ustxtxb_obs_1964_02_07_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

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Although the use of the Washington office of Vice President John Nance Garner as a center for much effective planning to undermine New Deal measures was evident by 1936 and painfully obvious by 1940, a riot developed in the 1940 state Democratic convention over the proposal of a faction led by Congressman Maury Maverick of San Antonio to endorse Roosevelt, who remained a popular idol in Texas, without endorsing Garner. Most ordinary voters, like many convention delegates, saw no reason for refusing to endorse two men who had diametrically opposed administrative records. In 1944, with two contesting delegations from Texas seated as one in uneasy proximity, Speaker Rayburn was made unavailable for the vice-presidential nomination by the fact that he could not depend on the support of the Texas delegation. That year the more conservative faction in the delegation rose and stalked out of the convention hall before the session was over. As the “no third term” group known as “Texas Regulars,” they succeeded in keeping the Texas delegation to the national convention from supporting Roosevelt, even after he no longer needed their convention vote. The entire slate of electors chosen in the Texas “president’s” convention indicated their intention of following the instruction of the convention that had named them to refuse to follow the popular vote if the Democrats carried Texas in the upcoming general election. Two lawsuits and one hard fought “governor’s” convention later, the electors were replaced with a new slate committed to follow the popular vote. The leaders of the almost impromptu state convention action to save the 1944 electoral vote were Harry L. Seay of Dallas, president of an insurance company and former president of the State Fair of Texas; William H. Kittrell of Dallas ; Congressman Wright Patman of Texarkana ; former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Robert W. Calvert ; and former Governor James V. Allred. Seay and Kittrell were the incoming chairman and secretary of the State Democratic Executive Committee. Having been refused the files of their predecessors, they undertook, without so m’ich as a list of newly elected Democratic county chairmen, a skimpily financed, but highly successful six weeks’ campaign for the national Democratic nominees. The desperation in the clubs where Texas Regulars gathered on the Wednesday after the Tuesday after the first Monday in November was succinctly summarized by one of them : “Gentlemen,” he announced, “yesterday the yokels discovered that they can outvote us.” In 1946, the Texas Regulars threatened openly and seriously to lead a secession movement unless Texas “tidelands” were quitclaimed to the state government. That same year an enterprising member of the state executive committee made an unpublished tabulation which showed that Texas delegations to the Democratic national convention had become completely unrepresentative of the real opinions of Texas citizens. The tabulation showed that since 1924, no Texas delegation had supported, in the national convention, the presidential candidate supported by Texas voters the following November. In 1948, the Texas Regulars became the States Rights’ Party, mounting an active but unsuccessful campaign for Thurmond and Wright. At the 1948 “president’s” convention, Governor Beauford Jester announced that a firm intention to support the national Democratic nominees would be a prerequisite for inclusion in the delegation to the national convention and the electoral college. His proposal was adopted by the convention, but was simply not taken seriously. Again five of the electors had to be replaced at the September “governor’s” convention, and delegations from urban counties, carrying signs that read, “Harry, Henry, DeweyPhooey!” were replaced by contesting delegations. Again there was a lawsuit involving, not electors, but members of the Democratic Party’s own state and county committees. The suit was won by the loyal faction which had been seated in the 1948 “governor’s” convention, and Truman ‘ carried the state in the general election. The customary deference to the personal wishes of the governor at the biennial “governor’s” convention had come to an end in 1944. In the “governor’s” convention that year, Gov. Coke Stevenson, discussing the question of delivering the state’s electoral vote to the national candidates who won the state’s popular vote, had non-cornmittally observed, “I have friends on both sides.” In 1946 and 1948 the question of following the statutory requirement that senatorial district caucuses select their own members of the state executive committee had been insistently raised, but by 1950 Allan Shivers, who had become governor after Beauford Jester’s death early in his second term, grimly returned the Texas Democratic Party machinery to his firm personal control. In 1952, at the “governor’s” convention, Shivers delivered that machinery openly and formally to the Eisenhower campaign. That was the day. Loyal Democrats, who had taken a contesting delegation led by Maury Maverick to the Democratic national convention to predict that the “regular” delegation would do just this, watched their victorious Democratic rivals incorporated into the Republican campaign organization. So did observers from other states, who were also watching Senator Lyndon Johnson’s growing presidential ambition. TO FILL THE VACUUM in official Texas Democratic leadership, Speaker Sam Rayburn came to Dallas to head the presidential campaign. Liberals and labor leaders whom he had systematically snubbed for years came to his aid with such organized support as could be hurriedly assembled, but he received few four-figure contributions. The census records alone made an absurdity of any effort to win the national election in 1952 by addressing the Texas campaign to farmers and country merchants. Yet precisely that strategy was followed by the Democrats, under the wellintentioned personal leadership of Speaker Rayburn, who represented the smallest of the four congressional districts in Texas with shrinking populations. February 7, 1964 11