Alabama Governors: A Political History of the State

Frank M. Dixon / Glenn A. Feldman

Frank M. Dixon, 1939–1943 glenn A. feldMAn Frank murray Dixon, Tidewater virginian, provided executive leadership for the state of Alabama during the early watershed years of World War ii. A handsome man and skilled orator, Dixon allied himself early and often with Alabama’s big mule coalition of birmingham entrepreneurs and black belt planters that controlled state politics during much of the early twentieth century. Dixon was born on July 25,1892,in oakland , California, the son of the reverend Frank Dixon and laura Dixon. Dixon’s father was one of a long line of poor farming Dixons from the north Carolina piedmont who made a career from the baptist pulpit and irregular lecturing. The boy’s uncle was the reverend Thomas Dixon—lawyer, preacher,state legislator,and best-selling author of several novels, including The Clansman (1905),which was later the basis for The Birth of a Nation, the first silent film to treat a serious subject. Dixon’s writings offered a powerful depiction of the reconstruction era as a period of corruption in which the south was forced to endure the rule of ignorant blacks,rapacious carpetbaggers,and scoundrel scalawags.Thomas Dixon’s work undoubtedly had a powerful influence on his young nephew. Although born in California,Frank Dixon spent the majority of his youth in the Tidewater region of virginia. he received his early education in the public schools of virginia andWashington,D.C.,and was graduated from the prestigious Phillips exeter Preparatory school and then Columbia University . he took his law degree at the University of virginia in 1916 and soon 216 / Frank m. Dixon 1939–1943 thereafter married Juliet Perry of Greene County, Alabama, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Upon graduation from law school, he accepted employment with the prestigious birmingham law firm of Captain Frank s. White and successfully managedWhite’s run for the U.s.senate.Dixon then resigned from the firm to join the fighting in World War i as a volunteer with the royal Canadian Air Corps. he was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to the French escadrilles as an aerial observer and machine gunner.in July 1918 the enemy shot down Dixon’s plane over soissons, France, and he was seriously wounded, requiring doctors to amputate his leg. The French government awarded him the Croix de Guerre with palm, made him a chevalier of the French Foreign legion, and promoted him to major. During the 1920s Dixon helped to organize the American legion in Alabama and served as its state commander and twice as birmingham’s chapter post commander, service that earned him the loyalty of veterans across the state. When he returned to birmingham, Dixon formed his own law partnership ,bowers and Dixon,and became a successful corporate lawyer.he served as assistant solicitor of Jefferson County from 1919 to 1923 and wrote a legal treatise titled “The local laws of birmingham.” he became more involved in politics during the 1920s, taking an active role in winning Alabama ’s electoral votes for the controversial 1928 Democratic candidate for president,newyork governor Al smith.like so many other Democratic loyalists in this event,Dixon warned that “bolting” the party to vote for republican herbert hoover would reconstitute reconstruction-like “negro rule” and bring “the black heels of the ex-slaves down on the throats of southern men and women.” Although Dixon was an open advocate of white supremacy, he and other birmingham executives joined planters in the state in opposing the 1920s version of the Ku Klux Klan as a political force.The Klan represented a plain people’s challenge to the hegemony of the birmingham industrialists and their allies in the black belt. Along with the terror and intolerance of many Klansmen, the organization allied itself with the aspirations of union supporters and other working-class Alabamians. in 1934 Dixon attempted to succeed the conservative benjamin meek miller as governor. Despite solid support from the planter-industrialist oligarchy and charges of Ku Kluxism against his opponent, Dixon lost the primary election to former governor bibb Graves. Four years later, in a process that repeated itself regularly during this era of Alabama politics,Dixon profited from the constitutional mandate that forbade a governor from succeeding himself in office and easily defeated Chauncey sparks to become governor of the state. ironically, Dixon attracted union leaders, younger voters, Frank m. Dixon 1939–1943 / 217...