election, he defeated the Republican candidate, Howard Baker, Sr., 210,567 votes to 83,031. In the 1940 governor's race, Cooper defeated Knoxville inventor George Roby Dempster in the Democratic primary, and defeated C. Arthur Bruce by a more than 2-to-1 margin in the general election. In the 1942 race, Judge J. Ridley Mitchell, who despised Crump, sought the party's nomination for governor, but was defeated by Cooper, 171,259 votes to 124,037. Cooper easily defeated Republican candidate C.N. Frazier in the general election. Constitutional term limits prevented Cooper from seeking reelection in 1944. Cooper was Tennessee's governor during World War II. In 1940, anticipating the U.S. entry into the war, he organized the Tennessee State Defense Council, which many other states would later imitate. He also coordinated the establishment of draft boards, organized a state guard to replace the National Guard (which had been called up to active service), and established a model Home Food Supply Program. Large defense-related facilities were built throughout the state, including Fort Campbell, most of which is in Tennessee despite its Kentucky address, a naval training base in Millington, and Sewart Air Force Base in Smyrna. Defense-related plants, employing thousands of Tennesseans, were also built, among them a gunpowder plant at Millington, a shell-loading factory in Milan, and an aircraft factory in Nashville. In 1942, the federal government appropriated land in what is now Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for the top secret Manhattan Project which was developing the world's first atomic bomb. Cooper was not informed of the purpose of the project. When Anderson Countians complained to Cooper of land appropriations, Cooper accused the federal government of stealing the land for a "socialist" project. When officially notified in July 1943 by an Army lieutenant of the presidential proclamation making the area (which was in both Anderson and Roane counties) a military district not subject to state control he angrily ripped it to pieces. The new MED District Engineer Lt-Col. Kenneth Nichols had to placate him. Along with defense mobilization, Cooper increased funding for state schools, and implemented a program that provided free textbooks for children in grades 1 through 3. He also increased aid to the elderly, established a system of tuberculosis hospitals, and acquired land for state parks and state forests. He cut the state payroll and placed taxes on alcohol, and managed to reduce the state debt by $21 million. In January 1941, a Cooper-supported bill