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Jim Tucker Insurance Agency Home . . . Business 6511 South Park Blvd. Houston, Texas Phone M 4-1641 \( 1 Over $133 Million n n s ,u or tee” Cie d -ozdtte/iPA INSURANCE COMPANY P. 0. Box 8098 Houston, Texas HAROLD E. RILEY Vice-President and Director of Agencies run away from Coolidge, 484,000 to 130,000, the Republican candidate for governor in that same year had come within 100,000 votes of Ma Ferguson. If enough disgruntled or fearful Democrats could be persuaded to desert their political religion. . . . The problem then in Texas and the South was to convince South Dr. Joe Frantz ern voters that a bolt was not a bolt. The tack taken was that a true Democrat would vote against Smith, for he was the bolter, not the Democrat voting against him. He had bolted when he admitted he was a wet running on a dry platform! Most newspapers in Texas regularly ran instructions and sample ballots illustrating how you voted for Hoover and all the true Democrats. The Prohibition Party, sager than today’s Constitution Party, cooperated by not putting up a ticket in any Southern state, so as not to cut into possible antiSmith votes. Once Smith had been nominated, there were few Criswells to come out flat against Smith’s religion. We were ashamed of our bigotry in 1928, even though it was profoundly felt. Always the THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 11 Sept. 30, 1960 issue hammered home was that Smith came from crooked Tammany and that he would set up an open saloon at every country crossroad in the South. On the other hand, A. J. Wirtz, who had been a delegate to the national convention, wrote nine years later that Texas would have voted for Smith regardless of his Prohibition stand and his New Yorkinessif he hadn’t been a Roman Catholic. Look at F.D.R. and his New York background and his pro-liquor stand, Wirtz said. Al Smith said, “Let’s look at the record.” And a fine record it was–a child of immigrants fighting his way up from the slums with little formal education to attain four successive terms as New York’s governor, in which post he had shown a capacity for honest administration and practical, liberal legislation. But the record that Texas saw he was a wet. And in a whisper, “and a Catholic.” Even if you resisted these arguments, you could listen to the logic of Tom Love of Dallas, who pointed out that Texas had been anti-Tammany for 50 years, that a vote for Hoover was a vote to save the Democratic Party from Tammanyism, and that Smith was neither liberal nor progressive but a hack machine politician. Besides that, it is wellknown everywhere except in New York that New Yorkers are the most provincial of all Americans, and a native of the city is bound to be too local-minded to understand the great complex that is the United States. And if the big pulpits and the big forumsexcept for J. Frank Norris’ in Fort Worthavoided the appearance of bigotry, the less successful practitioners of the art of spiritual exhortation felt no such compunctions. More veins stood out in more apoplectic ministers’ reddened foreheads as they thundered that Smith was the advance agent of the Pope, that religious freedom was having its last-ditch stand, and that Smith might even be the anti-Christ that the Book of Revelations tells us is coming. All the old dirty stories about priests and what goes on behind convent walls were hauled out. When one order of innocent sisters started building a new convent in New Jersey, the rumor spread throughout the nation that here would be the site of the new Vatican. It was well known and authoritative that the Pope would leave Rome within a month after Smith was elected to take personal charge of the government buildings in Washington. It was poisonous. People you would like to admire as full of Christian grace and charity suddenly showed their mean, intolerant side. The American didn’t have to go abroad to be ugly. So Texans went out and in a state that had consistently voted down statewide P r ohibiti on amendments until the federal government passed one, and in a state that without hesitation would ratify an amendment to do away with Prohibition just five years later, gave 341,000 votes to the wet Democratic, Alfred E. Smith, and 367,000 \(and its elecHerbert Hoover. But among the nice people reliL gious bigotry had nothing to do with it. And as a kid I at with my other friend, Walter, who looked like a