He asked the price. A young man with long hair seated on the floor nearby rose and replied: "Five dollars." "Well," said the chairman, "I gave it to him, and he gave me the picture. And here's the remarkable thing. There must have been 200 people in that old barn. One by one they came up to me and said, 'Congressman, we've known you for years, and we never thought we'd live to see the day when you bought a painting!'" He paused. Then he said, "You're right. There are votes in this!"
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