Philip Allen Bennett


Philip Allen Bennett was a Republican politician from the state of Missouri. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for Missouri's 6th District during the 77th Congress. Prior to that Bennett was the 31st Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and served in the Missouri Senate.

Biography

Philip A. Bennett was born near Buffalo, Missouri to Marion F. and Mary Jane Bennett, the eighth of fourteen children. Following his graduation from Buffalo High School Bennett attended Springfield Normal and Business College, earning his degree in 1902. He taught two years in Missouri public schools and worked for the Frisco Railroad before purchasing the Buffalo Reflex newspaper in 1904. Bennett would serve as editor and publisher of the Reflex until 1921 when he entered politics full-time. Bennett served as a delegate to the 1912 Republican National Convention. Philip Bennett married Mary B. Tinsley in 1912 and they would have two children, a son and a daughter. Son Marion Tinsley Bennett would follow in his father's footsteps as a Missouri politician.
In 1920 he was elected to the Missouri Senate. Bennett would serve only one term as he ran for, and won election as, Missouri Lieutenant Governor in 1924. He was not successful in a bid for Missouri Governor in 1928 and returned to the private business sector. Bennett ran for U.S. Senate in 1938 and was again defeated. However two years later, in 1940, he was elected to represent the 6th district of Missouri in the U.S. Congress. Reelected in November 1942, Bennett died before he could begin his second term. His son, Marion Tinsley Bennett, completed the term. Philip Bennett died in Washington D.C. on December 7, 1942 shortly before the beginning of his second term in Congress.