freckled beer keg, knowing that he was Catholic and I was Protestant and we somehow liked each other, and neither of us understood what it was all about or why some people thought we shouldn’t be friends. IN EARLY AUGUST of this year I went to see a woman in her sprightly mid-eighties. She lives in Dalhart. The widow of the last general manager of the XIT ranch, she is the only one of her neighborhood who voted for Smith. As I went in her living room, she called out in a voice whose volume has not diminished a decibel with the years, “Come over here and meet my brother from Canada. He’s lived in a country that’s had Catholic leaders, and he don’t look at all ruined!” She’s a rock-bound Presbyterian. Perhaps there are some More like her. “BOW” WILLIAMS When Your Home Policy Expires, Check With Us About Special Savings On Our Homeowners’ Policy GReenwood 2-0545 624 NORTH LAMAR, AUSTIN Let’s Abolish the Poll Tax! Liquor and Tammany, Cloaks for Fear he could have outmatched country-boy Hoover as the more bucolic candidate. While the Democrats met in Houston’s new convention hall, the Baptists were holding a round-the-clock, whosoever willlet-him-come prayer meeting up the street at the First Baptist Church, with other denominations well represented. \(No Cathnight and through the day the hymns rang out and the prayers were intoned, all calling on the Lord to save Christianity from the unspeakable Catholic. Mrs. Claude de Van Watts, who was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union then and continued to be for another quarter-century, joined her group with the Baptists’ protracted services and announced flatly that if Smith was nominated, the WCTU would work for Hoover. The Baptists reached out for other support. Governor Moody spoke to the several denominations, although later he would lead Texas Democrats in an abortive attempt to save the state for Smith. Former Texas Governor 0. B. Colquitt, once a leading wet, told the drys that he was against Smithbecause the New Yorker was wet! Dr. J. B. Cranfill of Dallas, perhaps the outstanding Sunday school teacher in Texas in this century, joined the fray, on the wet-dry issue, naturally. Tom Love, who probably ranked next to Moody and the Fergusons in influence, had already declared himself in the state convention, when he led a failing fight to instruct the state’s delegates against Smith. The opposition was lining up in the open, and it was formidable. When Franklin D. Roosevelt put Smith’s name in nomination in Houston, of the Southern states only Arkansas and Louisiana joined the parade. \(Tammany, incidentally, discreetly fell back to Smith had planned well, and when the first ballot was over, he was only ten votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority. Ohio switched, and the Baptists could fold up their prayer meeting and get to work. Texas gave its 40 votes to Jesse Jones. More ominous was the fact that of 252 Southern votes, Smith received only 48 and two-thirds, most of them from Arkansas and Louisiana. Arkansas had its eye on the vice-presidency for one of its sons, and Louisiana had enough Catholics to regard them as citizens. III: The Texas Campaign Actually the South had a fair Republican group to serve as a springboard for an anti-Smith campaign. Texas had given Harding nearly half as many votes as it had given Cox. Although four years later John W. Davis had 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM IN PERSONALS \(The rate for personals is 7c a word and $1 minimum per entry; for four entries, 5c a word, but Send 25c for copy of Socialist Party platform and political realignment statement. Box 18233, Houston, Texas. MMMMMMM 111111111111111111111 LEGALS STATE OF TEXAS COUNTY OF DALLAS Know All Men: That I, Raleigh F. Davis, here tofore conducted a business in the name of Davis Tool & Die Corn pany, intend to incorporate that b usiness under the name, to-wit: Davis Tool and Die Company, Inc. s/ RALPH F. DAVIS Notice is hereby given that W. R Perkins, doing business as Freer Recreation Center of Freer, Duval County, Texas, has incorporated said business under the name of Freer Recreation Center, Inc., and that said business will be continued under said corporation and that all debts and obligations thereof are the obligations of said corporation. 