To this day, we have had no presidents who have died as a result of a vehicular collision. However, one of our presidents came close, and this was a man who would survive taking a bullet on the campaign trail…Theodore Roosevelt. The year is 1902, and Roosevelt is out on the campaign trail to support Republican candidates for the midterms. In September, he is touring New England and after visiting retired Senator Henry Dawes in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, he takes a carriage with his entourage from Pittsfield to Lenox. His entourage included his secretary George Cortelyou, Massachusetts Governor Murray Crane, driver David J. Pratt, and bodyguard William Craig. Unbeknownst to Roosevelt as orders had gone out to close the road to trolleys, the executives of the Pittstown Electric Street Company, either out of ignorance of or disregard of the order, wanted to take a trolley to meet President Roosevelt downtown. However, others wanted to board the trolley too, and this delayed scheduled departure by 15 minutes. The driver, Euclid Madden, was ordered by the executives to try to make up for lost time, thus the trolley was barreling along. After a sharp curve, Madden saw to his horror that the trolley was on a crash course for the president’s carriage, and although he rang the bell it was too late.

CRASH!

Roosevelt’s bodyguard, William Craig, was pulled under the trolley, crushing his skull and killing him instantly, one of the horses was mortally wounded while the others broke ranks and fled. The other four occupants were thrown from the carriage. Pratt was seriously wounded from his fall and had to be hospitalized, Cortelyou was knocked out and bleeding from the neck but ended up being okay, Crane only received light bruising, and President Roosevelt’s face landed in the mud. He was slightly injured, including a wound to his shin, a bloody mouth, and a swelling face. After inquiring about the well-being of others, he furiously stormed towards the driver, accusing him of negligence and shouted expletives at him, and when the driver argued that he had the right-of-way, Roosevelt shook his fist and shouted through his blood-stained teeth, “this is the most damnable outrage I ever knew!” and had to be restrained from attacking him (History Nuggets). The president was distraught over the loss of Craig, who was close with the Roosevelt family and was the first secret service agent to die protecting the president. Roosevelt’s continued participation in the 1902 campaign would be complicated as his shin wound would turn out to be more serious as it become infected weeks later while he was campaigning in the Midwest. Two operations ended up being necessary to prevent sepsis and Roosevelt used a wheelchair during his recovery. Two men were prosecuted for this incident – Madden and conductor James Kelly. Although Kelly served no jail time, Madden was hit with a heavy fine and served six months in jail. The Pittstown Electric Company, fully aware that they had urged Madden to go fast, paid the fine and compensated him throughout his time in jail, and he resumed his employment on release. Roosevelt would later tell an audience, “If you’re set on risking your life, go to Pittsfield, Mass., and take a trolley ride” (New England Historical Society).

References

President’s Landau Struck by a Car. (1902, September 4). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

The Pittsfield Streetcar Driver Who Nearly Killed Teddy Roosevelt. (2024). New England Historical Society.

Retrieved from

The Trolley and the Barouche. (2015, July 14). History Nuggets.

Retrieved from

https://historynuggets.squarespace.com/nuggets/2015/7/14/the-trolley-and-the-barouche

When Theodore Roosevelt Was Hospitalized at St. Vincent’s. Hoosier State Chronicles.

Retrieved from

Electing a person to the Senate of a party is not always going to mean he or she will support everything their party does. Contrary to notions about RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) and to a lesser extent DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) , defections are less common than they used to be. However, with John Knight Shields (1858-1934), him being a party-line man was really never guaranteed.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Shields took up the practice of law, and for his first 12 years in practice he was a partner at his father’s firm. His good reputation resulted in his appointment as an officer who assisted judges with complicated legal cases, a position he served in for six years. In 1902, Shields was elected an associate justice of Tennessee’s Supreme Court, being elevated to chief justice in 1910. At that time, the Democratic Party had split into factions, with one of the groups accusing Governor Malcolm R. Patterson of attempting to intimidate Tennessee’s Supreme Court (Bristol Herald Courier). Shields won great respect in his stand for an independent judiciary, and he became thought of as a good choice for national office.

Shields was elected to the Senate by a combination of independent Democrats and Republicans, and thus he was not really ever going to be someone’s man. Indeed, he could be personally a bit prickly. While Shields supported a good deal of President Wilson’s New Freedom legislation, his independence would not put him in good stead with him. He was a defender of state’s rights, and this manifested in his opposition to Prohibition and women’s suffrage. Shields also believed that the creation of the Federal Water Power Commission, championed by Wilson, was an unconstitutional intrusion on the states (The New York Times). However, the issue that would cause such a rift between him and the president and many fellow Democrats was yet to come.

