Thomas Whitfield Davidson

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Thomas Whitfield Davidson (born September 23, 1876 in Harrison County , Texas , †  January 26, 1974 in Dallas , Texas) was an American lawyer and politician . Between 1923 and 1925 he was lieutenant governor of the state of Texas; he later became a federal judge in the federal district court for the northern district of Texas.

Life

Thomas Davidson attended the public schools in his home country and was then enrolled at East Texas State Normal College . He later graduated from the University of Chicago and Columbia University . He then went on to teach at Marshall for five years . After studying law at the same time and being admitted to the bar in 1903, he began to work in this profession in Marshall and Dallas. Between 1907 and 1914 he was the legal representative for the city of Marshall. From 1927 to 1936 he also worked for a large insurance company in Dallas called Praetorians .

Politically, Davidson joined the Democratic Party . In 1912, he participated as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore , where Woodrow Wilson was nominated as a presidential candidate. In 1932 he was again a delegate at a democratic federal party conference. It was then that Franklin D. Roosevelt was named a presidential candidate. From 1920 to 1922 he was a member of the Texas Senate . In 1922, Davidson was elected Lieutenant Governor of Texas alongside Pat Morris Neff . He held this office between 1923 and 1925. He was Deputy Governor and Chairman of the State Senate. He campaigned for the expansion of highways and prison reform; he was also an opponent of the Ku Klux Klan . In 1924 he ran unsuccessfully in his party's gubernatorial primaries.

After serving as Lieutenant Governor, Thomas Davidson returned to practice as a lawyer. In 1936 he was appointed judge on the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas , succeeding Edward Roscoe Meek . He officially remained there until 1965. After that, he continued to work as a part-time judge with senior status for this court. From 1954 to 1959 he was Chief Justice to succeed William Hawley Atwell as head of the court. He died in Dallas on January 26, 1974 at the age of 97.

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personal data
SURNAME Davidson, Thomas Whitfield
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Harrison County , Texas
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1974
Place of death Dallas , Texas