5/ W. R. PERKINS CITATION BY PUBLICATION THE STATE OF TEXAS TO John M. Harrington Defendant, in the hereinafter styled and numbered cause: You are hereby commanded to appear before the 126th Judicial District Court of Travis County, Texas, to be held at the courthouse of said county in the City of Austin, Travis County. Texas, at or before 10 o’clock A. M. of the first Monday after the expiration of 42 days from the date of issuance hereof; that is to say, at or before, 10 o’clock A. M. of Monday the 31st day of October, 1960, and answer the petition of plaintiff in Cause Number 114,999, in which First Austin Company is Plaintiff and John M. Harrington, E. A. Jones and Warren Jones are defendants, filed in said Court on the 5th day of August. 1960, and the nature of which said suit is as follows: Being an action and prayer by plaintiff and against defendant. John M. Harrington for Judgment in the sum of $1,750.00, and interest and attorney’s fees, and for foreclosure of vendor’s lien and for order of sale of the property hereinafter described; Plaintiff alleges that on or about September 14, 1955, Defendant, John M. Harrington executed and delivered to plaintiff his promissory note in the amount of $1,750.00 payable dote, with interest at the rate of 6r -‘, per cent per annum and 10% attorney’s fees upon principal and interest if placed in the hands of an attorney for collection. Plaintiff further alleges that on or about the 25th day of October, 1956, it mad” demand upon the defendant for payment of said note, that defendant refused paym ,ent and that said note was placed in the hands of an attorney for collection. Plaintiff alleges that on or about the 14th day of September, 1955, plaintiff executed and delivered to defendant, John M. Harrington deeds conveying the following described real estate, to-wit: 204 and 206, of Jones Brothers Lake Sandy Subdivision No. Two ty, Texas. according to map or plat thereof recorded in Volume 4, Page 175, Plat Records of Travis County, Texas, said warranty deed being recorded in Vol. 1631, Page 23, Deed Records of Travis County, Texas; of Jones Brothers Lake Sandy division in Travis County, Texas, according to map or plat thereof recorded in Volume 4, Page 175, Plat Records of Travis County, Texas, said warranty deed being recorded in Vol. 1631, Page 24, Deed Records of Travis County, Texas; that said promissory note aforesaid was for part payment of the purchase price of said property; ject to an existing indebtedness, secured by deed of trust which has been exercised, foreclosing the interest of John M. Harrington and plaintiff in said property, but the title of said defendant and the vendor’s lien of Plaintiff is outstanding and valid as to the property described in Deed No. Plaintiff alleges that on or about the 30th day of November, 1955, John M. Harrington executed to defendants, A. E. Jones and Warren Jones, a quitclaim deed to a tract of land described in said deed recorded in the Deed Records of Travis County, Texas, in Vol 1646, at page 44, as follows: All of Lots 64 and 65 in Retirement Village No. 2, a subdivision of Travis County, Texas, of record in Volume 2, Page 457, of the Plat Records of Travis County, Texas, and the land or parcel of land betwen said Lots 64 and 65 and Lots 205 and 206 in the Jones Brothers and Crumley Lake Sandy Subdivision No. 2. of record in Volume 4a of the Plat Records of Travis County, Texas, at page 175. That the owner of Lot 206 of Jones Brothers Lake Sandy Subdivision No. 2 was granted an easement across a part of the property quitclaimed in said deed, said easement being described in deed of record in the Deed Records of Travis County, Texas, in Volume 1466, at Pages 239 and 240. Plaintiff further alleges that the Vendor’s Lien securing payment of the purchase money for said lot and easement appurtenant thereto is a valid and subsisting lien against said easement prior and superior to the title of the defendants, E. A. Jones and Warren Jones in said property under said quitclaim deed and the interest of E. A. Jones and Warren Jones is subject to said Vendor’s Lien. Plaintiff prays for relief to which it may be entitled either at law or in equity. All of which more fully appears from Plaintiff’s Original Petition on file in this office and to which reference is here made for all intents and purposes. If this citation is not served within 90 days after date of its issuance, it shall be returned unserved. WITNESS, 0. T. MARTIN, JR., Clerk of the District Courts of Travis County, Texas. Issued and given under my hand and the seal of said Court at of