In 1918, his renomination appeared in doubt, and there was a rumor that President Wilson was going to write and a publish letter that he was no friend of his administration, and in response fellow Senator Kenneth McKellar begged Wilson not to write it, and it was not written (Hill, 2019). Despite this letter not being written, Shields was keen on continuing to be independent from and even hostile to the president. After the election, he even snapped that Wilson and his secretary Joseph Tumulty could go to hell (Hill, 2019). Shields came out strongly against the League of Nations, at least President Wilson’s version of it and he backed Henry Cabot Lodge’s (R-Mass.) strong reservationist substitute. Shields considered himself acting true to the principles of the nation and the Democratic Party, including Wilson during the 1916 campaign (Bristol Herald Courier).  Such a dissent was to Wilson a sin that could never be forgiven, especially after he had held his pen so the senator could be reelected. Shields also charged that selfish interests were at work for the League of Nations, stating, “Great capitalists who desire to speculate in the deprecated bonds of the bankrupt nations of Europe and dealers in cotton and food products, who desire to exploit those countries for selfish purposes and wanted the United States as provided in the League of Nations to stabilize those governments and make their bonds and contracts valid, have spent over a million dollars under the auspices of the League to Enforce Peace in organizing branches of their league, paying public speakers and subsidizing newspapers to have the treaty ratified” (Hill, 2020).

During the Harding and Coolidge Administrations Shields had reverted a bit back to party loyalty, including opposing the tariff increases and income tax reductions under Harding. Although supportive of electrifying the Tennessee Valley area using the Muscle Shoals properties, he was supportive of it being done by private (by Henry Ford), rather than public means. President Warren G. Harding seriously considered nominating Shields to the Supreme Court in 1922 as his pick of a Democrat, but had wanted to pick a man under 60 and due to a misprint Harding believed that he was younger. He was in truth 64, and Harding instead selected the 56-year-old Pierce Butler.  

Although Wilson had not written that letter that would have ended Shields’ career in 1918, he did write it and make it public before the 1924 primary. He also had opposed bonus legislation for World War I veterans, which was very popular and seen as a patriotic thing to support. Although Wilson died before he could see Shields get beat, Wilson’s letter and death did impact it. His primary opponent, Lawrence Tyson, charged that Shields’ opposition sped up Wilson’s decline and death (Bristol Herald Courier). Wilson did get his revenge from beyond the grave, as the Democrats nominated Lawrence Tyson to be the next senator. Shields’ DW-Nominate score was a -0.156, which placed him among the more conservative Democrats. He chose to retire after this loss and although President Coolidge offered him a post on the Federal Trade Commission in 1926, he preferred to spend the rest of his days at his beloved family estate of “Clinchdale” in Grainger County than return to Washington D.C. In 1934, tragedy struck when Shields’ wife died, and he was so distraught that his health broke down, dying two weeks later on September 30^th at the age of 76.

References

Ex-Senator John K. Shields Succumbs. (1934, October 1). The Bristol Herald Courier, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/586529503/

Hill, R. (2019, March 24). The 1924 Senate Race in Tennessee, I. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/1924-senate-race-tennessee/

Hill, R. (2020, January 20). Tennessee and the League of Nations, V. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/tennessee-league-nations-v-2/

John K. Shields, Ex-Senator, Dies. (1934, October 1). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Shields, John Knight. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/8471/john-knight-shields

