Although Texas has long been thought of as a Republican state, it was for a long time solidly Democratic. The first time Republicans won a presidential election in the state was 1928, and they wouldn’t win it again until 1952. Although Republicans lost control of Congress in the 1954 election, they gained a seat in Texas’s 5^th, based in Dallas with real estate developer Bruce Reynolds Alger (1918-2015). By this time, Dallas was a hotbed of conservatism; it was the headquarters of H.L. Hunt’s petroleum empire, and Hunt contributed generously to conservative causes. He held on to his seat in the 1956 election against the challenge of Henry Wade, a conservative Democrat who would later be the defendant in the landmark Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade (1973).

Although one might from some angles see Alger as compatible for Texas, he was in truth far out there, even by standards of the state’s conservative Democrats. Speaker Sam Rayburn, who represented Bonham, despised him and made that crystal clear to him and he was the odd man out in the Texas delegation. Alger’s new year’s message for 1958 was, “I foresee bitterness and hatefulness… We are going to squabble and fight and make the world think we hate each other and that we can’t solve our problems. We are going to have bigger and bigger budgets, higher taxes, more government spending at home and abroad, and more inflation accompanied by deficit financing. Happy New Year!” (Columbia Daily Herald) That year, he was the only representative to vote against a school lunch bill. Although Alger didn’t like Washington, he did like the social aspects of being a representative. He said, “I always liked helping people who needed a passport at midnight or a fellow who married overseas and then couldn’t get his wife into the U.S.” (Merwin).

Alger and the “Mink Coat Mob”

Easily the most infamous incident in Alger’s career was when he led a protest of Lyndon Johnson that consisted mostly of suburban Republican women with Alger holding a sign reading “LBJ Sold Out to Yankee Socialists.” The crowd got nasty, including members of the crowd spitting at LBJ and Lady Bird and throwing her gloves into a gutter and one even struck Lady Bird with a placard. When asked to control the crowd, Alger responded, “I don’t think it is rude to show a socialist and traitor what you think of him” (The Columbia Daily Herald). The incident gained LBJ and Lady Bird great sympathy. Texas Monthly’s Lawrence Wright later wrote on the incident, “It was the most triumphant half-hour of Johnson’s career. Overnight, he became an acceptable candidate to big-city Northern Democrats who had automatically hated him, traditional Democrats who had not (they now admitted to themselves) seen past the corn-pone mannerisms of L.B.J. to the winking F.D.R. inside him” (The New York Times). On Election Day, the Kennedy-Johnson ticket prevailed in Texas by 46,000 votes. Richard Nixon subsequently blamed Alger for his loss in Texas, stating, “Well, we lost Texas in 1960 because of that [asshole] congressman in Dallas” (The Columbia Daily Herald). However, this did not cost Alger reelection; Dallas was a highly conservative city. Yet, Alger’s conduct did cost him in Washington, and he was ranked the 2nd least effective member of Congress by the Washington Press Corps (the first was Adam Clayton Powell of New York).

During the Kennedy Administration, Alger was among the most bitterly opposed to President Kennedy’s agenda and Dallas itself was notorious as a hotbed of anti-Kennedy sentiment. During the 87^th and 88^th Congresses he scored a 100% from the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA). This means that he was in opposition to even the Kennedy Administration’s most popular programs, including job training legislation and educational TV. Ted Dealey’s Dallas Morning News was among the most conservative newspapers in the nation, and Dealey strongly supported Alger. Alger also thought of the Peace Corps as socialist and in 1963 he called for the US to leave the UN (The Columbia Daily Herald).

Alger and Civil Rights

Although Alger did not sign the segregationist Southern Manifesto, he voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 as well as the Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax; Texas was one of five states that still had a poll tax in 1962, although not all Texans voted against the amendment. He was of the belief that any change had to happen on the local level. In 1963, he voted for Rep. Alphonzo Bell’s (R-Calif.) motion to the Vocational Educational Act to insert a non-discrimination clause, but this can be interpreted as a Republican effort to stymie the measure. Alger also voted against statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, in the latter case being one of only 24 House Republicans to do so; although opposition to Hawaii statehood in itself is not a vote against civil rights, it was correlated strongly with opposition to civil rights measures.

