by Maury Harris
The 1920’s were roaring, but Texas Governor James (Pa) Ferguson was frustrated with the Legislature’s meager monetary compensation for Governors. So, to enhance his family’s income, he took to selling pardons. When the cheapskates in the Legislature learned that their employee was “moonlighting” in that manner, they impeached him and vowed to never hire him again.
Unemployed but still immensely popular with his fellow Texans, Pa sought to cleverly regain his pardon selling job by nominating and enthusiastically supporting his lovely wife Miriam (Ma) Ferguson to run for Governor. To assuage the anxiety of Texas voters wary of any female governing them in any way whatsoever, Ma at campaign rallies would “let Jim do the talking”. Anxious to show the rest of the country that Texans were broad-minded about females recently getting the right to vote, Texas voters hired Ma as their Governor in a landslide.
With Ma handling all of a Texas Governor’s time-consuming ceremonial responsibilities, Pa was free to concentrate on the part of his former job that he liked best—selling pardons. On a stroll through the lovely Texas state capitol grounds one day, a fellow Texan accidentally bumped into Ma. The polite gentleman apologized, “pardon me Ma’am”. Ma replied: “You’ll have to talk to Pa about that”. Once burned by the Legislature’s scrutiny, a wary Pa used his experience as an attorney to cannily avoid entrapment. For example, one potential customer showed up at the Governor’s Mansion offering Pa cash if he would pardon his son matriculating in a state penal institution. Just in case the petitioner was a plant employed by hostile state legislators, shrewd Pa replied: “Of course, I can’t do that. But what I can do is sell you a horse for $1000.” The perplexed supplicant responded “what does that have to do with getting a pardon?” Pa replied “when your son gets out of prison, he’ll need a horse”.
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Still swayed more by charisma than character, Texas voters soon hired another “character” as their Governor. As a proprietor of a biscuit company, an accomplished country and western music performer and a radio evangelist, Pappy Lee O’Daniel was deemed by the Texas electorate as being most qualified to become their next Governor. Other Texas office seekers typically bribed voters with free booze on election day. However, a fervently teetotaling Baptist Pappy offered unlimited quantities of free fresh baked biscuits at his campaign rallies where he serenaded with his country and western band appropriately named “The Texas Doughboys”.
Seeking to avoid the divisive public policy issues being debated by other gubernatorial candidates, Baptist Pappy’s campaign platform was the Ten Commandments. When other candidates attacked this platform as insufficient, Pappy responded by inserting another plank—The Golden Rule. While still insufficient in the eyes of his political opponents, Pappy’s platform was sufficient for most Texans who hired him as their next Governor. In addition to his platform, what also appealed especially to the female electorate was Pappy’s daily radio show when he crooned about the virtues of motherhood. Pappy won by a landslide in 1938.
Although wildly popular with the female component of the Texas electorate, Pappy was not loved by all. One group of particularly unapproving constituents were the state’s alcoholic beverage manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers. Teetotaling Pappy was a “dry” dedicated to ridding the state of un-Baptist-like “wets”. Railing against booze sellers and the dens of iniquity where lost souls imbibed the wicked brews, Pappy was a thorn in the “wet”‘ Texans’ saddles.
However, despite their addiction to alcohol, “wets” still had at least some morals. They refused to rid themselves of their enemies in the style utilized by Al Capone’s mobs. Moreover, they were concerned about their own safety from angry mobs of Texans who would publicly lynch anyone even remotely suspected of bumping off their beloved Pappy. In these circumstances, the “wets” came up with a more civilized and politically correct scheme. They would promote Pappy to a recently opened United States Senate seat. If successful, the “wet” Lieutenant Governor Coke Stevenson would be automatically promoted to Governor. Pulling this off, however, would be no easy feat. Afterall, Texas was a democracy with a gullible electorate potentially swayed by a more old-fashion manner of electioneering with abundant booze for all on election day.
One such old-fashioned politician was a “good old boy” Central Texas Congressman named Lyndon Johnson. With Pappy having locked up the “dry’s” financial contributions and support, Lyndon was compelled to do business with the “wets”. Considering so many voters to bribe in the huge state of Texas, the campaign funds supplied to Lyndon by the oil companies and large public works construction firms were inadequate. A canny builder of coalitions, Lyndon sought and won the support of the “wets”. But even with bulging bags of campaign contributions, Lyndon worried that was perhaps not enough to defeat the popular Pappy.
There are a finite number of eligible voters in Texas. But that sum approaches infinity if you include votes by the deceased. Such was common knowledge, however, among aspiring Texas politicians seeking to stuff ballot boxes on election day with the hard-won votes of their dearly deceased. In the election of 1941, the “wets” backing Pappy’s promotion to the Senate were more successful with the dead than the “drys” in Lyndon’s coalition. So Pappy became a United States Senator who could no longer frustrate the “wet’s” business interests from the Texas Governor’s mansion.
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According to the former Texas Governor George W. Bush, you can fool a Texan once but never twice.
Chastened by his loss of the dead vote in 1941, Lyndon Johnson vowed to never let that happen again. However, in the 1948 U.S. Senate election he was opposed by then Governor Coke Stevenson, whose loyal attention to the “wets”‘ business interests merited their support of promoting him to the Senate. Refusing to let the history of the perfidious “wets”‘ electioneering shenanigans be repeated, a more savvy Lyndon solicited just enough of the dead folks’ votes to become a United State Senator.
Just as the Texas state Legislature would not sufficiently compensate Governor Pa Ferguson, the United States also did not compensate Senator Johnson enough to support his family. So similar to Pa, Lyndon was forced to “moonlight” to make ends meet. Since a Senator does not grant pardons, he had to seek other avenues for remuneration. A keen student of microeconomic theory, Lyndon understood that a monopoly generates big profits for a lucky monopolist. And he was determined to find him a monopoly. But since they are so lucrative, they are hard to find. So he created one. Using his considerable charm and persuasiveness on the Federal Communications Commission, he secured all three TV channels— ABC, CBS and NBC—for the exclusive use of his wife Lady Bird’s Austin TV station.
Years later when this story was told to a Japanese gentleman with a subtle sense of humor, he asked: “What did they call that station? WIFE?”
Native Texan Maury Harrris has coordinated two Texas history study groups. The focus has been on revisionist history and roguish historical leaders.