Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/235



, of Oxford, was born December 18, 1857, near Winona. Miss.; received his education near Sardis, in Panola County, at a country school, at the University of Mississippi, and at the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; graduated from the latter institution in 1875 at Austin, in Tunica County, where he continued to reside till March, 1877, when he moved to Oxford. Miss,. at which place he has continued in the practice of law since: has never been a candidate for any office: was a member of the Democratic national convention in 1892, and was, by the national Democratic convention of 1896, at the request of the State of Mississippi, elected a member for Mississippi of the national Democratic executive committee, which position he now holds; was nominated for Congress though not a candidate for the position, but a deadlock between the four aspirants having continued for several days the nomination was tendered to and accepted by him; was elected to the Fifty-Fifth Congress as a Democrat, receiving 6,941 votes, against 692 votes for M. A. Montgomery, Republican, 1.472 votes for F. E. Ray, Populist, and 779 votes for W. D. Miller. Independent; was appointed and sworn in as United States Senator from the State of Mississippi on May 30, 1898, as successor of Senator B.C, Walthall, deceased.