Political Career
Smith served in the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1928 to 1932, and was briefly the speaker of that body in 1931. He also served as a U.S. observer at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, as chairman of the American delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Bern, Switzerland in 1952, as chairman of the Duke University board of trustees 1947 - 1953, and as president of the American Bar Association, 1946.
In the Democratic primary of 1950, Smith defeated incumbent Sen. Frank Porter Graham for the nomination. Graham had been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of J. Melville Broughton and had served only a little over a year at the time of his defeat. In a campaign distinguished by race-baiting, Graham, who was well known for his antiracist sympathies, was supported by President Harry Truman and the state's liberal Democratic faction, while Smith was aided by a young strategist named Jesse Helms.
Smith's service in the Senate was brief, 1950–1953 and unremarkable. He died suddenly in 1953 in Bethesda, MD and was interred at the Historic Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Read more about this topic: Willis Smith
Famous quotes containing the words political and/or career:
“Indiana was really, I suppose, a Democratic State. It has always been put down in the book as a state that might be carried by a close and careful and perfect organization and a great deal of—[from audience: “soap”Ma reference to purchased votes, the word being followed by laughter].
I see reporters here, and therefore I will simply say that everybody showed a great deal of interest in the occasion, and distributed tracts and political documents all through the country.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“Work-family conflicts—the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child—would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)