- Luke Lea (1879–1945)
Infobox Senator |name=Luke Lea
nationality=American
jr/sr=United States Senator
state=Tennessee
party=Democratic
term_start=March 4 ,1911
term_end=March 4 ,1917
preceded=James B. Frazier
succeeded=Kenneth D. McKellar
date of birth=birth date|1879|4|12|mf=y
place of birth=Nashville, Tennessee
dead=dead
date of death=death date and age|1945|11|18|1879|4|12|mf=y
place of death=Nashville, Tennessee
spouse=Mary Louise Warner Lea
religion=Luke Lea (
April 12 1879 –November 18 1945 ) was a Democratic United States Senator fromTennessee from 1911 to 1917.Lea was the great-grandson of an earlier Luke Lea who was a two-term Congressman from Tennessee in the 1830s and initially an ardent supporter of
Andrew Jackson who later became a Whig.The younger Lea attended
public school s and then theUniversity of the South inSewanee, Tennessee , graduating from that institution in 1899. He then attended theColumbia Law School inNew York City , completing his studies at that prestigious institution in 1903 and being admitted to the bar the same year, beginning practice in Nashville.Lea was the founder of the "Nashville Tennessean" and its first editor and
publisher . He was elected to the Senate by theTennessee General Assembly in 1911. He was an enthusiastic supporter of most of the progressive policies of Democratic PresidentWoodrow Wilson , a fellow native of the South and only the second member of the Democratic Party to have been elected President since the end of the Civil War until that point, whose service began in 1913 following his election in 1912. During the 63rd Congress, Lea was chairman of the Senate Committee on the Library (of Congress).Socially progressive, but fiscally solvent, Lea actively supported lowering the tariff, the creation of the Federal Reserve, the regulation of major corporations and the breaking up of trusts. He also supported women's suffrage and a national prohibition amendment. He allied with
Robert La Follette and supported his seaman's act. He approved of the eight-hour day and opposed child labor. [Tidwell, 56-58.]In 1913, he began his most ambitious undertaking in the Senate when he attempted to launch a federal investigation of the railroads and politically corruption in Tennessee. The investigation encouraged the railroads to cease distributing free passes as political favors, but the growing crisis of the First World War eventually overshadowed concerns about corruption and the investigation was shelved. [Tidwell, 58-62.]
During Lea's term, the Seventeenth Amendment changed the method of election of Senators from that of election by the state legislatures to a direct popular vote. Lea supported this measure. Lea contended for the 1916 Democratic nomination for the seat but was defeated by
Kenneth McKellar , a colleague of Memphis political "boss"E. H. Crump , who went on to serve six terms as Tennessee's longest-serving senator. Despite his lame duck status, Lea continued to work on the progressive agenda. He voted to confirmLouis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, and supported a number of progressive measures in the Senate including immigration reform, the Shipping Act of 1916, and the Revenue Act of 1916. [Tidwell, 74-75.]Shortly after the expiry of Lea's Senate term the U.S. entered
World War I . Lea volunteered and was commissioned as anartillery officer, serving inEurope , where he was promoted to the rank ofcolonel . In January 1919, Lea and a group of officers from his unit, the U.S. 114th Field Artillery, traveled to KasteelAmerongen in theNetherlands in a failed attempt to seize the recently exiled GermanKaiser Wilhelm II and bringWilhelm II to the Paris Peace Conference for potential trial forwar crimes . One of the officers accompanying Lea wasLarry MacPhail , later the part-owner and general manager of theCincinnati Reds ,Brooklyn Dodgers andNew York Yankees and father of baseball executiveLee MacPhail .After the close of the war, Lea returned to Nashville and resumed operation of his
newspaper . In 1929 Lea was nominated for appointment bygovernor of Tennessee Henry H. Horton to Tennessee's other Senate seat, vacated by the death of SenatorLawrence D. Tyson who had been one of Lea's colleagues in the U.S. 30th Division duringWorld War I . Lea, however, declined this appointment, choosing instead to enter thebank ing andreal estate businesses in an era when the speculative nature of the practices in those industries was about to contribute to theGreat Depression . In the 1920s, Lea was a major investor in and backer of the Nashville investment banking firm of Caldwell & Company, due in part to his friendship with its founderRogers Caldwell . Many accusations were subsequently made about Lea and his friends, and he became the subject of much rumor and innuendo. The book "At Heaven's Gate " by poet andnovel istRobert Penn Warren is said to be a "roman à clef" about the events of this era in the Nashville area, as are aspects of the novel "A Summons to Memphis " by thenovel istPeter Matthew Hillsman Taylor .Lea was indicted with others, including his eldest son, in
North Carolina for bank fraud resulting from the 1930 collapse of the Central Bank and Trust Company of Asheville, North Carolina, a bank with which he had become affiliated through his connection with Caldwell & Company. Both Lea and his son were tried in North Carolina in 1931, and the Leas were convicted on three of seven counts. After the Leas’ appeals were exhausted and after theU.S. Supreme Court denied theirpetition for thewrit ofcertiorari , both Leas reported for imprisonment at Raleigh in May 1934. Lea received aparole in April 1936, and he received a fullpardon in June 1937. To the end of his life, Lea maintained that he and his son were wrongly prosecuted and convicted and that the prosecution was political in nature, with Lea being made the scapegoat for the Central Bank and Trust’s failure by his Republican foes in North Carolina and Tennessee.Lea made many efforts to reintegrate himself into Tennessee business and political life after his release, but his interests in his newspapers and other investments had been liquidated or placed into receivership during his imprisonment. Lea died in Nashville in 1945 at the age of 66 and is buried in that city's Mount Olivet Cemetery, the final resting place of several Tennessee governors and senators.
Lea Heights in Nashville's
Percy Warner Park , a place offering an excellent view of thedowntown Nashville skyline, is named in his honor. The original land grant establishingPercy Warner Park was donated by Lea and his family to Nashville, and the park is named for Lea's father-in-law.References
*Mary Louise Lea Tidwell, "Luke Lea of Tennessee", Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993, ISBN 0-87972-624-5.
External links
*TIME Magazine Archives--"More Tennessee Trouble" (December 22, 1930) [http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,740859,00.html]
*Essay, Doris Boyce, "Luke Lea in the Great War" [http://pages.prodigy.net/nhn.slate/nh00040.html]
*Essay, Doris Boyce, "Luke Lea in the Great Depression" [http://pages.prodigy.net/nhn.slate/nh00041.html]
*Bill Carey, "'Tennessean' Founder Made News Throughout His Life," The Tennessean Archives (November 30, 2003) [http://www.tennessean.com/business/archives/03/12/43286436.shtml?Element_ID=43286436]
*Luke Lea Papers Collection, Tennessee State Library and Archives [http://www.state.tn.us/TSLA/history/manuscripts/findingaids/ths741.pdf]
*Percie Warner Lea Papers, University of North Carolina-Asheville [http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/biltmore%5Findustries/seely%5Fwomen/lea/]
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