Misplaced Pages

Eurith D. Rivers

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from E.D. Rivers) American politician: Governor of Georgia (1895–1967)
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Eurith D. Rivers" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
This article may require cleanup to meet Misplaced Pages's quality standards. The specific problem is: The text in some parts of this article reads more like an editorial opinion than an unbiased stating of facts. Please help improve this article if you can. (April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
(Learn how and when to remove this message)
E. D. Rivers
E.D. Rivers visits the White House as Georgia's governor-elect on December 22, 1936.
68th Governor of Georgia
In office
January 12, 1937 – January 14, 1941
Preceded byEugene Talmadge
Succeeded byEugene Talmadge
Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives
In office
1933–1937
Member of the Georgia House of Representatives
In office
1924
Member of the Georgia Senate
In office
1926
Personal details
BornEurith Dickinson Rivers
(1895-12-01)December 1, 1895
Center Point, Arkansas, U.S.
DiedJune 11, 1967(1967-06-11) (aged 71)
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseMattie Lucille Lashley
ChildrenEurith Dickinson Rivers Jr. and Geraldine
Parent(s)Millie Annie Wilkerson and James Matthew Rivers
Alma materYoung Harris College
LaSalle Extension University
ProfessionAttorney and newspaper editor
This article is part of a series on
Modern liberalism
in the United States
Schools
Principles
History
Intellectuals
Politicians
Jurists
Activists
Parties

Active

Defunct

Think tanks
Other organizations
Media

Journals

TV channels

Websites

Other

See also

Eurith Dickinson Rivers (December 1, 1895 – June 11, 1967), commonly known as E. D. Rivers and informally as "Ed" Rivers, was an American politician from Lanier County, Georgia. A Democrat, he was the 68th Governor of Georgia, serving from 1937 to 1941.

Early life and education

Eurith Dickinson Rivers was born on December 1, 1895, in Center Point, Arkansas. He attended Young Harris College in North Georgia and settled in Cairo in South Georgia. Rivers also obtained a law degree through La Salle Extension University. Rivers served as a Justice of the Peace, Cairo City Attorney, and Grady County Attorney. He later moved to another South Georgia community, Milltown (now called Lakeland), to become editor of the Lanier County News.

Career

Rivers was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1924 and to the Georgia State Senate in 1926. During this time, he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1928 and 1930, Rivers was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor. In 1932, he ran for the Georgia House of Representatives. He was elected Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, serving from 1933 to 1937.

In 1930, Rivers, a Great Titan of the Klan, spoke in front of a crowd in Clarke County, Georgia lamenting of an "alien invasion" attempting to "take away the freedom of government from the masses." The reference was made towards chain stores, which the Ku Klux Klan opposed.

His election as governor came after a stormy Democratic primary in 1936 in which the race served as a surrogate referendum on US President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Since Georgia did not allow three consecutive terms, Governor Eugene Talmadge was not eligible for re-election. Talmadge, who strongly opposed the New Deal and had delayed its implementation in Georgia, ran for the US Senate and backed Charles D. Redwine for governor. Rivers, who, as Speaker, had strongly supported the New Deal, was his opponent and won with about 60 percent of the vote, the same margin by which Talmadge lost his Senate race.

Rivers' first two-year term as governor saw Georgia pass the legislation required to bring New Deal programs into the state, and was widely acclaimed. Rivers created the 7-month school year. Under Rivers' leadership, electrical services were expanded to rural areas of the state. Georgia moved from the lowest-ranked state to the top of the list in the number of rural electrification associations. When he was in office, the State Bureau of Unemployment Compensation was created, allowing Georgians to receive unemployment benefits.

Upon his election, Rivers named Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans as a member of his staff.

When Arthur Perry and Arthur Mack, two black men, faced rushed death sentences by an all-white jury for alleged murder, attorney and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall requested Rivers to grant due process to the defendants. Rivers issued a cold reply: "Prison commission has no record of matter you mentioned in your wire of yesterday."

In 1938, rumors circulated that Franklin D. Roosevelt would endorse Rivers for United States Senate to oppose Walter F. George, who had opposed the president's Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, commonly known as the court-packing plan. Roosevelt's advisers warned him of Rivers' KKK connections, and the Georgia governor opted for re-election instead of seeking the Senate seat.

After Rivers' re-election in 1938, he ran into problems financing many of his improvement programs. Although the budget was reduced by 25 percent, he was able to convince the legislature to create the Georgia Housing Authority and obtain federal funds to build public housing. During Rivers' second term, there were political scandals and charges of corruption. Many of Rivers' appointees and staff members were charged with corrupt practices, and the charges reflected poorly on the governor.

In 1939, Rivers proclaimed a state holiday for the December premiere of the film Gone With the Wind.

Rivers sought the governorship again in 1946 but finished a distant third behind Eugene Talmadge and James V. Carmichael in the Democratic primary.

Later life and death

Rivers was never again elected to public office. He became a successful radio station owner. Rivers retired to Miami-Dade County, Florida, after putting WEDR Radio on the air in Miami. He died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1967 and is interred in a mausoleum in the City Cemetery in Lakeland, Georgia.

Rivers is the most recent Georgia governor to have been born outside the state.

See also

References

  1. ^ "E. D. Rivers (1895-1967)". New Georgia Encyclopedia.
  2. Georgia Dept. of Archives and History (1925). Georgia's official register. Longino and Porter
  3. Giaimo, Cara (March 22, 2016). The KKK’s War on Chain Stores. Slate. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  4. "Eugene Talmadge, and newly-elected Governor R.D. Rivers shaking hands at inauguration, Atlanta, Georgia, January 12, 1937". Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. Digital Library of Georgia. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  5. ^ Beasley, David (February 7, 2014). Thurgood Marshall versus Georgia’s Klansman Governor. The History Reader. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  6. "The Cairo messenger. (Cairo, Thomas County, Ga.) 1904-current, March 29, 1940, Page SIX, Image 6 « Georgia Historic Newspapers". gahistoricnewspapers.galileo.usg.edu. Retrieved 2024-07-11.
  7. "Arrival for Gone With the Wind Movie Premiere Festivities, Dec. 15, 1939". Atlanta History Photograph Collection, Atlanta History Center. Digital Library of Georgia. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 21 June 2016.

External links

Party political offices
Preceded byEugene Talmadge Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia
1936, 1938
Succeeded byEugene Talmadge
Political offices
Preceded byEugene Talmadge Governor of the State of Georgia
January 12, 1937 – January 14, 1941
Succeeded byEugene Talmadge
Governors of Georgia
1777–present
Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives
Georgia State Seal
Categories: