By Ray Hill Only nine men have made the transition from governor of Tennessee to United States senator. One of those nine was one of the most successful politicians to take part in Tennessee’s turbulent politics: Andrew Johnson. In fact, Andrew Johnson prospered...

By Ray Hill All across the nation governors or former governors frequently attempt to make the transition to the United States Senate.  Nor is it particularly odd, at least in Tennessee, for a governor to wait some years before running for the U. S. Senate.  Former...

By Ray Hill Long before Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Carl Hayden of Arizona was known as the longest-serving member of Congress. Hayden had first been elected to Congress when Arizona had first been admitted to the United States as a state in 1912. Hayden was...

  By Ray Hill Alice Roosevelt Longworth remained the most famous presidential daughter in our country’s history; certainly she was the most enduring. An especially astute observer of politics and things political, Alice Roosevelt Longworth was also known for her...

By Ray Hill Governor Tom C. Rye had run for the United States Senate in the 1918 Democratic primary against Senator John Knight Shields as a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson and lost.  Rye’s defeat did not necessarily mean the people of Tennessee had turned...

By Ray Hill Colonel Luke Lea, away in Europe during the First World War, had never gotten along with John Knight Shields when they were colleagues in the United States Senate.  Lea’s newspaper, the Nashville Tennessean sided with Shields’ opponent, Governor Tom Rye in...

By Ray Hill The United States was finally catching a glimpse of the end of the bloodiest conflict in human history, World War II, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt vacationed at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia.  Roosevelt was sitting for a portrait by artist...

The Strickland Case By Ray Hill “I’m guilty,” were the only words spoken by William “Billy” Strickland, a fresh-faced twenty-eight year old when he revisited the Knox County Court House.  Strickland had been engaged in a bitter battle for custody of his four year-old...

By Ray Hill The very idea that anything but a Democrat could represent Tennessee’s Hermitage District in Congress seemed not only outlandish, but utterly unthinkable. The Fifth Congressional district of Tennessee was known as “the Hermitage District” because it...

By Ray Hill Congressman Joseph W. Byrns, Jr. had first been elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1938, toppling incumbent Richard M. Atkinson in a hard fought campaign inside the Democratic Primary. Tennessee’s “Hermitage District,” so named because the...