The Fight for Majority Leader, 1937 By Ray Hill Sometime during the night of July 14, 1937, the heart of Joseph T. Robinson stopped beating.  Arkansas had honored Joe Robinson with every distinction she could bestow upon a single individual, electing him to Congress,...

The Friend of the Workers: Olin D. Johnston of South Carolina By Ray Hill Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston was a fixture in the politics of his native South Carolina for decades.  Twice elected governor and elected to the United States Senate in 1944 where he remained...

The Poet in Congress: John S. McGroarty of California By Ray Hill “One of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress is that I am compelled to receive impertinent letters from a jackass like you in which you say I promised to have the Sierra Madre mountains...

The Tragedy of William Knowland By Ray Hill William Fife Knowland seemingly had everything; born into a wealthy and powerful family, he eventually found himself in the United States Senate representing California.  Rising to become the Majority Leader of the U.S....

Frederick Gillet & the Fight for Speaker By Ray Hill   The mutiny earlier this year inside the GOP caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives is not new, although it hasn’t happened in a long while. In fact, the last time it did occur was one hundred years...

Oklahoma’s Crazy Congressman: Manuel Herrick By Ray Hill If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone suggest a member of Congress was crazy, Elon Musk would be a pauper by comparison. Yet in the case of Manuel Herrick of Oklahoma, it was not simply the opinion...

E. W. Marland of Oklahoma By Ray Hill The life story of Ernest Whitworth Marland is a tale of the rise and fall of an American businessman and politician like a Hollywood movie. It is the story of rising to amazing heights and falling just as far. Marland made an...

Edward H. Moore of Oklahoma By Ray Hill There was a time when Republicans in Oklahoma were pretty scarce in many areas of the state.  Yet there were traditionally Republican areas in the Sooner State and during the decade of the 1920s, Oklahoma boasted two GOP United...

The Man in the White Hat: Indiana’s Henry F. Schricker By Ray Hill For many years the governors of Indiana were confined to serving one four-year term and sitting it out for another four years before they could run again. Several tried, but the only man to have...