By Ray Hill Francis Biddle was attorney general of the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He noted Tennessee’s Senator Kenneth D. McKellar could be “obstinate” and “vindictive," but was careful to note McKellar was “shrewd." Biddle also added that...
By Ray Hill Prentice Cooper was barred by state law from seeking yet another term as Tennessee’s governor in 1944; there was no Senate seat to contest and he was faced with the prospect of retiring from public office. Cooper clearly wanted to remain in public life and...
By Ray Hill Governor Prentice Cooper was seeking a third two-year term in 1942 and found himself hard pressed by his opponent, J. Ridley Mitchell. Mitchell was a wily politician and had served as the Congressman from Tennessee’s Fourth District from 1931-39, leaving...
By Ray Hill The administration of Governor Prentice Cooper, unlike that of his predecessor Gordon Browning, had been relatively quiet. Cooper and Browning were as different in temperament as they were in appearance. Gordon Browning was a big, bluff man with a shock of...
By Ray Hill By the fall of 1937, E. H. Crump, leader of the Shelby County political machine, was openly fighting Governor Gordon Browning. After having supported Browning for governor in 1936, Senator Kenneth D. McKellar’s prediction that Crump could not trust...
By Ray Hill A bare-knuckle political battle had rolled across Tennessee for the Democratic nomination fort the United States Senate in 1938. The contest was a three way fight between incumbent U. S. Senator George L. Berry, Congressman J. Ridley Mitchell, and A. T....
By Ray Hill Following the demise of Governor Gordon Browning’s plan to emasculate the Shelby County political machine headed by E. H. Crump, Tennessee Democrats were deeply divided. Governor Browning watched with dismay as his appointee to the United States Senate,...
By Ray Hill The political pot in Tennessee ceased to boil when Governor Gordon Browning appointed George L. Berry, President of the International Printing and Pressmen’s Union, to the United States Senate on May 7, 1937. Still, the pot certainly continued to...
By Ray Hill The unexpected death of Senator Nathan L. Bachman had plunged Tennessee politics into turmoil. The responsibility for filling the vacancy caused by Senator Bachman’s death fell to Governor Gordon Browning. The pressure on Browning very quickly became...
By Ray Hill Nathan Lynn Bachman, Tennessee’s junior United States senator, had every reason in the world to be content; he had easily been reelected to his first six-year term in November of 1936. Bachman was also one of the most personally popular members of the...
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By Ray Hill Kenneth McKellar...
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