By Ray Hill Kenneth McKellar was sixty-five years old in 1934 as he sought reelection to a fourth term in the United States Senate. Congressman Gordon Browning had thought to challenge McKellar, but decided against it when he could get not a single pledge of significant support. Instead, Browning opted to run against junior U. […]
By Ray Hill The political partnership of U. S. Senator Kenneth McKellar and Memphis Boss Ed Crump had made them the masters of Tennessee politics by 1933. The correspondence between the two was voluminous, as they discussed appointments, political developments and strategy. The correspondence, which had once been addressed to “Mack” and “Ed”, had […]
By Ray Hill The collapse of the House of Caldwell not only destroyed Governor Henry Horton politically, but Luke Lea as well. The governor, by the slimmest of margins, only narrowly escaped being impeached. The fall of Caldwell and Company would have far reaching implications for Luke Lea, not only politically, but also financially […]
By Ray Hill Republicans had done well in Tennessee during the decade of the 1920s in Tennessee. The zenith of Republican success was 1920 when Warren Harding had carried the state; the GOP had elected a governor, and won five out of ten Congressional seats. That success was to be short-lived; Democrats won back […]
By Ray Hill Tennessee’s senior United States Senator, John Knight Shields, proved to be less than thrilled with President Woodrow Wilson’s cherished idea of America participating in the League of Nations. Senator Shields, unlike most Tennessee Democrats, didn’t especially like Wilson much and the President cordially reciprocated Shields’s dislike. Despite being a moralist, Woodrow […]
By Ray Hill When K. D. McKellar first entered the United States Senate on March 4, 1917, he was forty-eight years old. One long-time Senate employee recalled McKellar was well dressed, “a real Beau Brummell.” McKellar frequently wore a black bow tie and dressed the part of a senator. Well into the 1940s, McKellar […]
By Ray Hill Tennessee Democrats entered the 1910 gubernatorial campaign divided and in disarray. Many Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief when the veteran old campaigner Robert Love Taylor agreed to seek the governorship. Taylor had been Governor of Tennessee no less than three times, once facing his own brother Alf, a Republican, […]
By Ray Hill Even as a freshman Congressman, Kenneth McKellar had demonstrated an ability to bring improvements and projects to his district, a talent that would serve him and Tennessee well during his legislative career. In April of 1912 as much as 170 acres of Memphis had been inundated with floodwater, including the city […]
By Ray Hill Kenneth McKellar was forty-two years old when first elected to the House of Representatives in a 1911 special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congressman George Washington Gordon. His rise to political prominence had come despite the fact he was not a native of Memphis or Tennessee, having […]
By Ray Hill It will soon be one hundred years since the people of Tennessee elected their first United States Senator by popular vote in 1916. Prior to that time, senators had been elected by state legislatures. The framers of the U. S. Constitution had never intended that members of the United States Senate […]
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