William U. McCabe

McCabe entered government by serving in the 1918 constitutional convention to replace the 1874 Arkansas Constitution. The proposed constitution included women's suffrage, but was not ratified.^[1]

Throughout his political career, McCabe fought to increase highway funding for small, rural counties like Baxter County. He introduced bills in 1924^[2] and 1931.

During the 48th Arkansas General Assembly, McCabe authored a bill proposing a constitutional convention to reorganize the state government.^[3] Proposed during the peak of the good government movement, McCabe's bill echoed many of the retrenchments proposed by Governor Harvey Parnell.

McCabe was shot in his hotel room early in the morning of March 12, 1931. With a bullet embedded in his heart, McCabe recovered sufficiently to return to Mountain Home, but succumbed to pneumonia at a Little Rock hospital on May 6, 1931.^[4] Another hotel guest, H.G. Lansdale, a traveling salesman from Atlanta, Georgia, was charged with murder after a pistol was found in his room. The two men had both complained to a hotel clerk about noise.^[5] Lansdale was later acquitted by a jury on June 20.^[6]