times, although from 1920 until 1944, he had four close elections, with three of them leading to run-off elections because he failed to capture a majority. Smith never won more than 61 percent in Democratic Party primaries during that time. During his time in Congress, he had a goal to “keep the Niggers down and the price of cotton up.” Known for being a reputed showman, Smith would publicly promote this goal by riding to Washington on a wagon-load of cotton waving the banner of white supremacy. He also developed a reputation for having a violent temper while speaking in Congress and would at times stand on his feet and try to get the floor speaker's attention by repeatedly hacking his armchair with a penknife whenever the speaker angered him. Smith was not fond of his fellow Senators and often described the Senate Chamber as "the Cave of the Winds." Senate career Between 1909 and 1933, Smith was regarded as a fairly effective senator, though admittedly not of the first rank. A tireless champion of agriculture, he supported some planks of the Progressive Era, having written a small part of them. He authored the Smith-Lever Act and sponsored the Muscle Shoals project, a forerunner to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Smith, however, would not favor legislation he felt would largely diversify the Southern economy, reduce the need for the vast presence of the plantation system in the South, or endanger the old Southern way of life. In the 1930s, Smith became Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry and would imperiously summon the fellow Senators on the committee by saying Smith opposed the women's suffrage movement, and specifically the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Tying the amendment to black suffrage, he warned on the Senate floor, Time called Smith a “conscientious objector to the 20th Century.” One observer claimed he “taxed neither his brain nor the voters with a new issue.” He had at first welcomed US President Franklin Roosevelt but soon emerged as an opponent to the New Deal, which he dubbed as “the Jackass Age” when he noticed that Roosevelt's programs were leading the Southern economy in a new direction. Although he voted for part of the draft of the Revenue Act of 1935 he voted against the final bill, due to the highly progressive rates. In 1935, a group of reformist officials in the