An ardent supporter of prohibition of alcoholic beverages, he helped reunify the state's Democratic Party, which had been divided over the issue for nearly a decade.

He was educated at local schools, and read law under his uncle, Colonel Tom Morris, in nearby Charlotte, Tennessee.

During the 1890s, he served as circuit master of Camden's chancery court, and worked for several years as a pension agent in Washington, D. C.[1] In 1902, Rye moved to Paris, Tennessee, where he established a law partnership with W.W.

[2] He quickly gained a reputation as the state's most "stringent" law enforcement agent, and was described as a "terror to the bootleggers and dispensers of whisky.

One faction, known as the "Independent Democrats," wanted the state's Four Mile Law (which banned the sale of liquor within four miles of any school) to apply statewide, while the other faction, known as the "Regular Democrats," wanted the state's larger cities to be exempt from the law.

In 1910, the Independent Democrats fled the party and formed a coalition, known as the "Fusionists," with Republicans, helping to elect Governor Ben W.

[3] Rye, well known among supporters of prohibition, received the endorsements of Senator Luke Lea and former Governor Malcolm R. Patterson, and was nominated as the party's candidate.

[2] Hooper accused Memphis political boss E.H. Crump of fixing the vote in Shelby County, but no investigation was launched.

When the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the action, the Rye administration proceeded to purge any official who refused to enforce prohibition, among them District Attorney Newton Estes and Judge Jesse Edgington of Memphis, as well as several officials in Nashville (including Mayor Hilary Howse) and Knoxville.

He signed legislation requiring automobile registration, and implemented a state highway tax to match federal funding.