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Herbert Clay
American politician (1881–1923) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Eugene Herbert Clay (October 3, 1881 – June 22, 1923) was an American politician who served as the mayor of Marietta, Georgia. He was one of the ringleaders in the lynching of Leo Frank.[1][2]
He was born in Marietta, Georgia to Senator Alexander S. Clay and Frances (née White) Clay.[3][4] Clay attended the University of Georgia and the Mercer University, graduating in from the latter with an LL.B.[3][4] He was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity.[3][4] He served as the mayor of Marietta, Georgia from 1911 to 1912.[3] He was twice elected Solicitor General of the Blue Ridge Circuit and served on the State Democratic Committee.[3]
In 1915, he helped plan the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose murder conviction and extrajudicial hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob drew attention to questions of antisemitism in the United States.[1]
He married Virginia Hudson of Pocahontas, Virginia, on December 27, 1919.[3] He also had one son, Eugene Herbert Clay, Jr., by a prior marriage.[3] In the fall of 1920, he was elected to the Georgia Senate.[3] He was president of the Georgia Senate as of 1922.[3] On June 22, 1923, Clay died suddenly of a heart attack in the Wilmot Hotel at Atlanta, Georgia.[5]
His youngest brother was General Lucius D. Clay a senior officer of the United States Army who was later known for his administration of occupied Germany after World War II.
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