Walter Franklin George (January 29, 1878 – August 4, 1957) was an American politician from the state of Georgia. He was a longtime Democratic United States Senator from 1922 to 1957 and was President pro tempore of the United States Senate from 1955 to 1957.

Born near Preston, Georgia, George practiced law after graduating from Mercer University. He was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. He served on the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1917 to 1922, resigning from the bench to successfully run for the Senate. Philosophically a conservative Democrat, George refrained from endorsing the 1932 presidential nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt and openly objected to the President's 1937 court packing plan. However, despite his philosophical views, George supported much of Roosevelt's domestic policy and led the implementation of the President's foreign policy. He served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1941 to 1946 in which he generally supported Roosevelt's handling of World War II. George also served as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1940 to 1941 and 1955 to 1957.

Throughout his political career, George was generally viewed as more moderate on civil rights than other Southern U.S. Senators. Nevertheless, George opposed integration in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and, in the Southern Manifesto, which he not only signed, but formally presented to the Senate, condemned Brown v. Board of Education as the "unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court . . . [that] is now bearing fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law."

By the end of his Senate career, George was one of the most powerful U.S. Senators and was well-regarded by both political parties and by liberals and conservatives. George was an early and leading champion of vocational education, a strict constitutionalist who believed in limited federal government, a fiscal conservative. During the course of his Senate career, he transitioned from being a foreign isolationist to a fervent supporter of internationalism, including playing an important role in the Senate's 1945 approval of the United Nations Charter. George retired from the Senate in 1957 and died later that same year. Reflecting the esteem with which George was held, 40 members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, attended his funeral in Vienna, Georgia, and President Dwight Eisenhower ordered flags at all U.S. federal buildings lowered to half-mast.

George was born on a farm near Preston, Georgia, the son of sharecroppers Sarah (Stapleton) and Robert Theodoric George. He attended public schools and then Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He received his law degree from Mercer in 1901 and entered the practice of law. George served as a judge of the Georgia Court of Appeals in 1917 and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1917 to 1922. While he was a judge he was a "vociferous reader" of serious history as well as historical novels.

George resigned from the Supreme Court of Georgia to run for a seat in the United States Senate, which became available due to the death of Thomas E. Watson. George won the special election but, rather than take his seat immediately when the Senate reconvened on November 21, 1922, George allowed the appointed Rebecca Latimer Felton to be sworn in, making her the first woman seated in the Senate, and serving until George took office on November 22, 1922, one day later. George was re-elected to his first full six-year term in 1926. He served in the Senate from 1922 until 1957, declining to run for a sixth full term in 1956. At that time, the Republican Party in Georgia was very weak, so the real re-election contests for George were in the Democratic primaries.

During the 1920s, George, a Democrat, tended to vote conservatively. George supported prohibition, opposed civil rights legislation, and voted against federal anti-lynching legislation based upon his belief that the measures were unconstitutional as law enforcement was a state law matter under the Constitution. George was a strong supporter of free enterprise and business, expressing significant support for Georgia-based companies, including the Coca-Cola Company and Georgia Power Company. The power of free enterprise, capitalism and markets to create jobs and raise living standards were a key tenet of George’s political philosophy.

In 1928, Georgia's congressional delegation selected George as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. (Al Smith from New York received the national nomination but was soundly defeated by Republican candidate Herbert Hoover.) Even though George was never a serious candidate for the nomination, it was clear that he was very popular among his fellow Georgians.