1 | âWe Can Do No Worseâ
At the height of the âroaring twenties,â Thomas B. Love of Dallas was quite possibly the driest man in Texas. In 1928, he did everything he could to make his state the same way. As a Democratic state senator, Love was determined to keep the governor of New York out of the White House in Washington. Alongside legions of other prohibitionist (colloquially known as âdryâ) Texas Democrats, Love was a thoroughly networked political busybody, an incessant letter writer, and a Wilsonian progressive whose career stretched back to the beginning of the century. But he was not loyal to his party in 1928 and did everything he could to convince other Texans to follow suit by rejecting the candidacy of Al Smith, the antiprohibition (âwetâ) Democratic presidential nominee, who also happened to be the first Catholic ever nominated by a major party for the highest office in the land. That November, Loveâs efforts proved successful as Texas cast its lot with the Grand Old Party for the first time, thereby making a direct contribution to the election of the Republican candidate, Herbert Hoover, to the presidency of the United States.
The election of 1928 exposed the severity of sociocultural rifts in the Lone Star State, dividing Texans as few events ever had. It challenged the tenets of partisan loyalty and longstanding Democratic hegemony, and it polarized neighbors and families alike. With the wounds of this division still fresh, a Texan named Charles Berry decided to express his frustrations and hopes for healing and reunification by writing a letter to the man who would replace Al Smith as governor of New York, the newly elected chief executive of the Empire State, Franklin D. Roosevelt.1
Evidence in the final vote totals notwithstanding, Berry told Roosevelt that Texas voters did not actually like Herbert Hoover. Nor did they like the Republican Party. Nor, according to Berry, had Texans rejected Smith because he was Catholic, as many speculated, nor because he was a wet. Instead, the stateâs shift to the Republican Party was a freak occurrenceâan unfortunate anomalyâthe mere result of complacency and overconfidence. As Berry saw it, Texas Democrats had simply taken their stateâs loyalty for granted. In doing so, they had unintentionally opened the door for a small minority of disloyal radicals to usurp the peopleâs true preference by rallying unsuspecting but otherwise well-intentioned Texans to do something he hoped they would never do again. Given a second chance, he was sure his Texas neighbors would reunite behind the Democratic Party.2
Charles Berryâs assessment of the political realities in Texas was naĂŻve and simplistic. In several ways, it was also flatly wrong. Texas did not swing Republican in 1928 because of complacency or overconfidence. Al Smithâs Catholicism and his stand on Prohibition were directly relevant and assuredly decisive. Men like Love, Texas governor Dan Moody, and J. Frank Norris, the fiery preacher and pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, whose anti-Catholic rants had already become the stuff of local legend, made sure of that.3 Likewise, most of Berryâs neighbors were not apathetic, nor had they been duped; rather, they were widely engaged, defiant, and purposefully rebellious. The âHoovercratâ bolt of 1928 was no accident.4
Still, as it turned out, Charles Berry proved to be right about at least one thing. Discouraged though he was, Berry told Roosevelt that he was optimistic that Texas Democrats would reunite behind the partyâs presidential nominee in 1932, especially if that nominee happened to be FDR.5
âHood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jugâ
Unprecedented and surprising though it was at the time, Al Smithâs loss in Texas in 1928 did not occur in a vacuum. Rather, it was, to at least some degree, a predictable reflection of broader political forces shaping the state during the 1920s. Writing in 1984, historian Norman D. Brown argued that three main issues dominated Texas politics during the so-called Roaring Twenties. Those issues were, first, the Ku Klux Klan, or âthe Hoodâ; second, the campaigns of Miriam âMaâ Fergusonâthe âBonnetâ; and third, Prohibition, or âthe little brown jug.â Texans paid tangential attention to other issues at the state, local, and national levels, of course, but they typically interpreted those issues through a lens that prioritized one or more of these three main forces. Any analysis of Texas politics during the age of FDR requires an accounting of the culture that preceded it.6