Other Quirks of Alger’s Record and Downfall

Although Alger’s extremely conservative record is not in dispute, an exception seems to be in the field of civil liberties; he voted against the 1962 Industrial Security bill, which if enacted would have granted the Secretary of Defense the right to fire employees of private industries involved with national defense with no due process and the 1963 amendments to the Internal Security Act permitting the Secretary of Defense to fire employees of the National Security Agency without appeal. On the latter vote, Alger was one of only seven Republicans on record against and the only other Texan to vote against was the liberal Henry B. Gonzalez of San Antonio. Alger’s Congressional career basically came to an end on November 22, 1963, when Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy. Although Oswald was of the opposite ideological persuasion of Alger, militant hostility to Kennedy had aged poorly and it wasn’t lost on the nation that Kennedy had been killed in perhaps the most notorious city in opposition to him, and Alger was defeated for reelection in 1964 by Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell. Alger sided with ACA 99% of the time, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 3% of the time, and had a DW-Nominate score of 0.616, one of the highest of his time. He later reflected on his loss, “Most Dallas voters had quarreled with the Kennedy policies. After the assassination I think many of them voted Democratic to make a friendly gesture to the rest of the country, which was blaming all of Dallas for President Kennedy’s death. Some Dallas leaders were even encouraging that thinking” (Merwin).

After Congress

After his time in Congress, Alger resumed his pursuits in the real estate business and moved to Florida for a while. For a time he was on the Board of Trustees of Americans for Constitutional Action and later was chairman of United Congressional Appeal, a political action committee with the stated purpose of helping to elect conservatives. Something to note about the latter organization is that it was the political action committee of Liberty Lobby, which was controlled by the notorious radical rightist Willis Carto.

Although by 1977, Alger stated that he had mellowed a bit since leaving Congress, he added “But I still stick to my yardsticks about the spread of federal government. Before the federal government does anything I want to know if it really should be a function of federal government, and if it is, can we afford it?” (Merwin) Alger also stated his opposition to revenue sharing. He said, “It’s a tragedy, because revenue sharing allows creeping federal influence in local affairs. The federal government raises money to pay for programs local governments are unwilling to finance First thing you know the local government becomes dependent on federal handouts, and those handouts come with strings attached, no matter what anybody tells you” (Merwin).

Alger retired in 1990 and lived long enough to see the rise of the Tea Party movement, and his ultra-conservative limited government politics certainly matched those of that movement, thus I think of him as the first Tea Partier of Texas. He died on April 13, 2015 at the age of 96.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Alger, Bruce Reynolds. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/93/bruce-reynolds-alger

Bruce Alger, firebrand Republican congressman from Texas, dies at 96. (2015, April 25). Columbia Daily Herald.

Retrieved from

https://www.columbiadailyherald.com/story/news/local/2015/04/25/bruce-alger-firebrand-republican-congressman/25704740007

Merwin, J. (1977, March 1). Whatever Happened To… D Magazine.

Retrieved from

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1977/march/whatever-happened-to

Roberts, S. (2015, April 28). Bruce Alger, 96, Dies; Led Mink Coat Protest Against Lyndon Johnson. The New York Times.

Retrieved from

This post is my follow up to Liberty Lobby’s scores for the House in the 87^th Congress. I have briefly gone over what this organization was about there and have covered it much more extensively in the past. The criterion for the Senate in the 87^th Congress proves even stricter than for the House. This results in many Republicans getting scores under 50%. Senator John J. Williams (R-Del.), who scored a 0% by the liberal Americans for Democratic Action and a 93% by the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action in this session gets a 50%. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.), who sides with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 24% of the time in this Congress and 18% with the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gets only a 30% by Liberty Lobby. The focus is even harder on Willis Carto’s nationalistic viewpoint than in the House. Indeed, six issues connect to foreign relations in some way. His staunch protectionism is reflected in the inclusion of the final vote on the Trade Expansion Act, which gets a 78-8 vote in the Senate. I will say that is a bit of a way to provide strong contrast between “old guard” and Eisenhower “modern” Republicans.

