Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Author Examines Gov. McRae

Published Wednesday, June 7, 2000 in the Nevada County Picayune

Calvin Ledbetter Jr. of Little Rock examines the career of Thomas C. McRae, 26th governor of Arkansas, in Thomas C. McRae: National Forests, Education, Highways and Brickhouse v. Hill.

McRae was born in Union County, but began his career in Prescott.

As congressman from 1885 to 1903 McRae was instrumental in retiring the state's debt to the U.S. government. He was also influential in the passage of the Forest Reserve Act of 1897, which clarified U.S. law for national forest management.

Elected governor in 1920, McRae preserved federal funding of Arkansas highways, established a tuberculosis sanitarium for African-Americans and established an income tax and a cigarette tax to support public schools. As a special justice of the state supreme court in a crucial court case, he helped secure simple-majority approval of Constitutional amendments.

The author concludes that "on the record of what he accomplished, (McRae) stands as on of Arkansas's best governors.'

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