Originally conceived as a domestic terrorist vehicle for promoting Reconstruction-era white supremacy, the Ku Klux Klan existed in fits and starts, on the margins of society, or as a distant memory across the âredeemedâ South throughout the final decades of the nineteenth century. Largely defunct by the early twentieth century, the Klan reorganized in 1915 and subsequently enjoyed a heyday during the 1920s. This was especially true in Texas, which became one of the Klanâs banner states. A wide variety of perceived threats to the national interest inspired the Klanâs rebirth and subsequent growth. The secretive organization still targeted and attacked African Americans and the agitators who dared help them. It also, however, diversified its focus to include Jews, Catholics, and political progressives who aided and abetted what the Klan perceived as the nationâs steady descent toward multiculturalism. Immigration was a particularly salient source of anxiety. Klansmen and their allies believed that newcomers from southern and eastern European countries threatened their homelandâs racial, ethnic, and religious status quo. They believed it was up to them to preserve and protect that status quo, which they interpreted as white and Protestant. Tapping into undercurrents of fear and anxiety, the Klan attracted sizable followings in Texas, first among elites, and later among middle- and working-class whites.7
Both nationally and in Texas, the Ku Klux Klan promoted a philosophy of â100 percent Americanism,â arguing that the nationâs moral sense of self had been lost, victimized by the onrush of modernity, manifest in racial, ethnic, and sexual permissiveness and unrest. The Klan proclaimed itself Godâs âinstrument for restoring law and order and Victorian morality to the communities, towns and cities of the region.â As interested in correcting moral failings as it was in enforcing racial segregation, the Klan attracted men and women who were concerned about the dangers of alcohol abuse and the correlated sins of adultery, domestic violence, pedophilia and child molestation, prostitution, and other forms of criminal vice. It was particularly effective in exploiting fears of black male sexual deviance and the vulnerability of white female virtue, while at the same time reifying popular assumptions about the interconnectivity of national identity, citizenship, and âwhiteness.â8
Between 1920 and 1926, the Invisible Empire grew rapidly in Texas, at one point reaching approximately 150,000 members, including most members of the stateâs Thirty-Eighth Legislature between 1923 and 1925.9 This growth came in part thanks to the leadership of Hiram W. Evans, a dentist from Dallas, where popular notions of law and order, whiteness, and the perceived absence of black political influence were as deeply entrenched as anywhere in the state. Evans joined the Texas Klan in 1920; by 1922 he was the organizationâs Imperial Wizard, or national leader. Under Evans, the Klan prioritized political organization and engagement with all levels of governmentâlocal, state, and federal. Over the next several years, the Klan successfully strengthened its operational presence across the nation, creating well-organized local chapters that contributed directly to state and local Democratic campaigns, while also frightening more than a few locals into modifying their morally questionable behaviors. Although Evans publicly opposed the type of vigilante violence that had made the Klan famous since the late 1860s, rogue action remained a visible part of the Klanâs culture and public personality. This brand of unsanctioned, vigilante âjusticeâ was also very much in keeping with Texasâs frontier history and its proclivities to see armed self-defense as a core tenet of properly patriarchal family life. Sadly, Klan violence was very common in Texas. As Walter Buenger puts it, white Texans âlynched blacks at a stunning rate and in a gruesome styleâ throughout the first half of the 1920s.10
The Texas Klanâs power was on full display in 1922, when its intervention into the race for a US Senate seat proved decisive in the election of Earle Mayfield. Among other issues, Mayfield emphasized his support for Prohibition, contrasted against alcohol abuse and moral degradation more broadly. Rumors abounded that Mayfield was himself a member of the Klan, though it is more likely that he merely enjoyed the political benefits of being associated with the Hood and was not actually a full-fledged member. Mayfield largely avoided direct mention of the Klan during his campaign. The same was true among his more prominent supporters, including Texasâs famously progressive United States senator, Morris Sheppard, and future Washington power broker and Klan sympathizer Congressman Hatton Sumners of Dallas, who rose to national prominence during the early 1920s, lobbying forcefully against proposed federal antilynching bills under consideration in 1920 and 1922.11
