Hon. Luke Lea: Senator from Tennessee

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Hon. Luke Lea
SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE


Hon. Luke Lea

Young Mr. Thunderbolt
UNDER the above heading in the Baltimore Sun, Mr. James Hay, Jr., noted political writer, has this to say of Senator Luke Lea:

The story of his flight to the top is as good as writers of fairy tales have ever put forth.  It involved battling with a political regime that had ruled Tennessee since the Civil War.  It required the overthrow of fortifications thrown up by the brains and resources of politicians and statesmen grown white-headed in the service.  It compelled conflict with the crowned kings of the state's ballots.  It forced him to become a thunderbolt trimmed up with white lightning.

The explanation of his achievements lies in his optimism, his strength, his love of right, and his daring.  Action, organization, knowledge of human nature and an appreciation of the psychological moment—all these things are possessed in remarkable degree by YOUNG MR. THUNDERBOLT.

Senator Lea espoused the temperance cause both on the platform and in his paper, The Tennesseean, of which the late lamented Senator Edward W. Carmack was editor.  He is a leader among those who work for civic and national righteousness.

Of late he has been in the public eye because of his service in the Senate Committee investigating for the second time the election of Senator Lorimer of Illinois.



LECTURE SUBJECTS

The Progressive Citizen
The Divorce Peril
The Dangers of Today




A Brief Summary of His Public Activities
THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR WORLD of Boston, in a recent issue gives a brief summary of Senator Lea's public activities and we reprint a part of it here:

Luke Lea was but thirty-one years old when the state legislature of Tennessee broke a deadlock of three weeks' standing by electing him to the Senate, although his name had not been mentioned at the beginning of the contest.

Luke Lea is a man of promise.  He is a man that has done things.  He is a man likely to do more things of the worth-while variety as the years increase.  He is a Southerner who is indigenous to the soil.  He was born near Nashville on the 12th of April, 1879.  Graduating with a Master's degree at Sewanee, he then took a course at Columbia University and was admitted to the Bar in Nashville in 1903.

He early manifested a keen interest in affairs political and civic.  He developed unexpected and great resources as an organizer.  It was Luke Lea who made Malcolm R. Patterson governor of Tennessee, and it was this same Luke Lea who put Patterson out of commission when he had played the people false.

Four years ago Luke Lea became the father of a journal that he christened The Nashville Tennesseean; and when Governor Patterson did not keep faith with the young man that had made him governor, Luke Lea opposed him.

When it came time to nominate another governor, Luke Lea's candidate was Edward W. Carmack, who stood for prohibition, and of course that meant standing against the liquor interests.

Lea championed the prohibition cause with tongue and pen.  Carmack failed to get the nomination and became editor of Lea's paper.  Then followed the tragedy that resulted in the murder of Carmack by the Coopers just after Governor Patterson had been re-elected.  Had it not been for Luke Lea, it is probable that more blood would have been shed.  He let it be known that there must be no more blood shed.




WHAT SOME MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS SAY

The World Today Magazine
—When the Congress of the United States assembled in special session, the youngest member of the upper house was Senator Luke Lea, of Tennessee, and he is the youngest man, except one, that ever sat in that body.  Without knowing it or seeking the distinction, he has been another Warwick, crowning and uncrowning the rulers of Tennessee, since 1906, and he is only thirty-one now.
In 1906, when the Democratic convention ran wild and got out of the hands of its presiding officer, Luke Lea stepped to the front, with his six-foot-two body, took charge, mastered the unterrified, but turbulent, Democracy, and had his man, M. R. Patterson, nominated for governor.  When questions of public policy, on which he differed from the dominant wing of his party, came up, especially the question of state prohibition, he headed the movement and started a new paper, The Tennesseean, of which Carmack was made editor.  On the death of the latter by the assassin's hand, and the pardon of Cooper for killing him, he threw himself against Patterson and won a victory that the friends of the state will talk about for generations to come.  He ran down The American and then bought it.
The other day when the deadlock in the Tennessee legislature was broken by his election to the United States Senate, he came out in his paper, just before the event that had cast his shadow in advance, and stated, over his own signature, that any reports of his being in favor of a repeal of the temperance and election laws of the state were unfounded, and that he and his paper would maintain their former attitude on the question.
He does things and belongs to a family that has been doing things for a good many generations.  He is the great grandson of Judge John Overton, who was Andrew Jackson's law partner and adviser; also the great-grandson of Colonel Luke Lea, a member of Congress, and a supporter of the Union in its crisis; while that Colonel Lea was the son of another Luke Lea, a great Methodist preacher of his day.



Nashville (Tenn.) Labor Advocate
—Senator Lea, of Tennessee, made his maiden speech in the Senate last week, in the Lorimer case.  To get in the game Mr. Lea had to set aside senatorial courtesy.  In plain English so-called senatorial courtesy means that a new member must keep his mouth closed during his first term of office and allow the old members of the Senate to run things to suit themselves.  In his speech Mr. Lea notified the members of the Senate that he would not pay any attention to this brand of so-called senatorial courtesy, and would address the Senate whenever he thought it would benefit his constituency.
Mr. Lea's position in the Lorimer case is eminently correct, and an investigation should be made by a committee that will be fair to all parties, and with Senator Lea on the committee we are confident that a thorough and impartial investigation will be made.  This is what the other committee did not do.




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