By Ray Hill There was a time when people engaged in voting a straight ticket, meaning they voted for every candidate of one political party or the other. There have also been election cycles where a tidal wave of support empowered one party or the other. 1920 was such...

By Ray Hill There are those who remember Paul Wellstone, the United States senator from Minnesota, who died, along with his wife and daughter, while campaigning for reelection in 2002 when his chartered airplane crashed.  Wellstone, however, was not the first United...

By Ray Hill There was a time in our country’s history when Adam Clayton Powell was the most powerful Black person in America.  The memory of Powell has dimmed somewhat, although he has been the subject of documentaries, movies, and even more recently, is portrayed as...

By Ray Hill Noah M. Mason of Illinois looked like precisely what he was: an old schoolteacher.  Diminutive in stature, white-haired and frequently with a stern expression etched into his face, Noah Mason served for twenty-six years as a congressman from Illinois. ...

James W. Wadsworth of New York By Ray Hill The name James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. is rather reminiscent of “Gilligan’s Island” and Thurston Howell III. To say that James Wadsworth was well-connected is likely a gross understatement. His grandfather, James S. Wadsworth,...

By Ray Hill For twenty-eight years, the Fourth Congressional District of Michigan was represented in Congress by Clare E. Hoffman. Known for his acerbic wit, Hoffman was oftentimes characterized as being cantankerous, but when he died, there were constant comments...

By Ray Hill During the eighty-one years that comprised the life of Dewey Jackson Short, folks knew he was here. Short was a true son of the hill country of the Ozarks and a gifted speaker who could hold his audiences spellbound, sometimes referred to as the “Hillbilly...

Harold Knutson of Minnesota By Ray Hill By 1948, Harold Knutson had been in Congress for thirty-two years.  Knutson, a Republican, had risen to perhaps the highest position a congressman could aspire to outside of the speakership; Knutson chaired the immensely...

The Last Campaign: Overton vs. Orgill, Part III By Ray Hill The death of Edward Hull Crump on October 16, 1954, changed Shelby County and Memphis politics forever.  As Memphis was on the cusp of the first mayoral election without the influence of E. H. Crump in half a...

By Ray Hill Virtually anything can happen in politics.  The fight for one man, one vote had finally brought about a change in reapportionment, giving urban counties more representation, since districts were drawn according to population.  The rural domination of...