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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Promises Kept: A Memoir
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| Parent | Parent |
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| Title | Promises Kept: A Memoir |
| ASIN | 1557287546 -
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| Category | Autobiography |
| Contributor | Ben |
| Last Modified | Ben - February 24, 2005 10:38am |
| Description | Sidney Sanders McMath is a pivotal figure in the history of Arkansas, of the Democratic Party, and of American law. Still vibrant and engaged in his nineties, he sets out his story in full for the first time in this powerful and engaging memoir of his youth and his extensive military service, his rise and fall in public office, and his long career as a lawyer seeking justice for ordinary people. He has divided his life story into four parts. In the first, he shows how his early life in rural Arkansas sparked his commitment to people. Then he describes his service to democracy in the military, including his commission in the U.S. Marines, a battlefield promotion in the Pacific and other honors, and his subsequent advancement to the rank of major general. The revealing third section details McMath's extraordinary life in politics, starting with his explosive debut in 1945, when he and other veterans dethroned the state's most powerful and corrupt political machine. Later, as a two-term governor, he fulfilled his promise of reform and modernization: he brought the first roads and electricity to rural areas, fought the poll tax, and built the state's first medical center. McMath describes how he worked with President Truman to keep the segregationist Dixiecrats from taking over the Democratic Party -- and the presidency. He also helped change the party's rules so that black citizens could vote in primaries.
But here his story takes a dramatic turn: political opponents alleged bribery in the highway program, and although no indictments were handed down, McMath's political career ended. Arguing his case for the first time in fifty years, he sets the facts straight. McMath turned to the practice of law to fight for the people he had represented as governor. In the concluding section of the book he describes some of his most important cases, examples of how he put his life's experience, knowledge, and integrity in the service of those who had few resources. Sid McMath's memoir shows us the excitement and the hard choices of real democracy, offering compelling human stories, new information on past conflicts, and the crucial perspective of a man at the center of history. |
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