Lawrence Tyson

Lawrence Tyson

Lawrence Davis Tyson (born July 4, 1861 in Pitt County , North Carolina , † August 24, 1929 in Strafford , Chester County , Pennsylvania ) was an American politician , businessman and general . Between 1925 and 1929 he represented the state of Tennessee in the US Senate .

Career

Lawrence Tyson was born on a farm near Greenville Greenville, North Carolina. He attended public schools in his home country including the Greenville Academy . Between 1879 and 1883 he attended the US Military Academy at West Point . After graduating, he became a lieutenant in the United States Army . He was transferred to the west, where he took part in some campaigns against the Apaches . Between 1891 and 1895 he taught at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville military science (military science and tactics). After studying law at the same university and being admitted to the bar in 1894, he began working in his new profession in Knoxville. At the same time he temporarily resigned from military service. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 , he volunteered to return to the army. He became a colonel in a volunteer unit that was stationed in Puerto Rico , among other places . In 1899 he retired from active military service after the end of the war. He returned to Knoxville and practiced as a lawyer again. At the same time he was involved in cotton production. He founded the Knoxville Cotton Mills , which later became one of the largest textile mills in Knoxville. Between 1902 and 1908 he was Brigadier General Inspector of the Tennessee National Guard. During the First World War he served as a brigadier general in the American armed forces in the European theater of war. His 59th Brigade was one of the first Allied units to break through the Siegfried Line in September 1918 . In 1919, Tyson finally retired from the military.

Politically, Lawrence Tyson joined the Democratic Party . Between 1903 and 1905 he was an MP and Chairman of the House of Representatives from Tennessee . In 1913 he tried unsuccessfully for his nomination for the US Senate elections and in 1920 he ran unsuccessfully for the nomination for the office of vice president at the Democratic National Convention . From 1923 he owned the Knoxville Sentinel newspaper . In the elections of 1924 Lawrence Tyson was elected as his party's candidate to the US Senate, where he succeeded John K. Shields on March 4, 1925 , whom he had beaten in his party's primary election . Tyson was able to exercise this mandate until his death on August 24, 1929. In 1925 he was a co-author of the Tyson-Fitzgerald Act , which provided compensation for wounded officers in the First World War. The law was initially blocked by President Calvin Coolidge's veto. However, Tyson found a majority in Congress to override the veto. In 1926 he supported the application to establish the Great Smoky Mountains National Park . This was then set up in 1934. Tyson died in a hospital in Strafford, Pennsylvania.

Since 1886 he was married to Bettie Humes McGhee, the daughter of the railroad entrepreneur Charles McClung McGhee (1828-1907). The son Charles, born in 1889, was killed in October 1918 as a pilot in the United States Navy during a mine sweep over the North Sea.

Web links

Commons : Lawrence Tyson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Lawrence Tyson in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)