It turns out the perfect scorers are a bit more than Strom Thurmond and John Tower. John McClellan (D-Ark.) gets nothing wrong and nor do Andrew Schoeppel (R-Kan.) and Joe Bottum (R-S.D.), but the latter two are only in office for a portion of the session. Had Willis Carto not counted the vote on the Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax, Senators Goldwater (R-Ariz.), Curtis (R-Neb.), and Mundt (R-S.D.) would have also scored 100%. No Republicans score zero, but Clifford Case (R-N.J.), Jacob Javits (R-N.Y.) and Kenneth Keating (R-N.Y.) get a 10%. A majority of Republicans only voted for 3 of the 10 positions, which are the three that involve domestic issues are are not civil rights, while a majority of Democrats voted Liberty Lobby’s position on none of the ten. 26 Democrats score zeroes. Furthermore, only 15 senators who voted at least three times are at 80% or higher. Below are the ten votes as well as a scoresheet with scores based on agreement rates with Liberty Lobby.

The votes are:

1. Create the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Ratification of the treaty creating the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for the purposes of furthering economic growth and world trade.

Ratified 72-18: D 48-11; R 24-7, 3/16/61.

Yea = -, Nay = +

2. Watered-Down Anti-Communist Amendment

Senator Prescott Bush (R-Conn.) amendment barring aid to any communist-controlled country unless the president had determined that the nation was not being dominated or controlled by the international communist movement, a weaker substitute for Senator Dodd’s (D-Conn.) amendment, which required a funding cut off for any nation in the Sino-Soviet bloc unless the president had determined that the nation had withdrawn or was in the process of withdrawing from the Sino-Soviet bloc.

Adopted 61-34: D 38-23; R 23-11, 8/17/61.

Yea = -, Nay = +

3. Establishment of Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Passage of the bill establishing the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency within the State Department.

Passed 73-14: D 48-8; R 25-6, 9/8/61.

Yea = -, Nay = +

4. Discharge Acceptance of Urban Affairs Department

Motion to discharge resolution approving of President Kennedy’s executive order creating the Department of Urban Affairs. Conservatives in the Republican Party objected to the growth of government but there was an additional incentive for Southern Democrats to vote against as the proposed cabinet head would be Robert Weaver, who was black.

Defeated 42-58: D 38-26; R 4-32, 2/20/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

5. Poll Tax Ban

Adoption of the Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax as a requirement to vote in federal elections.

Adopted 77-16: D 47-15; R 30-1, 3/27/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

6. UN Bond Bill

Passage of the bill authorizing up to $100 million in loans to the United Nations.

Passed 70-22: D 48-11; R 22-11, 4/5/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

7. Foreign Aid Authorization

Passage of the bill basically granting President Kennedy’s request for foreign aid funds for fiscal year 1963.

Passed 61-23: D 38-13; R 23-10; 6/7/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

8. Kill Medicare Proposal

Sen. Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) motion to table the Anderson (D-N.M.) Medicare amendment to the Social Security bill, providing for health insurance for persons 65 and older, to be funded with an increase in the Social Security tax.

Passed 52-48: D 21-43 ; R 31-5, 7/17/62.

Yea = +, Nay = –

9. Food and Agriculture Act

Passage of the second effort at a food and agriculture bill to reduce farm surpluses after the first one for supply-management controls had been defeated in the House.

Passed 47-37: D 43-9; R 4-28, 8/22/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

10. Trade Expansion Act

Passage of the bill granting the president expanded authority to negotiate trade agreements and provides for adjustment assistance to employers and workers harmed by trade agreements.

Passed 78-8: D 56-1; R 22-7, 9/19/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

Liberty Lobby 87th Senate:

References

ADA World Congressional Supplement. (1961, September). Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

https://adaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1961.pdf

ADA World Congressional Supplement. (1962, October). Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

https://adaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/1962.pdf

In 2026, a truly rare and unique event may happen; a Democrat may win a Senate seat in Texas. In the past, I have been dismissive about such a possibility, and so far it has proven right. However, Republican voters in Texas made in what my opinion was a spectacularly bad decision in nominating Ken Paxton, a man with a metric butt ton of baggage. There is a very real possibility that Paxton is the first Republican to lose a Senate election to a Democrat since 1988, and from what I’ve seen of James Talarico, he seems like quite a liberal. 2026 would also be momentous because it would be the first time in over sixty years that Texans elected a liberal to the Senate. The last liberal to be elected to the Senate from Texas was Ralph Webster Yarborough (1903-1996).

Early Career

Yarborough had started his political career as an acolyte of James Allred, a supporter of the New Deal, and as an assistant to Allred as attorney general filed suit against big oil companies. The election of Allred as governor resulted in the appointment of Yarborough as a judge of Travis County. Although the state increasingly moved to the right with Allred’s successors being Pappy O’Daniel and Coke Stevenson, Yarborough did not, and became the leader of the liberal faction of the party.

