Ira Landrith

Ira Landrith was born in Teas in 1865.  Drawn at first to law, he studied in trinity University, then obtained a law degree from Cumberland University.  Soon, though, he decided to enter the Presbyterian ministry. 
     Ordained in 1906, Landrith led the Tennessee YMCA, taught at Cumberland University, was President of Belmont University, and edited the Cumberland Presbyterian. 
     Landrith was an ardent Prohibitionist.  He founded the Tennessee Anti-Saloon League and was a member of the Prohibition Party “Flying Squadron” of lecturers, in addition to being our nominee for Vice President in 1916.
      Ira :Landrith died on 11 October 1941 in Altadena, California.

-- Gammon, ,2007, p.85


Ira Landrith was one of the founders of the Tennessee Anti-Saloon League, and has been a member of the State Executive Committee since the League’s inception.  He was Chairman of the Tennessee State Committee of the Y.M.C.A. beginning in 1894 and was president of its International Convention ca. 1915.  He was Chairman of the Nashville Committee of One Hundred that at one time cleansed municipal politics in the City.  He was a long-serving member of the International Board of the United Society of Christian Endeavor.  He was the first General Secretary of the National Religious Educational Association, and of the Presbyterian Brotherhood, and was Moderator of the (Presbyterian) General Assembly.
     He was President of Ward-Belmont College

 — Excerpted from Speeches of the Flying of Squadron

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