Ellison D. Smith

Ellison D. Smith (1937)

Ellison DuRant Smith (born August 1, 1864 in Lynchburg , Lee County , South Carolina , † November 17, 1944 ) was an American politician who represented the US state of South Carolina in the United States Senate .

Life

Career

Ellison D. Smith was raised on his parents' farm near the town of Lynchburg, the son of William Smith, a Methodist preacher, and his wife Isabella McLeod. Smith's cousin was Thomas Gordon McLeod , Governor of South Carolina from 1923 to 1927 .

Thanks to the wealth of his parents, Smith was able to attend some prestigious schools, including the University of South Carolina at Columbia or Wofford College in Spartanburg , from which he graduated in 1889. He then temporarily returned to his parents' farm to help his siblings with the work on the estate.

Private

In 1892 Smith married Cornelia Martha Moorer. But the marriage was short-lived. While giving birth to their child, a son, Cornelia Smith died on June 5, 1893, at the age of only 28. Martius Smith, their son, was only 19 years old. In 1913 he accidentally inflicted a wound on himself with his rifle, from which he died five days after the incident.

In 1906, Smith and Annie Brunson Farley stood before the altar. His second marriage resulted in four children, two daughters and two sons. His son Ellison DuRant Smith, Jr. was later married to the daughter of Governor Richard Irvine Manning . His second son with Annie Farley, Charles, was a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives .

Political career

Ellison Smith's political career began in 1896 when he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives for the Democratic Party . After four years as a member of Parliament, he ran for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 1901 , but only finished fourth in the primary of his party. Asbury Francis Lever was the winner .

Early on, Smith committed to the interests of farmers , founded in 1901, the Farmer's Protective Association , and was a delegate at the Boll Weavil Convention , which in 1905 Shreveport ( Louisiana met). As cotton was mostly grown on his parents' farm , he soon got the nickname Cotton Ed .

In 1908 Smith was elected to the United States Senate. It was the beginning of 36 years in Congress . He stood for re-election five times and was confirmed in office just as often. In 1933 he was elected chairman of the Agriculture Committee. Politically, Smith belonged to the conservative wing of his party, which spoke out against the equal treatment of African Americans .

At the initiative of some politicians, decisive steps should be taken against the ever-increasing number of white lynchings of blacks. On January 3, 1935, an anti-lynching law called the Costigan-Wagner Bill - named after its two main initiators, Democrats Robert F. Wagner ( New York ) and Edward P. Costigan ( Colorado ) - was passed in the US Senate brought in. The law should punish lynching as such, as well as punish police officers who tolerated, participated in, or failed to prosecute such crimes. Above all, however, the criminal proceedings should be drawn from the orbit of the individual states at the state level ( Federal Trials ). As part of the discussion on the bill Smith, was of the opinion that the lynching was simply necessary "to protect the sanctity of our woman-hood" ( "to defend the sanctity of women" ). Another fanatical opponent of the law was Theodore G. Bilbo . Despite the submission of thousands of petitions from black people and civil rights activists, the law failed due to opposition from the Democratic Senators of the southern states, especially since US President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to use his influence because he feared the support of the southern state Democrats in Congress for his New Deal program and in the upcoming elections in 1936. However, Smith was among those politicians who sharply criticized President Roosevelt's New Deal in the early 1930s. The subsequent attempt by Roosevelt to prevent Smith from being re-elected in 1938 failed. In 1940 he was named Dean , Senior President of the Second House of Parliament. In 1944, however, he was no longer nominated by his party as a candidate for the office of US Senator.

death

Ellison D. Smith died on November 17, 1944, at the age of 80, on his parents' farm. He died in the same bed he was born in.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Our Campaigns: SC District 7 - Special D Primary
2. ↑ from Smith's speech
3. ↑ Tanglewood Plantation - Lee County, Lynchburg, South Carolina ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

Web links

• Ellison D. Smith in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)