In 1952, Yarborough was planning to run for Attorney General but Governor Allan Shivers, leader of the conservative wing of the party, outright told him he wouldn’t be running (Hill). So instead he challenged Shivers for renomination, but lost. He tried again against Shivers in 1954 but lost in a bitter campaign, and a third time running was his narrow loss to Senator Price Daniel. However, this loss to Senator Daniel opened up another opportunity for him.

Senator Yarborough

In 1957, Senator Daniel resigned to serve as Governor of Texas, and in a hotly contested election, Yarborough won a plurality against conservative Democratic Congressman Martin Dies Jr. and Republican Thad Hutcheson; the conservative vote had been split. He won the primary for a full term against conservative and former interim Senator William Blakley by 17 points and then the general election in 1958 for a full term by 51 points, with his populist slogan being, “Let’s put the jam on the lower shelf so the little people can reach it”.

Yarborough was a strong supporter of both the New Frontier and the Great Society. Many Texas politicians at best only supported some of these, and some, such as his Republican colleague John Tower and Congressmen John Dowdy, O. Clark Fisher, Omar Burleson, and Joe Pool, were strongly opposed.

Yarborough and Civil Rights

Ralph Yarborough was the only senator from a former Confederate state to vote for all of the major civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s. He even went against President Johnson’s preference by voting for Senator Kennedy’s (D-Mass.) unsuccessful anti-poll tax amendment to the Voting Rights Act. Yarborough did, however, vote for Senator Gore’s (D-Tenn.) motion to recommit the Civil Rights Act to ease up on the school segregation funding ban and in 1957 he had, as had all other Southern senators, backed two key limiting amendments to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Struggle with Strom

Shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson nominated former Florida Governor LeRoy Collins to administer the Community Relations Service under the law. Commerce Committee Chairman Warren Magnuson (D-Wash.) had had trouble getting enough senators in the chamber to have a quorum to proceed. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who opposed the nomination, stood at the door to the Senate to block any senators arriving late. Yarborough appeared and laughingly said, “Come on in, Strom, and help us get a quorum” and Thurmond lightheartedly responded, “If I can keep you out, you won’t go in, and if you can drag me in, I’ll stay there” (U.S. Senate). The two proceeded to wrestle, with Thurmond, who was 30 pounds lighter and in better physical shape, wrestled Yarborough to the ground. “Tell me to release you, Ralph, and I will,” said Thurmond (U.S. Senate). However, Yarborough was defiant and wouldn’t say so. Chairman Warren Magnuson finally said, “Come on, you fellows, let’s break this up”, and Yarborough made a clean exit by grunting, “I have to yield to the order of my chairman” (U.S. Senate). Collins was approved by the committee 16 to 1 and would be approved by the full Senate 53-8.

Second Term

In 1964, Yarborough faced a 40-year-old Republican named George H.W. Bush. Although liberalism was not necessarily popular in Texas, Republican John Tower’s election to the Senate in 1961 was considered a fluke at the time (yet he would serve until 1985) and Republican nominee Barry Goldwater was deeply unpopular at the time. Yarborough defeated Bush by over 12 points.

During the Great Society Congress, Yarborough staunchly supported Lyndon Johnson on Great Society programs, but was less enthused about foreign aid spending and at times joined Wayne Morse (D-Ore.) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska), who had become liberal skeptics of foreign aid, in opposition to foreign aid increases. Yarborough also supported repealing the “right to work” section of the Taft-Hartley Act and opposed Minority Leader Everett Dirksen’s (R-Ill.) proposed Constitutional amendments for legislative apportionment and school prayer. In 1967, he pushed unsuccessfully for an amendment impounding 10% of railroad profits during the time in which a railroad strike settlement was in effect, but it failed 23-59 on June 7^th.

