"earnest Willie," Or, Echoes From A Recluse: Containing The Letters, Poems, Addresses And Sketches--chiefly Moral And Religious--with Bits Of Laughing ... - Everywhere. The Earnest Heart-throbs...
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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"Earnest Willie," Or, Echoes From A Recluse: Containing The Letters, Poems, Addresses And Sketches--chiefly Moral And Religious--with Bits Of Laughing Humor, Smiling Fancy And Tender Sentiment - Everywhere. The Earnest Heart-throbs
William David Upshaw
The Franklin Printing and Publishing Co., 1899
Religion; Devotional; Religion / Devotional; Religion / Meditations
William David Upshaw was an American writer, politician, and evangelist. He was the member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Georgia's 5th district from March 4, 1919 to March 3, 1927 and he was a strong proponent of the temperance movement.
Background
William David Upshaw was born in Coweta County, Georgia, the son of Isaac David and Adeline Stamps Upshaw. His father, a Confederate veteran and former schoolteacher, was a man of modest means who, after a few years as a merchant in Atlanta, settled on a farm near Powder Springs, Georgia. William was reared in an atmosphere of Baptist piety, the Lost Cause, and Henry Grady's New S.
Education
He attended schools in Atlanta and later in Powder Spring. Then he entered Mercer (Ga. ) University in 1895 and left the college after two years.
Career
In 1884 Upshaw joined the Baptist church in 1884. The following year a spinal injury caused by a fall from a farm wagon left him crippled for life. During the seven years in which he was bedridden as a result of the injury, Upshaw began to write and regularly published in the Sunny South under the pen name Earnest Willie.
In 1893 a collection of his poems and inspirational messages appeared as Earnest Willie, or Echoes From a Recluse. In the same year, Upshaw, equipped with crutches and a wheelchair, began presenting public readings from his works. He remained on the lecture circuit until 1906, when he launched the Golden Age, a magazine of "militant Christian citizenship" published in Atlanta. During the thirteen years in which he edited the magazine he became known as a champion of both woman suffrage and prohibition.
As vice-president of the Georgia Anti-Saloon League, he was a leader in the campaign that resulted in the enactment of prohibition in Georgia in 1907. In 1918 Upshaw was elected to the House of Representatives on the Democratic ticket from the fifth Georgia district (Atlanta). He was reelected in 1920, 1922, and 1924.
A federal antilynching bill in 1922 elicited from him a succession of states' rights and racist arguments. But his preeminent concern was prohibition: he introduced bills to strengthen the Volstead Act, demanded adequate appropriations for prohibition enforcement, and repeatedly urged his colleagues to sign sobriety pledges.
In addition to his reputation as the "dryest of the drys, " Upshaw was also closely identified in the 1920's with the Ku Klux Klan. Although his membership in the organization was never proved, he was in regular contact with its leaders in Atlanta and publicly sympathized with Klan principles. When the House investigated the Klan in 1921, Upshaw not only rose to its defense but also introduced a bill to extend the inquiry to include all other secret societies, a measure that Klan leaders claimed was responsible for their gentle treatment at the hands of Congress. Ironically, Upshaw's identification with the Klan and prohibition figured significantly in his defeat for reelection in 1926. By then exposure of the Klan's activities had seriously eroded its political power in Georgia, and revelations regarding Upshaw's acceptance of lecture fees from the Anti-Saloon League had also exposed him to the charge that he espoused prohibition for pecuniary rather than moral considerations.
Once out of Congress, he resumed his activities as a prohibition lecturer. In 1928, following the nomination of Alfred E. Smith, a "wet, " as the Democratic presidential candidate, Upshaw endorsed the Republican candidate Herbert Hoover and helped organize anti-Smith forces in the South. Defeated in a bid to regain his seat in 1928 and disillusioned with the behavior of both major parties on the liquor question, he cast his lot with the Prohibition party and became its presidential candidate in 1932. Despite a vigorous campaign, he won only 81, 000 votes. Following the repeal of prohibition, Upshaw confined his activities largely to the lecture platform.
Alerted to the "Red menace" by Gerald Winrod, the veteran Kansas crusader, he took up the fight against Communism in the mid-1930's, emphasizing that it was an atheistic doctrine subversive to the Christian principles inherent in Americanism. As president (1933 - 1952) of the National Christian Citizenship Foundation, a patriotic and benevolent organization, he traveled across the nation for nineteen years, preaching against the "twin devils" of liquor and Communism.
In 1938 Upshaw, at the age of seventy-two, became an ordained Baptist minister and subsequently served twice as vice-president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In 1942 he entered the Georgia Democratic senatorial primary but was overwhelmingly defeated by Richard B. Russell. Later he settled in California, where he served as vice-president of Linda Vista Baptist College and Seminary in San Diego from 1949 until his death in Glendale, California.
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
Connections
On May 5, 1909, Upshaw married Margaret Beverly, the daughter of a Baptist minister in Thomasville, Georgia. They had two daughters. His wife died in 1942, and in 1946 he married Lily Swinnea Galloway, a widow from Alabama.