The Fall of Congressman Clifford Davis, V By Ray Hill Cliff Davis was sixty-six years old as he faced voters in the Democratic primary in August of 1964. For forty years, Cliff Davis had been a political favorite of the people of Shelby County, but his popularity was...

By Ray Hill Clifford Davis had represented Shelby County in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-four years when he announced he was running for his fourteenth term in 1964.  Davis had been the Democratic nominee in a 1940 special election and had won again in...

By Ray Hill Clifford Davis had served as the congressman from the congressional district which was comprised of Shelby County.  Davis had long been an institution in Shelby County and his name had first been on the ballot in 1923.  Cliff Davis had long been one of the...

  By Ray Hill Congressman Clifford Davis of Memphis had quite nearly been upset in the 1962 election by, of all things, a Republican. Davis had easily won the Democratic primary that same year, beating two opponents for the Democratic nomination. Yet there had...

By Ray Hill Only two weeks remained before Tennesseans trooped to the polls to cast their ballots in the 1948 election. Voters had an unusually large number of choices in the presidential race; Democrat Harry Truman, Republican Thomas E. Dewey, States’ Rights...

By Ray Hill Political bosses are found in every shape and form, but perhaps no state in the union has been more accustomed to bosses than Pennsylvania. Joseph Finch Guffey was born in Guffey’s Station on December 29, 1870. Guffey’s father was a staunch Democrat in...

By Ray Hill For the first time in decades, Republicans in Tennessee were seriously contesting the race for the United States Senate in 1948. In fact, Republicans had fielded a compelling statewide ticket composed of former congressman Carroll Reece for the Senate and...

By Ray Hill Political parties are not successful simply because of the candidates running to represent those parties, but rather because of issues and those people working hard in the background.  The infrastructure of a political party is very important to overall...

By Ray Hill Republicans across the nation confidently expected to win back the White House after sixteen long years out of power. The GOP had won both houses of Congress in the 1946 midterm elections. The Republican National Chairman at the time was a Tennessean:...

By Ray Hill Even today people remember the “Battle of Athens.”  At the time it occurred in 1946, it was also known as the “Battle of the Ballots.”  The closest thing the election battle resembled was a Latin American revolution.  While tensions had been simmering for...