By 1970, Texans were tiring of the liberalism of Ralph Yarborough; he had a dovish voting record on Vietnam, supported busing, and voted against the nominations of both Clement Haynsworth of South Carolina and G. Harrold Carswell of Florida to the Supreme Court. On the latter, Senator Walter Mondale (D-Minn.) said to him, “You did right but your vote could beat you”, to which Yarborough responded, “I know” (Abilene Reporter-News). Republican Bush, now with time in the House under his belt, was ready to challenge him again. However, the Democrats beat him to it…former Congressman Lloyd Bentsen, known as a moderate, defeated Yarborough for renomination. Yarborough was moderately liberal by the standards of ADA but strongly liberal by ACA standards, siding with the former organization 75% of the time and the latter only 8% of the time. His DW-Nominate score is a -0.416, making him only less liberal than Congressmen Henry Gonzalez of San Antonio and Bob Eckhardt of Houston. Bentsen would hold the seat for the Democrats and would later be the Democratic nominee for vice president in 1988 as well as President Clinton’s first Secretary of the Treasury.

In 1972, Yarborough at 69 tried to return to the Senate, but his loss in the Democratic primary to Harold “Barefoot” Sanders, who lost to John Tower, marked the end of his political career. He died on January 27, 1996, at the age of 92.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Hill, R. (2018, March 11). Texas Liberal: Ralph Yarborough. The Knoxville Focus.

Retrieved from

https://www.knoxfocus.com/archives/this-weeks-focus/texas-liberal-senator-ralph-yarborough/

Odintz, M. Ralph Yarborough: A Legacy of Progressive Politics in the Senate. Texas Historical Association.

Retrieved from

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/yarborough-ralph-webster

Senators Eulogize Ralph Yarborough. (1970, December 22). Abilene Reporter-News, 4.

Senators Wrestle to Settle Nomination. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/pinned.htm

Yarborough, Ralph Webster. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://voteview.com/person/10414/ralph-webster-yarborough

Willis Carto, the radical right founder, treasurer, and de facto head of Liberty Lobby.

Last week, an article from conservative columnist Erick Erickson covered a troubling phenomenon brewing among the right that has taken a stand against liberty, most notably in the figure of Charles Haywood in the article, “The Midwestern Fuehrerbunker Driving the Right Off the Cliff”. Indeed, the trending towards authoritarianism in the name of traditionalism places excessive emphasis on order. The efforts of Haywood and others in infiltrating the conservative movement and its organizations remind me of a figure who like Haywood was from Indiana that the conservative movement figuratively expelled from its ranks: Willis Carto, who would eventually be the subject of multiple exposes as pro-Nazi and peddled antisemitism and racism through means covert and overt in his long life. This organization he formed to get on the map and to serve as a springboard for a right-wing dictatorship when the time was right. Liberty Lobby attracted some conservatives but also some radical right cranks and bigots on to its Board of Policy. I had known that this organization issued ratings but I was and still am far more interested in Americans for Constitutional Action (ACA) as a good way to judge right and left from a conservative perspective in the past, and examining these ratings has certainly not changed my mind. However, this alternative take is of interest too, especially since I found the criterion by which the first two years of the Kennedy Administration was judged. I am going to interchangeably refer to the makers of the criterion as Liberty Lobby and Carto as they were by and large one and the same.

Liberty Lobby’s ratings of Congress are rather limited and simplistic; only 10 votes are counted for the entirety of the Congress in both legislative bodies; by contrast the liberal Americans for Democratic Action counted 10 votes for 1961 and 8 votes for 1962 in the House while ACA counted 12 votes in 1961 and 11 votes in 1962 for the House. Carto was strict in grading but also simultaneously leaves out numerous issues that were considered both by ADA and ACA as salient for determining ideology:

. The Ayres-Kitchin conservative substitute for minimum wage legislation in 1961.

. The 1961 Area Redevelopment Act.

. Rep. Cannon’s (D-Mo.) 1961 effort to restore funding for power generation at the Hanford plutonium reactor.

. The failed effort in 1961 to get President Kennedy’s federal aid to education bill considered in the House.

. The Housing Act of 1961.

Rather than these measures, Carto sees fit to include the vote for a Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax and the bill establishing the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Liberty Lobby’s analysis is quite limited given the exclusion of numerous issues that I would consider highly ideologically salient and his emphasis seems strong on the nationalistic; 4 of 10 issues connect in some way to nationalism. Also, instead of counting the Mason (R-Ill.) substitute in the House like ADA and ACA do, Liberty Lobby counts the final vote on the Trade Expansion Act, which dings a lot of rural representatives.

