Rienzi Melville Johnston

Rienzi Melville Johnston ( born September 9, 1849 in Sandersville, Washington County, Georgia, † February 28, 1926 in Houston, Texas) was an American journalist and politician (Democratic Party), of the state of Texas for a short time in the U.S. Senate represented.

Life

After attending the public schools he began to work in a print shop as a boy. During the Civil War he joined the Confederate Army as a drummer. After the end of his military service, he turned to the newspaper business and became editor of the Savannah Morning News.

1878 Johnston moved to Texas and worked for various newspapers such as the Crockett patron, the Corsicana Observer, the Independent and the Austin Statesman. Finally, it presented the Houston Post as a political correspondent for the state capital of Austin. From 1885 he was then editor in chief of the sheet; later, he was also president of the Houston Printing Company. His editorials made ​​him known beyond the borders of Texas and beyond what ultimately brought him the post of Vice President in the Associated Press.

Policy

1900 Rienzi Johnston was elected to the Democratic National Committee, where he served until 1912. On January 4, 1913, the Texas Governor Oscar Branch Colquitt appointed him to the then U.S. Senator; he entered Washington the successor to the retiring Joseph Weldon Bailey. However, his term of office expired already on 29 January of that year after a new senator had been elected with Morris Sheppard; Johnston did not occur at the time of election.

As a result, he was back in the newspaper business in Houston worked, but returned again as a state senator in the Policy. Johnston remained from 1917 to 1920 in the Texas Legislature before he resigned his office in order to follow the appointed member of the State Prison Commission by Governor William P. Hobby.

Rienzi Johnston died in 1926 in Houston. His cousin Benjamin E. Russell was also a politician and sitting 1893-1897 for Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives.