By Ray Hill From 1920 until his death in 1961, the most personally popular politician inside Tennessee’s First Congressional District was B. Carroll Reece. That can be attested to on a variety of fronts, not the least of which are the election returns from that...

By Ray Hill This column is written for my friend Alexander Waters and his family.  I knew Alexander’s grandfather, John B. Waters, Jr.  Mr. Waters was one of those young Republicans, like Jim Haslam, who helped elect Howard Baker, Tennessee’s first popularly elected...

By Ray Hill It seems like so many folks my age are experiencing raising their grandchildren or having their own children return home to live. All too often, my generation has seen their children and grandchildren afflicted by drug addiction. Back in the day, the...

By Ray Hill Patrick Jay Hurley was one of those who exemplified the promise of America, coming to the United States as an infant with his parents the same year he had been born in County Waterford, Ireland. During his eighty years, Patrick J. Hurley was a highly...

  By Ray Hill Cate was a familiar name to voters in Knox County, especially when they were picking a sheriff.  William T. Cate had been sheriff and J. Carroll Cate was sheriff from 1936 – 1940.  In 1946, six-foot-five, 350-pound Hazen Kreis was leaving the...

  By Ray Hill Cordell Hull, Secretary of State under Franklin D. Roosevelt, had simmered for years with resentment due to having been marginalized by the president.  Yet Roosevelt depended upon Hull’s reservoir of good will with both the Congress and the American...

By Ray Hill Tennessee has been quite fortunate to produce any number of political figures of national importance, as well as those who have wielded enormous influence in Congress.  Aside from Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk (a political protégé of Jackson’s), and Andrew...

By Ray Hill The two most enduring political figures in Tennessee’s modern history are Kenneth McKellar and Cordell Hull.  McKellar holds the record in Tennessee for the longest tenure in Congress at forty-two years; K. D. McKellar remains Tennessee’s longest-serving...

By Ray Hill I am oftentimes asked about Tennessee’s most enduring statesmen or politicians. Without a doubt, the two most enduring political figures in Tennessee’s modern political history are Kenneth D. McKellar and Cordell Hull. McKellar and Hull were contemporaries...