The following votes in the House were considered to be of greatest importance by Carto:

1. Expand the Rules Committee

Speaker Sam Rayburn’s (D-Tex.) resolution to expand the House Rules Committee from 12 to 15 members for the 87^th Congress, adding two Democrats and one Republican. This was intended to counter its chairman, Howard W. Smith (D-Va.), a staunch opponent of liberal legislation.

Adopted 217-212: D 195-64; R 22-148, 1/31/61.

Yea = -, Nay = +

2. Establish Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Passage of the bill establishing the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the State Department to implement arms control and to manage international negotiations for arms limitations.

Passed 290-54: D 194-16; R 96-38, 9/19/61.

Yea = -, Nay = +

3. Disapprove Creation of Department of Urban Affairs

Resolution disapproving of President Kennedy’s executive order creating the Department of Urban Affairs. Conservatives in the Republican Party objected to the growth of government but there was an additional incentive for Southern Democrats to vote against as the proposed cabinet head would be Robert Weaver, who was black.

Disapproved 264-150: D 111-137; R 153-13, 2/21/62.

Yea = +, Nay = –

4. Raise National Debt to $308 Billion.

Passed 211-192: D 202-39; R 9-153, 6/14/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

5. Defeat Food and Agriculture Bill

Rep. Paul Findley (R-Ill.) motion to recommit and thus kill the Food and Agriculture Act of 1962, which provided for supply management controls for wheat, corn, and other feed grains.

Passed 215-205: D 48-204; R 167-1, 6/21/62.

6. Trade Expansion Act

Passage of the bill granting the president expanded authority to negotiate trade agreements and provides for adjustment assistance to employers and workers harmed by trade agreements.

Passed 298-125: D 218-35; R 80-90, 6/28/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

7. Foreign Aid Authorization

Passage of the bill basically granting President Kennedy’s request for foreign aid funds for fiscal year 1963.

Passed 250-164, 7/12/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

8. Poll Tax Ban Amendment

Adoption of the resolution proposing a Constitutional amendment banning the poll tax as a requirement to vote in federal elections.

Adopted 295-86: D 163-71; R 132-15, 8/27/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

9. Kill Public Works Program

Rep. William Cramer (R-Fla.) motion to recommit, and thus kill, the bill establishing an accelerated public works program.

Defeated 192-221: D 44-202; R 148-19, 8/29/62.

Yea = +, Nay = –

10. United Nations Bond Bill

Passage of the bill providing for up to $100 million in loans to the United Nations.

Passed 257-134: D 191-46; R 66-88, 9/14/62.

Yea = -, Nay = +

I have not found out what issues Liberty Lobby graded for the Senate yet, but I have learned that only Senators Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.) and John Tower (R-Tex.) got 100%. The representatives that got 100% by Liberty Lobby were:

Republicans

Edgar Hiestand, Calif.

John Rousselot, Calif.

James B. Utt, Calif.

Noah Mason, Ill.

Earl Wilson, Ind.

August Johansen, Mich.

Clare Hoffman, Mich.

James Battin, Mont.

Ralph Beermann, Neb.

John H. Ray, N.Y.

Gordon Scherer, Ohio

Samuel Devine, Ohio

Ellis Y. Berry, S.D.

Bruce Alger, Tex.

William K. Van Pelt, Wis.

Democrats

Joe Waggonner, La.

Otto Passman, La.

Jamie Whitten, Miss.

John Bell Williams, Miss.

W. Arthur Winstead, Miss.

William Colmer, Miss.

John Dowdy, Tex.

Omar Burleson, Tex.

I should note that scoring a 100% on this does not necessarily mean alignment with Carto’s noxious views on race and religion. For instance, Samuel Devine of Ohio would later vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and some others, such as Gordon Scherer of Ohio and William K. Van Pelt of Wisconsin, had voted for previous civil rights measures. As for the scorecard, it is below:

