James Prioleau RICHARDS, Congress, SC (1894-1979)
RICHARDS, James Prioleau, a Representative from South Carolina; born in Liberty Hill, Kershaw County, S.C., August 31, 1894; attended the county schools and Clemson College, Clemson, S.C.; during the First World War served overseas as a private, corporal, sergeant, and second lieutenant in the Trench Mortar Battery, Headquarters Company, One Hundred and Eighteenth Regiment, Thirtieth Division, 1917-1919; professional baseball player; graduated from the law department of the University of South Carolina,Columbia, 1921; admitted to the bar in 1921; lawyer, private practice; judge of the probate court of Lancaster County, S.C., 1923-1933; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and to the eleven succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1957); chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Eighty-second and Eighty-fourth Congresses); was not a candidate for reelection in 1956 to the Eighty-fifth Congress; delegate to the Japanese Peace Conference and United States delegate to the United Nations in 1953; special assistant to President Eisenhower, January 1957-January 1958, for the Middle East, with rank of ambassador; resumed the practice of law; resided in Lancaster, S.C., where he died February 21, 1979; interment in Liberty Hill Presbyterian Church Cemetery, Liberty Hill, S. C.
Bibliography
Lee, Joseph Edward. ââAmerica Comes First with Meâ: The Political Career of Congressman James P. Richards, 1932-1957.â Ph.D. diss., University of South Carolina, 1987.Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
