Malcolm R. Patterson

Who was Malcolm R. Patterson?

Malcolm Rice Patterson was an American politician and jurist. He served as Governor of Tennessee from 1907 to 1911, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1901 to 1906. He later served as a circuit court judge in Memphis, and wrote a weekly column for the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Patterson was one of Tennessee's most controversial governors. While praised for quelling the Night Riders of Reelfoot Lake uprising in 1908, he was accused of issuing pardons to political allies, most notably his advisor Duncan Cooper, who had been convicted of murdering his political foe Edward W. Carmack. Patterson's veto of a popular prohibition bill in 1909 and his attempts to control the state Democratic primaries in 1910 created a division in the party that allowed Ben W. Hooper to become the first Republican governor elected in the state in nearly 30 years.