By Ray Hill Senator Kenneth D. McKellar once claimed that outside of the three men who served as President of the United States, Robert Love Taylor was “the best-known man to the Republic at large that Tennessee has ever produced”. It well may have been true. Robert...

By Ray Hill Cordell Hull had served in the U. S. House of Representatives since 1906, with one brief two-year interlude, when he announced he would be a candidate for the United States Senate in 1929.  It was rare, at that time, for a prospective candidate to declare...

By Ray Hill Tennessee’s senior United States senator, Kenneth D. McKellar, was well known for having a volatile temper and had won a well-deserved reputation as a feudist.  It was not uncommon for the peppery senator to become involved in a physical altercation, even...

By Ray Hill   “I have no hesitancy in insisting that Government in an emergency do everything that can reasonably be done to relieve human suffering and distress.” That was the philosophy of John William McCormack throughout his long political career and he lived...

By Ray Hill “Any jackass can kick down a barn, it takes a carpenter to build one.” So said Sam Rayburn of Texas. Completely bald, thickly built and one who never forgot his humble beginnings.  Sam Rayburn was the looniest serving Speaker of the U. S. House of...

By Ray Hill James F. Byrnes had resigned from the Supreme Court of the United States to accept the responsibility for running much of America’s war effort at the personal request of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Byrnes had given up a lifetime appointment, but...

By Ray Hill The autobiography of James F. Byrnes of South Carolina was appropriately named All In One Lifetime.  Byrnes served as a Congressman, U. S. senator, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Assistant to the President, Secretary of State and...

By Ray Hill   Few modern day Speakers of the U. S. House of Representatives are as little remembered as Henry T. Rainey of Illinois. One reason for that is likely because his tenure as Speaker was quite brief; Rainey served as Speaker of the House from march 9,...

By Ray Hill   John Nance Garner of Texas was one of the most colorful politicians of the twentieth century.  It was Garner who made one of the most oft-repeated comments about the vice presidency.  Garner described the office as not being “worth a bucket of warm...

'By Ray Hill If Nicholas Longworth is remembered at all today, it’s usually because of his marriage to Alice Roosevelt, the tart-tongued daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.  Alice Roosevelt was anything but conventional and while their marriage started out with...