Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 05:09:30 :
Independent Journal
Saturday, May 17, 1980
Page 1
Roger Kent dies; active in politics
Roger Kent, a longtime leader in California Democratic politics, attorney and host to countless gatherings for worthy causes and political campaigns in his Kent Woodlands home, died Friday night in a local hospital.
He had been ill for some time. He would have turned 74 on June 8.
“It’s the passing of an era. A part of Democratic politics in Marin is gone. It’s very sad,” Larkspur City Councilman Michael Wornum said today of Kent’s death.
Kent was never elected to public office, although he twice ran for Congress after World War II. It was as an organizer of rank-and-file volunteers and architect of effective party machinery during campaigns that he gained statewide and national recognition.
He served as either state chairman or Northern California chairman of the California Democratic Centra C ommittee continuously from 1954 to 1965, when he stepped down to head Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown’s unsuccessful campaign to stave off the challenge of Republican Ronald Reagan for the governorship.
Kent was born in Chicago but grew up in Kent Woodlands and in Washington. His father, William Kent, served three terms as First District congressman as a Bull Moose Republican, and his mother, Elizabeth, was a leader in suffragette campaigns.
His family once recalled that when he was 4 years old, Roger Kent was seen running breathlessly around a huge redwood tree on the Kent estate. Asked what he was doing, the child explained, “I’m running for Congress.”
He actually did run in 1948, persuaded to do so by Judge Samuel W. Gardiner, then a leader in Marin Democratic circles. Judge Richard Sims and Elizabeth Smith were leaders of his campaign. He lost the Democratic nomination by a few hundred votes. He won the party nod when he ran again in 1950 but lost to a Republican.
In his boyhood, Kent attended Tamalpais High School and a private school in Ojai. He then attended Yale undergraduate and law schools, becoming an attorney in San Francisco. He married Alice Cooke in Hawaii in 1930.
In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named him an attorney to the Federal Securities
and Exchange Commission. He served in the Navy during World War II, receiving a Silver Star for combat at Guadalcanal and promotion to commander’s rank before returning to civilian life in 1945.
He was a member of the general civil service loyalty board in 1949 and became the Pentagon’s top lawyer under President Harry Truman from 1952 to 1953.
At times in Marin, he was active for such causes as Marin General Hospital and headed a campaign for the bond issue that led to the hospital’s construction.
In later years, he also served as a member of a commission that advised the postmaster general on new stamp designs, a reflection of his hobby of stamp collecting. He also loved outdoor sports and like to cook.
Kent had a reputation for being an “old pro” in politics and sometimes was involved in dramatic verbal clashes with both Republicans and members of his own party. But his zest for politics was leavened with humor. Once when San Francisco’s Republican Mayor George Christopher penned a lengthy poem about “The duke of Kent Woodlands,” Kent wrote back to Christopher that he was sending the work for analysis by his friends, Carl Sandburg, a poet, and Karl Menninger, widely known psychiatrist.
Kent is survived by his wife, of the home; two daughters, Marty Schardt of Kentfield and Alice Stephens of Larkspur; a son, Clarence Kent of Tucson; a brother, Sherman Kent of Washington; and seven grandchildren.
Independent Journal
Monday, May 19, 1980
ROGER KENT
A memorial service for Roger Kent, longtime local and national Democratic leader, will be held Thursday at 4 p.m. at his residence at 200 Woodland Road, Kent Woodlands.
Kent died Friday at a local hospital after a lengthy illness. He was 73.
There will be a private family funeral Tuesday.
The family prefers memorial contributions to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, the National Parks Conservation Association or Guide Dogs for the Blind.
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