In 1914, Birmingham’s prominent representative, Oscar Underwood, who had sponsored the Underwood Tariff reducing tariffs and imposing the first permanent income tax, won popular election to the Senate. His successor was a bit more of an independent figure in prominent attorney George Huddleston (1869-1960). He identified as a “Jeffersonian Democrat” and sought to vote in a way that was true to Jeffersonian ideals as he saw them. This meant that although he was keen on state’s rights, as his votes against Constitutional amendments for women’s suffrage and Prohibition (although he supported it on a state level) indicated, he also supported a lot of progressive legislation, and was strongly supportive of labor unions, being one of their foremost spokesmen. Huddleston was also a representative who was thinking away from the past during the Wilson years. He voted for pensions for veterans of the War of the Rebellion, the Spanish-American War, and the Philippine-American War. Pensions for union veterans were a sore spot for the South, as their tax money was going to forces that had defeated them while Confederate veterans only got pensions from their respective states. He also did not embrace the “Lost Cause” narrative, once telling his daughter after she made a display in her class of wishing that the Confederacy had won the war with or without slavery, “Don’t talk like an ass. Slavery is a terrible evil. It degrades both sides” and after his daughter responded that the Confederates must have thought it was fine, he replied, “I’m sorry to say that at that time most Southerners did think it was all right. And the South paid for it” (Packer). Unusually for his time and place, Huddleston supported racial equality. He also spoke out against the KKK and xenophobia, not moves for popularity in 1920s Alabama politics. However, Huddleston could not vote for federal civil rights measures, as he would certainly have been defeated for renomination had he done so.

Consistent with his progressive views, he was an opponent of American imperialism, opposing intervening in Nicaragua and Haiti and initially opposed American entry into World War I (Derbes). Although Huddleston ended up voting to declare war on Germany, he strongly opposed curtailing civil liberties, stating, “In a time like this. . .it takes a lion-hearted courage for a man to stand up on his feet and dare to speak for peace” (Hill). His independence irked President Wilson, who called for his defeat for renomination based on his voting record. However, Birmingham’s voters still liked their representative, and Wilson’s popularity was beginning to take a tumble.

In the 1920s, Huddleston proved an opponent of most the policies of the conservative Republican presidents of the age. In 1931, he was chosen by the Democrats to respond to President Hoover’s State of the Union Address, in which he lambasted him for failing to grant direct relief to Americans (Hill). Despite Huddleston’s criticisms of Hoover, he was becoming more independent from the Democratic Party’s line. Indeed, around this time, he began voting more towards the right (Jones). This impacted Huddleston’s views on FDR’s New Deal programs. While he supported the Tennessee Valley Authority and the National Industrial Recovery Act, he stood alone among Alabama’s delegation as a consistent opponent of New Deal agricultural policy. Despite this and other differences, he won renomination with 61% of the vote. However, in his next term, he further antagonized the Roosevelt Administration with his votes against Social Security, the Bituminous Coal Act, and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act. On the latter, he objected to the bill abolishing holding companies for public utilities, arguing that “regulation” and not “vengeance” was called for (Hill). In 1936, Luther Patrick, a New Deal loyalist, challenged him in the Democratic primary. Huddleston was losing popularity in his district due to his anti-New Deal views, and the same press outlets that decades before had claimed he was a “socialist” or a “radical” now claimed that he was a “conservative”. This did not go unnoticed by Huddleston, who stated, “My principles remain now as always – I have not changed. Some who once criticized me as radical now call me conservative. The change is in them and not me” (Jones). I personally think that it was a bit of both; he grew more conservative and the politics of the time shifted in a liberal direction.

Huddleston had a low moment in his 1936 primary when during a heated argument with his primary challenger regarding him implying that other Alabama Democrats wanted to see him defeated, he hit him over the head with a ketchup bottle. The results of the 1936 primary were just about the reverse of the last one, as Patrick won with almost 60% of the vote (Hill). Huddleston’s DW-Nominate score was a -0.076, which ranked as rather conservative for a Democrat. His political career was over, and his turn to the right stuck. In 1940, Huddleston for the first time endorsed a Republican for president in Wendell Willkie. However, most of Alabama was not with him on this, with only traditionally Republican Winston County voting for him. In 1948, despite having previously called for racial equality, he endorsed Strom Thurmond’s run for president. For Huddleston, the Democratic Party had moved too far away from the style of Jeffersonian politics he embraced.  However, his son, Huddleston Jr., had a political career after, and the elder Huddleston lived to see him be elected to Congress, from the same Birmingham district he had represented, in 1954. Huddleston Sr. died on February 29, 1960 at the age of 90. Interestingly, Huddleston Jr. would have a similar ideological journey as his father and would himself be defeated. However, unlike his father, he was defeated by someone who ran to his right in 1964 rather than to his left. Much had changed in Alabama’s political climate in 28 years.

References

Derbes, B.J. (2012, August 10). George Huddleston Sr. Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Retrieved from

https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/george-huddleston/

Hill, R. (2024, August 25). The Gentleman from Alabama: George Huddleston. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/the-gentleman-from-alabama-george-huddleston/

Huddleston, George. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/4685/george-huddleston

Jones, J. (1960, March 1). George Huddleston, 90, Ex-Congressman, Dies. Birmingham Post-Herald, 1.

