By Ray Hill Genuine war hero, sheriff, accused counterfeiter, convict and U. S. congressman from Tennessee, Pat Sutton was, if anything, a colorful character. It may be difficult for some readers to imagine today, but the entire country had been unified in winning World War II. White, black and brown; men and women; even Republicans […]
A Tennessean on the U.S. Supreme Court By Ray Hill I daresay few of my readers recall a Knoxvillian once sat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Edward Terry Sanford served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1923 until his unexpected death in 1930. Sanford had been the judge […]
Senator K. D. McKellar vs. Drew Pearson By Ray Hill Kenneth D. McKellar was the first person ever to be popularly elected to the United States Senate in Tennessee. McKellar was also Tennessee’s longest serving senator, a record that remains unbroken. All told, K. D. McKellar spent forty-two years in Congress; six in the House […]
By Ray Hill With less than a week left before Tennesseans went to the polls to cast their ballots to elect a president, as well as fill both of the Volunteer State’s seats in the United States Senate, the candidates campaign frenetically. Senator Albert Gore hammered home his populist message, while Congressman Ross Bass, running […]
By Ray Hill With just weeks before Tennesseans went to the polls, candidates hustled for votes in October of 1964. Tennessee, once solidly Democratic, had become a battleground state. Tennessee had supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in all four of his presidential campaigns, as well as Harry Truman in 1948 over the fierce opposition of E. […]
By Ray Hill The 1964 election in Tennessee centered around the presidential contest between incumbent Lyndon Johnson and Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. It also featured hard fought contests for both of Tennessee’s seats in the United States Senate. Senator Albert Gore, Tennessee’s “Old Gray Fox”, was seeking a third term in the U. S. Senate, […]
By Ray Hill 1964 was a presidential election year and Lyndon Johnson was running hard to win a term in his own right against Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. Tennessee was slowly, but surely, becoming a two-party state. The Republican nominee for president had carried the Volunteer State in 1920, 1928, 1952, 1956 and 1960. Democrat […]
By Ray Hill Once a reliably Democratic state, Tennessee was a battleground state in the 1964 election. Congressman Joe L. Evins of Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional District was designated President Lyndon B. Johnson’s campaign manager for the Volunteer State. At the time, there was hardly any congressional district in the state more Democratic than that of […]
By Ray Hill It has been 100 years since Tennessee ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote in our country. It seems appropriate to celebrate the occasion in these pages. Tennessee became the battleground state for the ratification of the proposed nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of the […]
By Ray Hill From 1930 until 1964, the Democratic Party reigned supreme in Tennessee. Republicans had only occasionally been able to elect a governor; the last was Alfred A. Taylor in 1920. That year had been something of a high watermark for the GOP. Republicans had won the governorship, as well as five of Tennessee’s […]
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