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Robert Rice Reynolds (June 18, 1884 - February 13, 1963)
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Born in Asheville, in Buncombe County, N.C., on June 18, 1884,
Robert Rice Reynolds was educated locally. He first attended
Weaverville (N.C.) College, and later the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill where he studied law. When he was admitted to the bar in
1907 he returned to his home town, Asheville, to practice. He served as
a prosecuting attorney of the fifteenth judicial district of North
Carolina from 1910 to 1914. After many years as a successful attorney he
was tapped for the position of lieutenant governor, a position he was
unsuccessful in securing. Undaunted, however, he ran for United States
Senator in 1926 but was also defeated. In 1928 he served as a
presidential elector on the Democratic ticket and built his party
relationships and by 1932 he had successfully won election as North
Carolina's Democratic Senator. His victory came, however, as the
result of a vacancy left by Lee S. Overman who died just short of his
term that was to end on March 3, 1933. Reynolds was favorably
received in his brief senatorial position and he was immediately elected
for the following term of office on March 3, 1933 and was again
reelected in 1938 and for the following terms of office, serving as
Senator until January 3, 1945. At the end of that term, he chose
not to be a candidate for re-nomination. While a Senator he served
as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia
(Seventy-seventh Congress), and the Committee on Military Affairs
(Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth Congresses). In 1950 he again
sought the office of Senator but was an unsuccessful candidate. He
continued to live in Washington where he maintained a law practice but
also kept an estate in Asheville. He died on February 13, 1963 and
is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, N.C..
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QUOTABLE:
... "But it was The Mayflower's caviar -- not sexual shenanigans -- that proved the undoing of North Carolina Sen. Cameron Morrison. Morrison's opponent in the 1932 U.S. Senate race was Robert Reynolds, a populist lawyer from Asheville. Reynolds campaigned across North Carolina with a menu from The Mayflower as a campaign prop, noting that the hotel served caviar. He accused Morrison, who stayed at The Mayflower, of eating fish eggs from Red Russia rather than good ol' North Carolina hen eggs. He also accused Morrison of eating eggs Benedict, which Reynolds said were cooked by Benedictine monks who were kept in the hotel for that purpose." Rob Christensen, "A Hotel With a History," Raleigh News and Observer, March 20, 2008
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Bibliography: American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Pleasants, Julian M. Buncombe Bob: The Life & Times of Robert Rice Reynolds. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000; Reynolds, Robert Rice. Gypsy Trails. Asheville: Advocate Publishing Co., 1923.
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