By Ray Hill With the election of Kenneth D. McKellar to the United States Senate, the senatorial ambitions of Tennessee’s governors became a trifle more circumspect. Some like Gordon Browning never really gave up the desire to go to the U. S. Senate. A congressman for twelve years, Browning ran for the Senate in 1934 […]
By Ray Hill Thomas Clarke Rye was twice governor of Tennessee. From rural West Tennessee, Tom C. Rye had little formal education, a fact he readily admitted. “Subscription schools were the only ones we had then, so I didn’t go very regularly and stopped altogether when I was 17 years old,” Rye said. The future […]
By Ray Hill Malcolm Patterson, twice elected governor of Tennessee, had attempted to make a political comeback by entering the first U. S. Senate race where the people nominated candidates for the general election in 1915. Patterson faced stiff opposition in the incumbent, Senator Luke Lea, and Congressman Kenneth D. McKellar. Neither Patterson nor Lea […]
By Ray Hill Senator Luke Lea was so unpopular with his fellow Democrats, the party machinery moved up the election for the Democratic nomination to November of 1915, a full year in advance of the regular general election in 1916. For the first and only time, the election in November would be followed by another […]
By Ray Hill Malcolm Rice Patterson, the “gamecock” of Tennessee politics, had left the governor’s mansion in 1911 as a hugely controversial figure and bitterly hated by many inside his own party. To make matters worse, a combine of “fusionists,” Democrats opposed to Patterson and Republicans, had elected Ben W. Hooper governor in the 1910 […]
By Ray Hill Malcolm Rice Patterson enjoyed a meteoric rise in Tennessee politics until the consequences of his own actions ended his career. Redheaded, thin, with angular features, Malcolm Patterson was known throughout Tennessee as a dynamic and gifted speaker. There were those of his admirers who thought Patterson was one of the greatest orators […]
By Ray Hill James Beriah Frazier had been elected governor of Tennessee in 1902. A tall, stately man with an elegant appearance, James B. Frazier certainly looked the part of a governor. Despite his aristocratic appearance, James B. Frazier had worked his way through law school. The future governor taught school for two years and […]
By Ray Hill Benton McMillin was such a fixture in Tennessee politics he was regarded as the “Old Warhorse” of the Democratic Party in the state. After spending twenty years in Congress from Tennessee’s Fourth District, Benton McMillin twice served as governor of Tennessee. Yet the pinnacle of McMillin’s political ambition was to win election […]
By Ray Hill With the sudden death of U. S. senator William Brimage Bate, Tennessee would send someone else to the Senate. Bate had died just days after being sworn-in for his fourth term. Indeed, only two men had ever been elected to serve a fourth term in the United States Senate from Tennessee. […]
By Ray Hill Andrew Jackson once said, “A man who is born and reared among this people deserves but little credit for being a soldier and a gentleman, for he can’t help it.” That description fit William Brimage Bate. Bate had certainly lived a full life and had been a soldier, lawyer, newspaperman and politician. […]
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