Yellow Dogs and Republicans: Allan Shivers and Texas Two-Party Politics

Epilogue

allan shivers’s influence on texas politics gradually faded after 1957. He did, however, remain active in state Democratic circles as late as the 1980s. He participated in every conservative attempt to drive Sen. Ralph Yarborough from office. The record indicates the former governor ’s implacable hatred fed much of his continued interest in state affairs. The feeling was mutual; hating Shivers was an “obsession” with the liberal senator. In 1958, Shivers promoted William Blakely’s candidacy for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination after considering running against Yarborough himself. That effort failed, but six years later, allied with Gov. John Connally and Fort Worth oilman Sid Richardson, Shivers helped raise $500,000 to back right-wing Valley congressman Joe Kilgore. Only determined intervention by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, hardly on the best terms with Yarborough himself, saved the liberal senator ’s seat. When Kilgore dropped out of the running, the former governor attached himself to the Republican candidate, a transplanted Connecticut oilman named George Herbert Walker Bush. Finally, in 1970, Shivers helped recruit and promote the successful challenge of former South Texas congressman Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr.1 Shivers’s endorsement mattered in state politics long after he left office. He backed his sometime enemy Lyndon Johnson’s 1960 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but then sided with Richard Nixon against John Kennedy. When Johnson faced ultraconservative Arizona senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, Shivers shocked friend and foe alike by supporting the Democratic incumbent. A Johnson presidency, the former governor argued, was best for Texas and the nation . Shivers rejected both Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern, coming epilogue out publicly for Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. His last major endorsement of a presidential candidate came in 1984. That year he helped form “Texans for Reagan,” a nonpartisan-sounding citizens group intended to attract Democratic voters to the Republican president. He attacked the Democratic ticket, referring to the candidates as “Mondale and the lady.” Seventy-six years old, his gray hair still bearing coal-black streaks, Shivers attacked Geraldine Ferraro’s critique of Ronald Reagan’s religious rhetoric. Reagan was “a good Christian,” according to the retired governor, and “the lady” had erred “by getting religion and politics mixed up.”2 Although he never again sought public office, Allan Shivers served in two important semipolitical capacities in retirement. With Johnson’s backing, he became president of the National Chambers of Commerce in 1967. As the nation’s leading businessman, he offered mixed reviews of the War on Poverty and the Great Society. He agreed with providing job training to help the impoverished since it helped business as well, but criticized Johnson’s close relationship with unions because it rewarded organized labor for “using the public as hostages to enforce its demands on an employer.” Throughout the 1970s, the former University of Texas student body president served on and led the university system’s board of regents. During his tenure as board chairman, he proved to be a powerful advocate of state higher education, presided over a period of rapid growth, and improved the academic stature of the system’s campuses. He announced the end of the “era of destructive students” and urged legislators to see higher-education dollars as money “productively and responsibly spent.”3 He died in his Austin office of a massive heart attack on January 15, 1985. A silent and aloof man, he unfortunately kept to himself much of what a historian needs to explain his personality and worldview. However, the record shows that he was a powerful political figure who complemented his success with business prowess. To his credit, he and his wife raised a strong family despite living in the fishbowl of politics. They suffered the tragic loss of one child and the debilitating injury of another. Despite his limited and parsimonious approach to government, Shivers and his family gave generously to charities, hospitals, and educational institutions. Memory of Allan Shivers has faded, but the impact he had on the modern politics of Texas and the South continues to be felt. of all texas governors, shivers remains a political power sui generis. He looms as the state’s most powerful governor since Reconstruction. Shivers emerged as the closest representation of a machine “boss” in modern state politics. He faced no real opposition from any other statewide officeholder, particularly after 1950. Attorney General Price Daniel dared not challenge him. The 148 Epilogue [3.137.161.222] Project MUSE (2024...