Tennessee State Library and Archives GOVERNOR PRENTICE COOPER
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State of Tennessee Department of State Tennessee State Library and Archives 403 Seventh Avenue North Nashville, Tennessee 37243-0312 GOVERNOR PRENTICE COOPER (1895-1969) PAPERS 1939-1945 GP 44 Processed by: Gregory G. Poole Archival Technical Services Updated by: Lori D. Lockhart January 7, 2021 Tennessee State Library and Archives 403 Seventh Avenue North Nashville, TN 37243 Date Completed: April 2002 MICROFILMED Box 156, Folder 23 and Box 212, Folder 4a (Not Microfilmed) INTRODUCTION William Prentice Cooper Jr. (1895-1969) was the forty-fourth governor of Tennessee. The Governor Prentice Cooper Papers (GP 44) represent an official record of Cooper’s three administrations (1939-1945). The collection has been arranged into several different series in order to provide easier access to the vast amount of material. The series include: Accounts, Correspondence, General Assembly, Invitations, Personal Papers, Photographs, Printed Materials, Scrapbooks, Selective Service, Speeches and Subject Files. A detailed description of each appears in the scope and content note. The Governor Prentice Cooper Papers came to the Tennessee State Library and Archives in 1997 as a gift of Mrs. Hortense Cooper, the widow of Governor Cooper. At the time of acquisition the collection was located in an attic room consisting of 43 file drawer boxes, 44 record carton boxes, 27 scrapbooks and other miscellaneous items. The Governor Prentice Cooper Papers (GP 44) consist of 286 boxes containing approximately 140 cubic feet of material and 25 scrapbooks. There is also a component of audio/visual materials in the collection. Very few items were removed from the collection except routine duplicate items. State government publications were transferred to the State Library for cataloging. The Governor Prentice Cooper Papers are a major addition to the holdings of the Tennessee State Library and Archives and enhance and complete the gubernatorial papers stretching back to the first territorial governor, William Blount. Until this important acquisition, Governor Cooper's papers were the only modern governor not represented in the Tennessee State Library and Archives. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH William Prentice Cooper Jr. (1895-1969) William Prentice Cooper Jr. was born September 28, 1895, at the home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. J.M. Shofner on the Duck River, five miles from Shelbyville, the son of William Prentice and Argentine Shofner Cooper. The family originally lived at Henderson, Kentucky, until 1904, when they moved to Shelbyville. Prentice Cooper first attended school at Butler's Creek, later attending Hannah's Private School in Shelbyville and later the James A. Tate School prior to attending the Webb Preparatory School, where he graduated in 1913. During his senior year at Webb, he was president of the Hamilton Debating Society. In 1914-1915, he attended Vanderbilt University, where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and was elected vice president of the freshman class. In 1916, he entered Princeton University, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1917, he volunteered for service in World War I, enlisting as a private in the artillery. He later became a master gunner while serving in the heavy artillery at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and at the time of his discharge in January 1919, he was a second lieutenant. He entered the Harvard Law School in February 1919, and graduated from that institution with a law degree in 1921. In 1922, he began practicing law with his father in Shelbyville. Cooper's first attempt at politics was winning election to the Tennessee House of Representatives from Bedford County in 1922. During that session of the legislature, he was active in securing the passage of uniform laws, the most important of which bore his name, being the Uniform Declaratory Judgments Act, which allowed courts to rule on ambiguous laws before injury was sustained. In 1925, he was elected Attorney General of the Eighth Judicial Circuit. After his term expired, he practiced law in Shelbyville and Lewisburg, serving as city attorney in both municipalities. During this period, he organized the Duck River Electric Membership Cooperation, said at the time to be the largest farmer's cooperative in the United States. In 1937, he was elected to the State Senate representing the counties of Bedford, Coffee and Moore. During his term as State Senator, he championed the freedom of the press, fiscal reform and was one of the 13 senators who opposed Governor Gordon Browning's County Unit Law. During the early 1930s, he was active in civic affairs, serving one year as president of the Shelbyville Lions Club and also a member of the Lewisburg Rotary Club. He was post- commander of the American Legion and state commander of the American Legion in 1931. In 1938, Cooper was a candidate for governor on the Democratic ticket. The