Retrieved from

https://www.newspapers.com/image/793668498/

Packer, G. (2000). Blood of the Liberals. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

On July 4, 1890, a hard-working man of 36 who worked for Yankton College and had previously had tenures as a teacher and a pastor was called upon on at the last minute to deliver a speech before the citizens of Brown County, South Dakota. James Henderson Kyle (1854-1901) proceeded to deliver a half-hour powerful, rousing speech in which he denounced corruption in government and called for more redistribution of wealth. These messages resounded with the people of South Dakota who were so distant from political and economic power, and this speech propelled him to the U.S. Senate.

Kyle had originally been a Republican, but by 1887 he found himself in greater sympathy with the views of the Democrats and switched. Although by the time of his election in 1891 he chose not to identify with any party, he had been supported by the populistic Farmers Alliance and Democrats. Kyle soon opted to identify as a member of the left-wing People’s (Populist) Party and mostly voted with the Democrats in his first term. This included his support of the Wilson-Gorman Tariff in 1894 which reduced tariffs and reinstituted the income tax for the highest earners. He also supported free coinage of silver, women’s suffrage, worker’s rights, and Prohibition. However, the cause he was most known for was Labor Day.

On August 28, 1893, Kyle introduced a bill, S. 730, to make the first Monday of September a federal holiday to honor the contributions of American labor. President Cleveland signed the measure into law on June 28th. On an interesting note, this was signed while the Pullman Strike was occurring, which President Cleveland would ultimately end by use of federal troops. In 1898, Kyle would make another legislative contribution through his strong advocacy for the establishment of the Industrial Commission to investigate the economic conditions of the U.S., which President McKinley signed into law.

Although he had been a Populist, during his second term his views started shifting away from Populism as support of socialism was increasing and the strength of the party was declining. On December 28, 1899, Kyle delivered a statement in which he divorced himself from the Populist Party. He said, “Though I am a bimetallist and have been so from conscientious convictions for twenty-five years, I would rather take the most undiluted gold standard coin than to accept bimetallism with the ingredients of radical socialism that are now associated with it” (The New York Times). From then on, he was a Republican and largely supported the party on the issues from then on. He had already been moving in this direction on some issues, such as his support for President McKinley’s vote to ratify the Treaty of Paris on February 6, 1899, which ended the Spanish-American War, brought the Phillippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba under US control and brought an end to the Spanish Empire while establishing the United States as a world power. Guam and Puerto Rico remain U.S. territories today. Kyle’s DW-Nominate score stands at a -0.108, reflecting both his Populism and his later Republican phase.

Kyle’s era of renewed Republicanism would not last long; in 1899 he had contracted malaria and this weakened his heart. On July 1, 1901, he would issue forth his last words that reflected both his faith and peace with the end, “Now I shall rest” (Robinson). Kyle was only 47 years old.

References

James H. Kyle of South Dakota Dead. (1901, July 2). The New York Times.

Retrieved from

Kyle, James Henderson. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/5386/james-henderson-kyle

Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of James H. Kyle. (1902). Congressional Record. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Printing Office.

Retrieved from

Robinson, D. (1904). History of South Dakota, Vol. 1, 612-614.

Retrieved from

https://electricscotland.com/history/world/bios/kyle_james.htm

Perhaps no other figure is more identified with neo-conservatism nor reviled for it by the critics of the George W. Bush Administration than the now late Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney (1941-2025). This post will cover his Congressional career, where we get to best examine his ideology.

Dick Cheney, 1984

Cheney had a bit of a rough start, as he got into the drinking culture of college fraternities and his excessive drinking resulted in two drunk driving convictions in the early 1960s. However, he cleaned up his act, finished his college education, and in 1969 he secured an internship with moderate Republican Congressman William A. Steiger of Wisconsin. It was through this that he got connected to Donald Rumsfeld, who would bring him on into the Office of Economic Opportunity and mentored him. This connection resulted in him becoming President Gerald Ford’s deputy chief of staff under Rumsfeld and then being elevated to chief of staff. In 1978, Cheney ran for Congress, the same year that George W. Bush first ran for Congress, but unlike Bush, Cheney would win his race in Wyoming. However, this was also the first year that the consequences of his lifestyle came to bite him, as he suffered his first of five heart attacks at the age of 37. Cheney was a beer drinker, had a family history of weak hearts, had a fatty diet, and had smoked up to three packs a day (Rodriguez). After this, he began to eat healthier and quit smoking. Incidentally, his old boss Steiger also suffered a heart attack that year, but his was fatal at the age of 40.

Cheney quickly established himself as a staunch conservative, standing opposed to implementing the Panama Canal Treaty, the establishment of the Department of Education, and the bailout of Chrysler in 1979. Indeed, his first score by the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) was a 100%. Cheney was likewise opposed to the windfall profits tax and price controls on oil and gasoline. From 1979 to 1984, he sided with ACA’s positions on votes 93% of the time. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) gave him a similar inverse assessment; he sided only 5% of the time with their positions. His DW-Nominate score also paints the picture of a strongly conservative politician, being a 0.523. In April 1980, Cheney was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Ronald Reagan, and with his election he became one of the president’s staunchest supporters. Indeed, he was one of three reasons the Wyoming delegation to Congress was especially powerful during the Reagan years, the other two being Senators Alan Simpson and Malcolm Wallop. All three were highly influential on the White House. Cheney proved exceptionally conservative in some areas, particularly regarding domestic spending and regulations. Some examples of him being in a conservative minority include:

He was one of 56 representatives to vote against increasing food stamp funds over budget caps on May 8, 1980.

He was one of 29 votes against a foreign aid bill for food to Africa on March 6, 1984.

He was one of 27 votes against an additional three years funding for head start and numerous other social programs on September 16, 1984.

Cheney was one of 48 votes against the first vote on the South Africa sanctions bill on August 1, 1985.

He one of 59 to vote against an increase in funding of child nutrition programs on September 18, 1985.

Cheney was one of 57 representatives to vote against funding arts programs under the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act of 1965 on October 10, 1985.

A critic of much environmental legislation, he was one of 33 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on December 10, 1985.

Continuing this trend, he was one of 27 representatives to vote against extending Superfund programs on October 10, 1986.

Cheney was one of 29 votes against the Hate Crimes Statistics bill on May 18, 1988. However, he also voted for John Miller’s (R-Wash.) amendment that substituted “homosexuality or heterosexuality” for “sexual orientation” as a covered category.

He was one of 13 votes against the AIDS Federal Policy Act on September 23, 1988. However, he also voted against a motion by Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) to require spousal notification if a patient is infected with AIDS.

Cheney was one of 51 votes against a ban on lawn darts on October 21, 1988.

During the Reagan Administration, Cheney was a faithful supporter of the president, including on some of his more controversial stances, such as sale of AWACs (surveillance planes) to Saudi Arabia in 1981 and his opposition to Congress’s imposition of sanctions on South Africa. He also backed Reagan when he partly rolled back his 1981 tax cuts with the 1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. On civil rights, Cheney voted against the 1980 Fair Housing bill over its administrative judges provision, voted for extending the Voting Rights Act of 1965, voted for the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1984, and voted for the Civil Rights Restoration Act in 1988 before voting against overriding President Reagan’s veto. His primary priority, however, was on foreign policy. He staunchly supported aid to anti-communist forces in Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan as well as El Salvador’s anti-communist government. Cheney also backed the Strategic Defense Initiative. His expertise on foreign and military policy made him a slam dunk candidate for Secretary of Defense under the George H.W. Bush Administration, being confirmed 92-0, after former Senator John Tower was rejected by the Senate for alleged alcoholism and womanizing. As noted earlier, in this post I was only covering his Congressional career, and the only case one can make for him being a RINO is if the definition of RINO is lack of personal loyalty to our current president. By the way, a quick observation…who would have put it on their bingo card back in 2004 that 20 years later Cheney would have endorsed Harris for president while RFK Jr. would have endorsed Trump?

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Cheney, Richard Bruce. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/14611/richard-bruce-cheney

Mullen, M. (2025, November 6). Cheney, the state’s most powerful and polarizing politician. Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Retrieved from

https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/wyoming-remembers-dick-cheney-the-state-s-most-powerful-and-polarizing-politician/article_2344e9ee-03e8-411b-9759-d7ce0b4c2d29.html

Rodriguez, A. (2025, November 4). Dick Cheney had five heart attacks. Here’s how science helped him live until 84. USA Today.

Retrieved from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/11/04/dick-cheney-heart-attacks-modern-medicine/87083844007/