By Ray Hill   Once again happily married, doting on his newborn daughter, former United States Senator Luke Lea concentrated upon reducing his indebtedness after his return from the World War.  Frequently discussed as a potential candidate for high office, Lea...

By Ray Hill Senator Luke Lea had lost his reelection bid in November of 1915, running third behind Congressman Kenneth D. McKellar and former governor Malcolm Patterson.  Lea’s defeat occurred for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was his affiliation with...

By Ray Hill Luke Lea had not only survived the intense political wars in Tennessee, but had profited from them. Elected to the United States Senate in 1911, Lea’s alliance with “Independent” Democrats and Republicans had created a “fusionist” combine that held the...

  By Ray Hill The pages of Tennessee’s history is littered with colorful characters, but the life of Luke Lea is one right out of a novel; handsome, urbane, highly intelligent and successful, Lea climbed to the heights of financial and political accomplishment. ...

By Ray Hill   Percy Priest was an unlikely candidate for Congress and faced daunting odds to get to the House of Representatives in the first place.  Yet once there, he remained there until the day he died. Percy Priest was once described by William “Fishbait”...

By Ray Hill   For two decades there was no politician in the Second Congressional district more popular than John James Duncan. John Duncan had hitchhiked to Knoxville with five dollars in his pocket to attend the University of Tennessee and remained, rising to...

By Ray Hill   For twenty years, James Willis Taylor was the Congressman from Tennessee’s Second Congressional district. J. Will Taylor, popularly known to many of his constituents as “Hillbilly Bill,” was a power in both the national Republican Party and the...

By Ray Hill   Long forgotten by most, John Ridley Mitchell was a member of Congress for eight years and twice a viable candidate for statewide office in Tennessee. J. Ridley Mitchell was a formidable politician and a wily practitioner of the art of politics....

By Ray Hill   Long forgotten by most, the late Congressman Robert Ashton “Fats” Everett was one of the more colorful from the political pages of Tennessee’s history.  Everett was by any measure a political professional well before he ever was elected to Congress....

By Ray Hill   For more than two decades, Finis James Garrett represented a West Tennessee district in Congress. Garrett was a talented politician and his rise was meteoric. Winning a seat in Congress when he was barely twenty-eight years old, he rose to become...