incumbent, Gordon Browning, met formidable opposition in State Senator Cooper. Although Cooper could not match Browning on the platform, he had the support of the powerful Crump machine in Memphis and the strong state organization of Senator Kenneth D. McKellar. Crump bought thousands of dollars of advertising space in newspapers across the state to portray Cooper as a man of dignity and refinement and Browning as a bigoted boor. On election day Cooper defeated Browning by a majority of 76,000 votes. After the election, Cooper announced simply: "I have but one real idea for my administration as Governor, and that is honesty and efficiency in government." Cooper had only token opposition in 1940, and by defeating Judge Ridley Mitchell in 1942 with a substantial majority, he became the first governor since Isham G. Harris to serve three consecutive terms. With a business-like and non-political tone, Cooper emphasized efficiency in government and concentrated on raising the state's economic standing. When Cooper entered office, the state debt was $123,598,000. During Cooper's first administration, he reduced it by $21,000,000, whereas all previous governors combined had only reduced it by $6,000,000. Cooper cut the state payroll by $322,000, tightened purchasing procedures, freed four of the eight remaining toll bridges, and raised taxes only on alcohol. Bond rates were the lowest in state history at less than two percent. Yet, despite this, government services increased. Aid to the aged and infirm grew by $1,500,000. Free textbooks were offered for the first time in the first three primary grades. General school appropriations were increased, inmates in state penitentiaries were segregated by offense, and more raids and arrests were made by the state police. Public health expenditures were also increased. Despite his complete lack of big business experience, Cooper had been handling his office more like a corporate executive than anything else. The Governor's favorite campaign slogan in 1940 and 1942 was "His record is his platform." The majority of Cooper's administration was concerned with the state's mobilization for war. In anticipation of national events, Cooper on May 22, 1940, organized the State Defense Council, four months before President Roosevelt's proclamation of a national emergency. As wartime governor, his duties greatly increased when he had to appoint the personnel on Tennessee's 132 draft boards, as well as organize the registration of Tennesseans eligible for the draft, under which almost 900,000 citizens were registered for military service. An outstanding wartime activity of the Cooper administration was the construction of 15 armories strategically located throughout the state, including one in his hometown of Shelbyville. Also, Tennessee organized the largest state guard in the United States to take the place of the National Guard mustered into national service. A billion dollars’ worth of war industries was located in Tennessee, and large military bases were established such as the Naval Training School at Millington, the army base at Camp Forrest and Camp Campbell, and the Smyrna Air Base located at Smyrna, Tennessee. Perhaps Cooper's most controversial fight during his term in office was the struggle to repeal the poll tax. The poll tax vexed would-be reformers and stifled change. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Tennessee Press Association led the fight to repeal the poll tax. Cooper had always supported the poll tax repeal in theory, but had allowed political considerations and personal enmity for several of its advocates to relax his efforts to secure passage for effective repeal legislation. On January 20, 1941, Cooper introduced his poll tax repeal bill, the most controversial bill he ever introduced. But in that same year, the Shelby County delegation under the influence of Edward H. Crump successfully fought back the repeal legislation. In 1943, the General Assembly rescinded the tax, only to have their action declared unconstitutional by the Tennessee Supreme Court. Cooper, because of his ties to Crump, was always more of an obstacle to the poll tax reform than a proponent. Cooper served as chairman of the Southern Governor's Conference for the years 1943 and 1944, and from 1939 had served as chairman of the Southern Governor's Freight Rate Committee. The fight vigorously waged by Cooper and the other Southern governors resulted in the decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission in May 1945, that removed the 39 percent discrimination against the shipment of Southern manufactured products. During the war, Governor Cooper served as the National Chairman of the Victory Garden Advisory Committee. Cooper's Home Food Supply Program was adopted by 30 states as a model wartime food program. In 1944, 210,000 Tennessee farm families were members of the Home Food Supply Program, agreeing to produce three-fourths of the food consumed by the family. After his final term as governor, Cooper was appointed Ambassador to Peru, serving from 1946 to 1948.