Representative Malcolm Connor Tarver

Malcolm Connor Tarver (September 25, 1885 – March 5, 1960) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from Georgia who served ten consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1927 to 1947. Born in Rural Vale, a community in Whitfield County, Georgia, he was raised in the public school system of the state, an experience that grounded him in the concerns of rural and small-town constituents he would later represent in public office.

Tarver pursued higher education in law at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, enrolling in its law department and graduating in 1904. In the same year, he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Dalton, Georgia, the principal city of Whitfield County. Establishing his legal career at a relatively young age, he quickly became active in local affairs and built a professional reputation that facilitated his entry into elective office.

Tarver’s political career began in the Georgia General Assembly. He served as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1909 to 1912, representing his local constituency during a period of early twentieth-century reform and modernization in the state. He then advanced to the Georgia State Senate, serving in 1913 and 1914. These legislative roles provided him with experience in state-level lawmaking and positioned him as a prominent Democratic figure in northwest Georgia.

In 1917, Tarver transitioned from legislator to jurist when he was appointed judge of the superior courts of the Cherokee Judicial Circuit of Georgia, a position he held from 1917 to 1927. As a superior court judge, he presided over both civil and criminal matters in a multi-county circuit, gaining extensive experience in the administration of justice. His decade on the bench enhanced his standing in the legal community and gave him a judicial perspective that would inform his later work in Congress.

Tarver entered national politics when he was elected as a Democrat to the Seventieth Congress and to the nine succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1927, to January 3, 1947. His twenty-year tenure in the House of Representatives coincided with a transformative era in American history, encompassing the late 1920s, the Great Depression, the New Deal period, and World War II. Representing a largely rural Georgia district, he participated in the legislative process on issues affecting agriculture, economic recovery, and wartime mobilization, and he consistently aligned with the Democratic Party that dominated Georgia politics during this period.

During his congressional service, Tarver undertook notable responsibilities beyond routine legislative work. In 1933, he was appointed by the House of Representatives as one of the managers to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Harold Louderback, a judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In this role, he helped present the House’s case before the Senate in a significant exercise of the legislative branch’s constitutional power over the federal judiciary, reflecting both his legal background and his colleagues’ confidence in his abilities.

Tarver’s long service in Congress came to an end when he was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1946, as political currents in Georgia and the nation began to shift in the postwar era. Leaving the House in January 1947, he returned to Dalton, Georgia, where he resumed the practice of law. In his later years, he remained a respected figure in his community, drawing on decades of experience in law, state government, and national legislative service.

Malcolm Connor Tarver died in Dalton, Georgia, on March 5, 1960. He was interred in West Hill Cemetery in Dalton. His career, spanning local practice, state legislative service, a decade on the superior court bench, and two decades in the U.S. House of Representatives, reflected the trajectory of a Georgia lawyer-politician who played a sustained role in both state and national affairs during the first half of the twentieth century.