Braxton Bragg Comer was an American businessman and politician. He served as the United States Senator from Alabama in 1920. He was the 33rd Governor of Alabama from 1907 to 1911.
Background
Braxton Bragg Comer was born on November 7, 1848 in Spring Hill, Alabama, United States. He was the fourth son of John Fletcher Comer, judge of the superior court of Georgia, and Catherine Drewry. The Comers came of English and Irish stock, said to have been supporters of the Cromwellian régime. They settled in Virginia in colonial times and moved to Georgia in the early part of the nineteenth century, and thence to Barbour County, Alabama, where they engaged in planting, lumbering, and gristmilling, achieving marked business success.
Education
Comer received his early education in a private school, and attended the University of Alabama during the last year of the war, taking part in the student defense of the University against General Croxton’s invasion. After the burning of the University, he returned to his father’s plantation. The following year he entered the University of Georgia, but was soon forced to retire because of ill health. After recovering his health, he entered Emory and Henry College, Virginia, where he received the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees with distinction in natural science.
Career
About 1869 Comer returned to Barbour County and engaged in planting and merchandising at Comer Station. There he demonstrated his business capacity by developing large and successful farming and country- store interests, during the difficult years immediately following the Reconstruction regime. In 1890 he moved to Birmingham from Anniston where he had for five years been engaged in the wholesale grocery and commission business. He became president of the City National Bank and engaged in corn and flour milling and in farming.
As the cotton-manufacturing industry grew, and Comer’s alert mind envisaged the possibilities of it, he abandoned banking and concentrated upon cotton-milling. As merchant, manufacturer, and shipper, Comer had first-hand knowledge of the deleterious results of railroad rate discriminations. In 1904 he plunged into politics with a view to removing this abuse, being elected president of the railroad commission upon a platform of railroad rate regulation. Not contented with the work he was able to do as commissioner, he entered the race for governor in 1906 and won, after a heated and colorful campaign.
In a manner that was typical of his blunt business methods and his implacable spirit, he called upon the legislature to abolish the “debauching lobby” maintained by the railroads at Montgomery and to pass laws for a thorough regulation of the railroads in the interest of equity as between them and the people. In compliance with his instructions, the legislature passed a series of acts, known as the “railway code, ” and taxed the property of railroads and other public-service corporations on the same principle that other property was taxed. He also secured the adoption of a tax-adjusting system in order to obtain a fairer assessment of property values. A state-wide prohibition law and a child-labor law were passed and large appropriations were made to the state schools and to eleemosynary institutions.
At the end of his term, in 1911, Comer retired from politics, devoting his time to his large business interests. He sought the governorship again in 1914, but in a second, or “run off, ” primary his conservative enemies combined against him and defeated him. He gave the remainder of his life, save the year 1920 when he served by appointment in the United States Senate in a vacancy caused by the death of Senator J. H. Bankhead, to business, earning a fortune from his cotton- mills.
Achievements
Comer was pronounced as “easily the most audacious executive who ever ruled Alabama. ” His most enduring achievement was in the field of public education. Operating upon the principle that the future citizens of the state must be considered as well as the contemporary tax-payers, he led the legislature into making unprecedentedly large appropriations for colleges and schools. A system of county high schools was established which constitutes the backbone of the state’s secondary-school system. In recognition of his services to education, some of the college buildings, erected out of funds provided by his administration, were named for him and he was known in Alabama as the “educational governor. ”
Politics
Comer was a member of the Democratic party.
Personality
Comer was born a fighter, a man of incorrigible independence and individuality, and possessed of an imposing figure and a vivid personality.
Connections
Comer was married on October 4, 1872, to Eva Jane Harris, member of a prominent family of Cuthbert, Georgia.
