by Ray Hill | Jan 5, 2020 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Tennessee’s senior United States senator, John Knight Shields, had surprised tens of thousands of his constituents and infuriated many members of his own Democratic Party when he had voted to add reservations to the Treaty of Versailles in the Senate. The...
by Ray Hill | Dec 29, 2019 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Governor Tom C. Rye had run for the United States Senate in the 1918 Democratic primary against Senator John Knight Shields as a supporter of President Woodrow Wilson and lost. Rye’s defeat did not necessarily mean the people of Tennessee had turned...
by Ray Hill | Dec 22, 2019 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Colonel Luke Lea, away in Europe during the First World War, had never gotten along with John Knight Shields when they were colleagues in the United States Senate. Lea’s newspaper, the Nashville Tennessean sided with Shields’ opponent, Governor Tom Rye in...
by Ray Hill | Dec 15, 2019 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Tennessee had been staunchly for Woodrow Wilson, both in his 1912 campaign for the presidency and his 1916 reelection campaign. Tennessee’s junior United States senator, Kenneth D. McKellar, had been a fervent admirer of President Wilson as a member of the...
by Ray Hill | Dec 8, 2019 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill The United States was finally catching a glimpse of the end of the bloodiest conflict in human history, World War II, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt vacationed at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia. Roosevelt was sitting for a portrait by artist...
by Ray Hill | Dec 1, 2019 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
The Strickland Case By Ray Hill “I’m guilty,” were the only words spoken by William “Billy” Strickland, a fresh-faced twenty-eight year old when he revisited the Knox County Court House. Strickland had been engaged in a bitter battle for custody of his four year-old...
