Tom Stewart

Tom Stewart

Arthur Thomas "Tom" Stewart (born January 11, 1892 in Dunlap , Sequatchie County , Tennessee , †  October 10, 1972 in Nashville , Tennessee) was an American lawyer and politician ( Democratic Party ) who founded the state of Tennessee in the US Senate represented.

Legal career

Tom Stewart attended secondary Pryor Institute , a private school in Jasper , and then the Emory College near Atlanta ( Georgia ). Upon his return to Tennessee, he continued his education at the Law School of Cumberland University in Lebanon . In 1913 he was admitted to the Bar Association, and he in Birmingham ( Alabama started practicing as a lawyer). In 1915 he moved to Jasper and in 1919 to Winchester .

Stewart ran for the post of district attorney in the 18th district of Tennessee in 1923, which he held until 1939 after a successful election. During that time he led the Scopes Trial in the Dayton Criminal Court , in which the teacher John Thomas Scopes was accused of illegally teaching the theory of evolution in a public school. He put the focus of his argument on the political aspect, according to which control of the state schools was invariably with the Parliament of Tennessee; this had previously passed the corresponding law, which became known as the Butler Act . Scopes was fined a $ 100 fine; on appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, the verdict was overturned on procedural grounds.

US Senator

In 1938, Stewart ran for the seat of the late Nathan L. Bachman in the United States Senate. He met in the Primary of the Democrats, which, given the weakness of the Republican Party at the time, practically anticipated the actual election, on union leader George L. Berry , who had been appointed Bachman's acting successor by Governor Gordon Browning . Stewart decided the primary for himself and won the official by-election on November 2, 1938 with 75.9 percent of the vote, clearly against the Republican Dwayne D. Maddox (19.4 percent). It is true that he could have taken the Senate seat immediately; but he decided to wait for the end of his tenure as prosecutor, and so did not enter Congress until January 16, 1939 .

As a senator, Stewart belonged to the then conservative southern wing of the Democratic group. He was seen by contemporaries as an ally of Edward Crump , the long-time leader of his party in Tennessee. He was re-elected in 1942; In the same year, the internment of Japanese-born Americans began , whereupon Stewart introduced a bill in the Senate, according to which these should also be stripped of their American citizenship. In 1948 he lost the democratic primary against the more progressive-oriented Estes Kefauver , whereupon he resigned from the Senate on January 3, 1949. As a result, Stewart worked again as a lawyer. He died on October 10, 1972 in Nashville and was buried in Winchester.

Web links

• Tom Stewart in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Tom Stewart in the database of Find a Grave (English)