Thomas Chipman McRae
| Thomas Chipman McRae | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 26th Governor of Arkansas | |
|
In office January 11, 1921 – January 13, 1925 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Hillman Brough |
| Succeeded by | Tom Jefferson Terral |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas's 3rd district | |
|
In office December 7, 1885 – March 3, 1903 | |
| Preceded by | John H. Rogers |
| Succeeded by | Hugh A. Dinsmore |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
December 21, 1851 Union County, Arkansas |
| Died |
June 2, 1929 (aged 77) Prescott, Arkansas |
| Political party | Democratic |
Thomas Chipman McRae (December 21, 1851 – June 2, 1929) was an attorney and politician from Arkansas. He served as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives (1885 to 1903) and the 26th Governor of Arkansas, from 1921 to 1925.
Biography
Thomas Chipman McRae was born in 1851 at Mount Holly in Union County, Arkansas. He attended Soule Business College and graduated with a law degree from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia
In 1874, McRae was appointed to the post of Election Commissioner in Arkansas, after Democrats regained control of the state. 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 Campaign Committee. From 1885 to 1903 McRae served in the United States House of Representatives.
The Arkansas legislature passed the Election Law of 1891 and a poll tax amendment in 1892; together these two measures made voter registration more difficult for most blacks and many poor whites, effectively disenfranchising them. The Republican Party declined markedly in the state, as it had been widely supported by African Americans. Arkansas became essentially a one-party state; the most important political contests were the Democratic primaries. This lasted until after passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
In 1902, McRae donated land for an African American school in Prescott, Arkansas. McRae's Elementary, Middle, and High School were integrated with the Prescott School District in 1969.[1]
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, McRae was elected governor and served for two 2-year terms. The Republicans ran Little Rock attorney Wallace Townsend against McRae. Townsend endorsed the GOP presidential slate headed by U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio. McRae polled 123,637 votes (66.6 percent) to Townsend's 46,350 (25 percent). An Independent, Josiah H. Blount, the principal of an African American school in Helena, defected from the GOP and received the remaining 15,627 (8.4 percent). Blount was tied to the former Black-and-Tan faction of the GOP. Thereafter, the Iowa-born Townsend, who had been his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1916 against the Democrat Charles Hillman Brough, served until 1961 as as the Republican national committeeman from Arkansas. That year Winthrop Rockefeller assumed the position.
In 1922, to secure his second term, McRae defeated the Republican John W. Grabiel, an Ohio native and attorney from Fayetteville, polling 99,987 (78.1 percent) to 28,055 (21.9 percent).[2]
The McRae administration oversaw the establishment of the Arkansas Railroad Commission. It established a tuberculosis sanitarium for African Americans; before effective antibiotics had been developed, their survival rate for this incurable disease was 25 percent.
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 from Texas directly to Little Rock to avoid local hostility in the community where he was charged. The deputies ignored the order, and the prisoner was killed by a lynch mob when their party reached 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. He engaged in the practice of law and banking until his death in 1929.
Thomas McRae is interred at the DeAnn Cemetery in Prescott, Arkansas.[3] McRae was a cousin of Thomas Banks Cabaniss, a U.S. Representative from Georgia. He was the grandfather of Thomas C. "Tom" McRae, III, longtime President of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. In 1990 McRae III unsuccessfully challenged the renomination bid of incumbent Governor Bill Clinton.
References
- ↑ "McRae High School yearbooks". Arkansas History Commission - Ark-ives.com.
- ↑ Robert A. Diamond, ed., Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (Washington, D.C., 1975), p. 399
- ↑ "Thomas Chipman McRae". Find A Grave. Retrieved 20 August 2012.
- Thomas Chipman McRae at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture entry: "Thomas Chipman McRae"
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John H. Rogers |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Arkansas's 3rd congressional district 1885 – 1903 |
Succeeded by Hugh A. Dinsmore |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Charles Hillman Brough |
Governor of Arkansas 1921 – 1925 |
Succeeded by Tom Jefferson Terral |
| |||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|