RARE “Illinois Senator" Charles W. Brooks Hand Signed FDC Dated 1932 For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Illinois Senator" Charles W. Brooks Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1932. 

ES-5256E

Charles Wayland Brooks (March 8, 1897 – January 14, 1957) was a Republican U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1940 to 1949. Born in West Bureau, Illinois, Brooks served in the Marines during World War I as a first lieutenant from 1917 to 1919; while in combat he was wounded several times. Brooks ran for Governor of Illinois in 1936 but was defeated by incumbent Democrat Henry Horner. He was elected by a very narrow margin in 1940 to fill the senate vacancy caused by the death of J. Hamilton Lewis. Brooks was reelected in 1942, but was defeated in 1948 by Democrat Paul Douglas. On 11 April 1945, US forces liberated the Buchenwald Concentration Camp which was established in 1937 and caused the death of at least 56,545 people. General Eisenhower left rotting corpses unburied so a visiting group of US legislators could truly understand the horror of the atrocities. This group was visiting Buchenwald to inspect the camp and learn firsthand about the enormity of the Nazi Final Solution and treatment of other prisoners. The legislators who visited included Alben W. Barkley, Ed Izac, John M. Vorys, Dewey Short, C. Wayland Brooks, and Kenneth S. Wheery along with General Omar N. Bradley and journalists Joseph Pulitzer, Norman Chandler, William I. Nichols and Julius Ochs Adler. Brooks returned to Chicago and died at age 59 at Passavant Hospital in early 1957, after a massive heart attack.