By Ray Hill For twenty-four years, Thetus W. Sims served West Tennessee as a member of Congress. Now almost entirely forgotten, he is a figure from a distant past. In fact, before his career was over, Sims was already becoming an antiquated figure, which helped to...

By Ray Hill President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, coming off his greatest reelection campaign, had announced he was submitting legislation to Congress to expand the United State Supreme Court.  Roosevelt’s proposal was widely and bitterly attacked in much of the press...

By Ray Hill   February 5, 1937 was a Friday and President Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly announced his intention to ask Congress to enlarge the United States Supreme Court.  Roosevelt was fresh from a smashing reelection campaign in 1936, which saw the president...

By Ray Hill Senator Kenneth D. McKellar turned seventy-seven years old in January of 1946.  He had been in Congress since 1911 and in the Senate since 1917.  It was clear McKellar was aging and there had been some thought the old Tennessean would retire.  President...

By Ray Hill The relationship between any two people is usually at least somewhat complicated; between two personalities like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Alben Barkley of Kentucky, it was especially so. Barkley, despite not being one of the more senior members of the...

By Ray Hill Eleanor Medill Patterson was the first woman to successfully run a major metropolitan newspaper.  Known as “Cissy” due to the nickname given to her in childhood by her brother, she was volatile, unpredictable, frequently gleefully malevolent and...

By Ray Hill   If Senator K. D. McKellar was an accomplished feudist, another son of Tennessee was at the very least as accomplished in that art: General Andrew Jackson.  President Andrew Jackson carried the bullet in his body from a duel he fought until he died;...

By Ray Hill Herbert Sanford Walters was a successful businessman and by the appointment of Governor Frank Clement, United States senator from Tennessee. A reminder of Herbert Walters to many East Tennesseans is Walters State Community College. Born November 17, 1891...