Thomas Chipman McRae

Thomas Chipman McRae (21 December 1851 - 2 June 1929) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives and was the 26th Governor of Arkansas from 1921 to 1925.

Biography

Thomas Chipman McRae was born at Mount Holly in Union County, Arkansas. He attended Soule Business College and graduated with a law degree from Washington and Lee University.

In 1874, McRae was appointed to the post of Election Commissioner. From 1877 to 1879, he served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was a presidential elector in 1880. In 1884, 1896, and 1900, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and served as president of the convention twice. From 1888 to 1902 he was a member of the Democratic Congressional Committee. From 1885 to 1903 McRae served in the United States House of Representatives.

In 1917 and 1918, McRae was president of the Arkansas Bar Association; in the latter year he took part in the Arkansas Constitutional Convention.

In 1920 he was elected Governor of Arkansas and served for two terms. The McRae administration oversaw the establishment of the railroad commission and the establishment of a tuberculosis sanitarium for African-Americans at a time when their survival rate was only 25%.

McRae was known as a relative liberal on racial matters and attempted to take action against lynching. In 1921 he ordered Mississippi County sheriff's deputies to bring a black prisoner directly to Little Rock from Texas to avoid local hostility in the community where he was charged. The deputies ignored the order and the prisoner was killed when he arrived in Mississippi County.

After the end of his terms, McRae was appointed special Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He was elected a life member of the Arkansas Democratic State Convention in 1926, and engaged in the practice of law and banking until his death in 1929.

Thomas McRae is buried at the DeAnn Cemetery in Prescott, Arkansas. McRae was a cousin of Thomas Banks Cabaniss, a U.S. Representative from Georgia.He was also the grandfather of Thomas C. "Tom" McRae III, the long time President of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation who challenged the renomination bid of Governor Bill Clinton in 1990.

References

• Thomas Chipman McRae at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: Thomas Chipman McRae