Regardless, Mayfieldâs victory was a clear reflection of the Klanâs influence at the ballot box. On Mayfieldâs coattails, the Klan celebrated down-ballot victories across the state, most notably in Dallas, where seven such candidates won in local races. The Invisible Empire celebrated those victories with an evening parade in downtown Dallas where members marched in hoods to âOnward Christian Soldiers.â12
Anti-Klan Democrats objected to the KKKâs cultish, secretive persona, not to mention its reputation for violence. Above all, however, anti-Klan Democrats objected to the Invisible Empireâs expanding political power. Strong in number, but lacking coherent organization on par with their opponents, the anti-Klan faction eventually found its leader in Miriam âMaâ Ferguson. At the time, most knew Ma Ferguson simply as the wife of former Texas governor James âPaâ Ferguson, also known colloquially as âFarmer Jim.â Texas voters elected Pa to serve as governor in 1914, then reelected him for a second term in 1916. In 1917, however, the Texas House impeached Pa Ferguson over a series of scandals, including one involving academic freedom issues with the University of Texas at Austin, along with his decision to veto all appropriations to the public university in 1917. In a legally questionable attempt to skirt the implications of his impeachment, Ferguson resigned from office one day after the stateâs Court of Impeachment issued its conviction on the matter. Ever defiant, Ferguson continued to pursue his political career, running unsuccessfully for governor in 1918, before losing to Mayfield in the 1922 Democratic primary race for US Senate, all while the legality of his candidacies was a subject of much controversy.13
Refusing to go quietly into the night, Pa subsequently launched a shadow career through his wife. Together, Ma and Pa Ferguson emerged as one of the most colorful, controversial, and well-known political duos in American history. With a populist style and a penchant for the dramatic, the Fergusons offered a clear contrast to the Klanâs hood, particularly on the issue of Prohibition. The Fergusons styled themselves as champions of the âforgotten manâ and specifically of wets and other outsiders, shunned by the hypermoralistic. They even advocated and tried to implement a radically liberal use of gubernatorial pardoning power, releasing convicted criminals to the dismay of many and at times lending perceived credence to the Klanâs criticisms of Fergusonism as an affront to law and order.14
Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, the Fergusonsâ flair for the dramatic kept them at the center of the stateâs political spotlight for the next two decades. Making no effort to hide their political alliance, or Paâs ongoing influence, the Fergusons ran for governor in 1924, using Ma as a front. They won, defeating the Klan-backed candidate, Felix D. Robertson. Their chief issue was the need to âunmaskâ and disempower the Klan. Miriam Ferguson thus became the first female governor of Texas, though Pa maintained an office in the capitol building and exerted significant control over state affairs.15
Thus contextualized, Al Smithâs 1928 loss in Texas should not have been surprising. The Democratic Partyâs decision to nominate a wet Catholic for president inspired Klansmen and other similarly minded Texans to exploit commonly held bigotries, fomenting fear, anger, and backlash wherever possible. Ironically, Smith officially accepted his partyâs presidential nomination in Houston, which hosted the 1928 Democratic National Convention that Juneâthe first time either national party had held its nominating convention in a southern state since the end of the Civil War. Texas newspapers covered the convention with gusto, particularly Texas governor Dan Moodyâs unshakable opposition to Smith, whom some opponents had taken to calling âAlcohol Smith.â Dry Democrats like Moody aggressively organized support for a plank in the partyâs platform calling for rigid and âhonest enforcement of the Constitution,â specifically Prohibition. Some Texans took the opportunity to champion Moody as an alternative nominee, though that drive fizzled without gaining much traction in the national party.16
Throughout the rest of the summer and fall of 1928, the Ku Klux Klan promoted conspiracy theories involving Romeâs alleged plan for an eventual coup in the United States, painting caricatures of Al Smith as someth...