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  • Columnists:
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President Lyndon Johnson Comes to Knoxville

President Lyndon Johnson Comes to Knoxville

by Ray Hill | Jul 26, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

The 1964 Senate Races In Tennessee  By Ray Hill Lyndon Baines Johnson was a remarkably able politician.  The intricacies of Johnson’s complicated personality have likely best been examined in Robert Caro’s splendid multi-volume biography of Johnson.  Much of Johnson’s...

Congresswoman Irene Baker

Congresswoman Irene Baker

by Ray Hill | Jul 19, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill Edith Irene Bailey Baker is the only woman to represent Tennessee’s Second Congressional District in the U. S. House of Representatives.  For those folks who recall Irene Baker today, it is usually because she was the step-mother of U. S. Senator Howard...

Congressman George Grider of Memphis

Congressman George Grider of Memphis

by Ray Hill | Jul 12, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill   I imagine few, if any, readers remember George Grider of Memphis.  Grider served one term in Congress from Shelby County, yet he deserves to be remembered due to the fact he defeated the last vestige of the old Crump machine to get to Congress. ...

The Farmer’s Friend: James G. Polk of Ohio

The Farmer’s Friend: James G. Polk of Ohio

by Ray Hill | Jul 5, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill When the Founding Fathers came up with the House of Representatives as a legislative instrument meant to reflect the will of the people, they succeeded perhaps better than they could possibly have known.  The body has endured remarkably well since the...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XX

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XX

by Ray Hill | Jun 28, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill July of 1966 was hot and humid in Tennessee that year. Two veteran campaigners, Governor Frank Clement and Senator Ross Bass, were stumping the state for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate. Both campaigned at a furious pace. The...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XIX

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XIX

by Ray Hill | Jun 21, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill Pulaski Congressman Ross Bass had defeated Governor Frank Clement for the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Senator Estes Kefauver.  Bass faced Republican Howard Baker in the general election.  It was the first time Frank Clement had lost an...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XVIII

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XVIII

by Ray Hill | Jun 14, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill Frank Clement was the first incumbent governor in Tennessee to bid for the United States Senate since Tom C. Rye in 1918.  The unexpected death of Senator Estes Kefauver on August 10, 1963 necessitated a special election in 1964.  For the second time in...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XVI

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XVI

by Ray Hill | May 25, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill When Senator Estes Kefauver's aorta ruptured on the evening of August 13, 1963, it set off a scramble to succeed him.  Governor Frank Clement appointed millionaire businessman Herbert “Hub” Walters of Morristown to fill the remainder of Kefauver’s term...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XV

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XV

by Ray Hill | May 17, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill With the election of Kenneth D. McKellar to the United States Senate, the senatorial ambitions of Tennessee’s governors became a trifle more circumspect.  Some like Gordon Browning never really gave up the desire to go to the U. S. Senate.  A congressman...

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XIV

Tennessee Governors & the Path to the US Senate, XIV

by Ray Hill | May 10, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:

By Ray Hill Thomas Clarke Rye was twice governor of Tennessee.  From rural West Tennessee, Tom C. Rye had little formal education, a fact he readily admitted.  “Subscription schools were the only ones we had then, so I didn’t go very regularly and stopped altogether...

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