(1873-1955), politician and lawyer. A dark horse candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 1924, Davis was a compromise choice when Alfred Smith and William McAdoo were still deadlocked after 103 ballots. Davis was soundly defeated by the incumbent, Calvin Coolidge. Davis served in the U.S. House of Representatives from West Virginia, as U.S. solicitor general, and as ambassador to Great Britain. One of America's great lawyers, he argued over a hundred cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the last being his defense of South Carolina's system of segregation in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954).
