by Ray Hill | Sep 24, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill For more than two decades, Finis James Garrett represented a West Tennessee district in Congress. Garrett was a talented politician and his rise was meteoric. Winning a seat in Congress when he was barely twenty-eight years old, he rose to become the...
by Ray Hill | Sep 17, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Ross Bass, for ten years a congressman from Tennessee’s Sixth District and U. S. senator for two years, was seeking to return to Congress in 1976. Bass had earlier announced he was done with politics after a disappointing defeat in 1974 for the Democratic...
by Ray Hill | Sep 10, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill The 1974 Tennessee gubernatorial campaign took a heavy toll on the finances of several aspirants. Dortch Oldham, who had run in the Republican primary, acknowledged spending perhaps $300,000 of his own money to fund his campaign. Oldham said, “I don’t...
by Ray Hill | Sep 4, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Clifford Davis had first been selected by E. H. Crump, the undisputed political boss of Shelby County, to go to Congress in a 1940 special election. Davis had remained in Congress since that time and his congressional career had likely been saved when he...
by Ray Hill | Aug 27, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Congressman Clifford Davis of Memphis had served in the House of Representatives since 1940 and in 1959 was the chairman of the House Public Works Committee. A relatively obscure committee to most folks, it became of prime importance to Tennessee. Davis...
by Ray Hill | Aug 20, 2017 | Columnist, Hill, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Edward H. Crump, long the political boss of Memphis and Shelby County, began to seriously fade in the summer of 1954. Increasingly weakened by heart disease, the Memphis Boss had been active in politics almost to the end. When former governor Prentice...
