by Ray Hill | Apr 19, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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...
by Ray Hill | Apr 12, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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. ...
by Ray Hill | Apr 5, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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...
by Ray Hill | Mar 29, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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...
by Ray Hill | Mar 22, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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...
by Ray Hill | Mar 15, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
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...
