With Flourney Rivers, a state senator for Giles County, he introduced railroad commission bills.
[5] In 1883, a committee of the Tennessee State Senate discovered a $400,000 (~$11.1 million in 2023) deficit in their accounting with funds being misappropriated by Polk's cousin, M.T.
[4] Polk and his cousin were apprehended by detectives in San Antonio, Texas but were released possibly due to the acceptance of a bribe and headed for Mexico.
Marshals arrested Polk's cousin 18 miles from the Mexico border and he was returned to Tennessee and found guilty of embezzlement.
[8] In 1906, he was appointed as one of six United States commissioners to the Pan-American Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by President Theodore Roosevelt.