page_title: Lawrence Tyson
section_title: Senate career
hierarchical_section_title: Lawrence Tyson / Senate career
caption_attribution_description: English: Senator Lawrence D. Tyson of Tennessee, photographs by the National Photo Company in 1925.
context_page_description: Lawrence Davis Tyson was an American general, politician and textile manufacturer, operating primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He commanded the 59th Brigade of the 30th Infantry Division during World War I, and served as a Democratic United States Senator from Tennessee from 1925 until his death. Tyson helped organize the Knoxville Cotton Mills in the early 20th century and served as president of the second Appalachian Exposition in 1911.
  A graduate of West Point, Tyson first saw military action during the Apache Wars in the 1880s. He moved to Knoxville in 1891 to teach military science at the University of Tennessee, and commanded the 6th Regiment, Tennessee Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish–American War. From 1902 to 1908, Tyson served in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and was Speaker of the House from 1903 to 1905. During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive of World War I, the 59th Brigade, under Tyson's leadership, became one of the first Allied brigades to break through the Hindenburg Line.
context_section_description: In 1920, Tyson made an unsuccessful effort to gain the vice presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention.  In 1923, he purchased a newspaper, the Knoxville Sentinel. When he won the popular election to the U.S. Senate the following year, he sold the newspaper to Scripps-Howard. In 1926, Scripps-Howard merged the Sentinel with the Knoxville News to form the Knoxville News Sentinel.
  In the early 1920s, the Democratic Party had grown frustrated with Senator John Knight Shields, who had opposed President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations, and had stalled a number of the Executive Branch's political appointments. Sensing Shields' vulnerability, Tyson ran against and defeated Shields in the Senate Democratic primary in 1924. He defeated Republican candidate, Hugh B. Lindsay, in the general election later that year.  He was sworn in as a Senator on March 4, 1925.
  Tyson's first major piece of legislation was the Tyson-Fitzgerald Act of 1925, which authorized federal compensation for disabled World War I officers. After President Calvin Coolidge vetoed the bill, Tyson rallied enough opposition in the Senate to override the president's veto.  In 1926, Tyson sponsored legislation authorizing the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
caption: Senator Tyson, photographed in his office in December 1925
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