Thaddeus Horatius Caraway was a Democratic Party politician from Arkansas who represented the state first in the U.S. House of Representatives (1913–1921) and then in the U.S. Senate (1921–1931).
Background
Caraway was born on a farm near , the youngest of three children. His father, Tolbert Caraway, was a country doctor and Confederate veteran; his mother was Mary Ellen Caraway. When he was 6 months old, his father was assassinated in a feud, leaving his family impoverished. He worked as a farmhand from age 7, then later as a railroad section hand, a farm tenant, and as a share-cropper. He studied at night and attended the common schools as a boy.
Career
In Congress, Caraway was a progressive and a reformer. He was a vocal critic of the Harding administration and the Teapot Dome scandal and he chaired a worked for laws requiring disclosure of activities by lobbyists. He co-authored the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill which would have provided price supports for farm products, although it was vetoed by President Calvin Coolidge. He supported American entrance into the League of Nations, bonuses for World War I veterans, as well as the Eighteenth (Prohibition), Nineteenth (Women's Suffrage), and Twentieth (Lame Duck) amendments. On May 15, 1921 he introduced a bill to prohibit the enlistment of Africian-Americans in the US Army and US Navy.