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Chapter Nine. Last Fights and Departure 1956–57
- Texas A&M University Press
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ch apter nine Last Fights and Departure 1956–57 governor shivers’s political fortunes had suffered tremendously in 1955. Public approval of his leadership diminished to its lowest level ever. Still, Shivers left the press, political insiders, and public guessing as to his plans for 1956. Although he decided against seeking a fourth term as governor, he worked to leave political life while still on top. Allan Shivers, determined to dominate Texas politics until his departure from office, defended segregation in the hope of engineering a political resurgence. Riding white fear of racial equality, he hoped to keep control over the state Democratic Party. By doing so, he would be in position to command national attention in a presidential election year. Moreover, he might lay the groundwork for a possible future return to public life. Instead, he failed to achieve these goals, but remained a powerful behind-the-scenes force in state politics. The last months of 1956 saw him influence national events while his conduct in office devolved into pettiness. Sometime in early 1956, Shivers decided not to seek a fourth term. The governor and his staff began devising an exit strategy in February. Weldon Hart advised against an early retirement announcement. He suggested the governor allow suspense to build by making a statewide television and radio appearance featuring a canned question-and-answer session. “If we announced in advance that you were going to ‘announce,’” Hart explained, a larger audience would tune in. The governor’s office intended to keep attention focused upon Shivers. The contrived suspense was to draw attention away from U.S. senator Price Daniel, a likely gubernatorial candidate in the summer primary. Hart noted that all suspense would disappear “if you don’t do it [make an announcement about his political future] before Price announces.” Rumors that Shivers would not seek reelection had reached Daniel, who desperately wanted to be governor. The senator was simply awaiting Shivers’s own word on retirement before announcing.1 Using the canned press conference to rattle Daniel, Governor Shivers explained that he was “seriously considering” a fourth term and planned to clarify his intentions within two weeks. Mail poured into the governor’s office from across the state, commenting upon prospects for a fourth term. The majority of the letters that have been preserved favored his continuing in politics. Correspondents cheered his “near announcement,” many of them praising Shivers as the only man capable of leading Texas through the challenges of the coming years. Most of those favoring a fourth term downplayed the significance of the previous year’s scandals. The minority who advised retirement tended to so from a position of sympathy for the governor. One praised him as being presidential material and urged him not to “get sucked into” another state race. Another letter writer bluntly told Shivers that a fourth-term effort would divide conservatives and land Ralph Yarborough in the governor’s mansion.2 On March 1, the day after Dwight Eisenhower told Americans he would seek a second term as president, the Dallas Morning News announced Shivers would make a broadcast that evening. The governor told Texans he would not run, but would instead finish his term in a crusade for local self-government against “socialistic , do-nothing boys who want to federalize, to centralize all parts of the government .” To further this crusade, he urged voters to support the interposition and segregation referenda that would be on the ballot in July. He reassured Texans that they could trust their insurance companies and blamed Bascom Giles for the Veterans’ Land Board scandal. He also declared his intention to lead the state Democratic Party in the coming primary and convention season. Although he was leaving politics, Shivers insisted he would fight the national party and bring it back to its roots. The governor intended to carry the struggle to the national convention at the head of Texas’ delegation.3 Others, however, had similar designs. As early as September, 1955, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson had begun plotting to seize the Texas delegation as a part of Johnson’s efforts to get on the national ticket. In November, Johnson went on record saying that the state’s delegation should be pledged in advance to the national party nominee. That same fall, Governor Shivers began searching for an acceptable presidential nominee, suggesting Ohio governor Frank Lausche in a southern-midwestern-western alliance against party liberals. He reiterated this vision in...