William J. Driver

William J. Driver

William Joshua Driver (born March 2, 1873 in Osceola , Mississippi County , Arkansas , † October 1, 1948 ibid) was an American politician . Between 1921 and 1939 he represented the first constituency of the state of Arkansas in the US House of Representatives .

Career

After elementary school, William Driver studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1894. Then he began to practice his new profession in his home town of Osceola. Politically, he joined the Democratic Party . Between 1897 and 1899 he was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives . From 1911 to 1918, Driver served as a judge in the Arkansas State's Second Legal District. In 1918, he was also a delegate to a meeting to revise the Arkansas constitution.

In 1920, Driver was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the first district of Arkansas , where he replaced Thaddeus H. Caraway , who had moved to the Senate , on March 4, 1921 . After he was confirmed in each of the following eight elections, he was able to complete a total of nine legislative periods in Congress by January 3, 1939 . During this period the Great Depression , which began in 1929, fell and the prohibition law was repealed in 1933. In 1932, Driver was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention , where Franklin D. Roosevelt was nominated as the party's presidential candidate.

In the primaries of 1938 Driver lost to Ezekiel Candler Gathings , who then received the nomination of the Democrats for the mandate previously exercised by Driver and was subsequently elected as his successor in Congress. In the years that followed, up to his death in 1948, Driver worked again as a lawyer in Osceola. There he was also active in the banking business.

Web links

• William J. Driver in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William J. Driver in the database of Find a Grave (English)