Since 1939, Kansas has consistently had two Republican senators. However, this hasn’t always necessarily meant that Kansas has had two conservative senators…the Kansas Republican Party has in the past had significant divides between the conservative and moderate wings, and had moderate governors as well as moderates on the national stage. One of these was Governor Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican nominee for president, and another was James Blackwood Pearson (1920-2009). On January 21, 1962, Senator Andrew Schoeppel, a conservative stalwart, died of abdominal cancer. Governor John Anderson tapped attorney Pearson, who had worked on his campaign, as his replacement. Although Pearson got a significant challenge in 1962 from former Governor Edward F. Arn, a letter to the editor to The Atchison Daily Globe (1962) noted, “Actually, so far as issues are concerned, there was little or nothing to choose from. Both Arn and Pearson followed a conservative line, opposing increased federal spending and taxation. Both wanted to curb the growing bureaucracy in Washington” (4). And indeed, for a time, Pearson was the more conservative of Kansas’s two senators. He often opposed key Great Society legislation including the War on Poverty and voted against Medicare, having done so without regret (Seaton, 300). However, Pearson also supported key civil rights measures. He wrote to his constituents on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “I believe the principles embodied in this bill are morally right. We are confronted with a national problem and Federal action is justified because we are dealing with rights guaranteed under the Federal Constitution” (Seaton, 302).

In 1966, Pearson was challenged for renomination by Congressman Robert Ellsworth, who really wasn’t ideologically different from him at this time. Ellsworth ran a campaign based on Pearson’s significant absences in the 89^th Congress in put out a radio ad for a search by a “Missing Pearson Bureau”, but the charge was rather unfair and out of context as Pearson had taken significant time off due to his son suffering from a serious emotional issue that required medical treatment, and Ellsworth knew that this was the reason (303-304). He defeated Ellsworth 54-45, and faced an even tougher contest against former Democratic Congressman J. Floyd Breeding, who he bested 52-45.

The governor who had appointed Pearson, John Anderson, was known as part of the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party, and had backed Nelson Rockefeller at the Republican National Convention in 1964. Anderson was a moderate, and Pearson would move increasingly to the center. During the Nixon Administration, Pearson supported a number of socially liberal positions, such as opposing efforts to curb busing as a means of desegregation and the contrast between him and Bob Dole became quite apparent; Dole was willing to be the Nixon Administration’s man in the Senate while Pearson opted for independence.

By the 1970s, he received great praise for this increasing political independence. In 1970, he voted for the Cooper-Church Amendment to halt bombing in Cambodia although did he did not support the McGovern-Hatfield “End the War” Amendment. Senator Jacob Javits of New York, one of the foremost liberal Republicans, praised him as an “enlightened conservative”.

The voters strongly approved of Pearson come 1972, and he was a shoo-in for reelection and netted 71.42% of the vote and won all countries. After his reelection, Pearson increasingly let his liberal flag fly. He supported public financing of presidential campaigns, supported a strong minimum wage increase, voted to ban importation of Rhodesian chrome, opposed restoration of the federal death penalty, and backed unsuccessful legislation to create the Consumer Protection Agency and successful legislation to create the Legal Services Corporation. Some matters in which he continued to be conservative were on defense spending, curbing OSHA enforcement on small businesses, and opposed the common site picketing bill.

In 1975, Pearson, along with Senator Walter Mondale (D-Minn.) sponsored the successful Senate resolution to reduce the threshold needed to end debate from 67 to 60 senators. Liberals had been fighting for this measure for years. However, Pearson also still from time to time led the charge on a conservative cause; he sponsored with Senator Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) a measure to end price controls on oil. In 1976, Pearson voted against the Hyde Amendment. Pearson was also known as one of the friendlier Republicans to the agenda of President Carter, and he backed him on foreign policy, including voting to confirm Paul Warnke to head up SALT II talks with the USSR, voting for the Panama Canal Treaties, and voting for the sale of jet fighters to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

On October 14, 1977, Pearson stunned his voters by his announcement that he would not run for reelection, as he wanted to return to the private sector. He was praised in The Iola Register (1977), “Pearson’s brand of moderate, humane, thoughtful, and non-belligerent Republicanism let him be effective in Washington regardless of what party was in the White House. Because he accepted or rejected ideas on their merit rather than joining or opposing men according to the party label they wore he was welcome in both camps” (4). Pearson agreed with the conservative Americans for Constitutional Action 49% of the time and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action 34% of the time, while his DW-Nominate score is a 0.134, indicating his moderate Republicanism. Pearson got a successor who was also a moderate Republican in Nancy Landon Kassebaum, daughter of 1936 Republican presidential contender Alf Landon. Pearson died on January 13, 2009, at the age of 88.

References

ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.

Retrieved from

Voting Records

Jim Pearson’s bombshell. (1977, October 17). The Iola Register, 4.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/636191813

Pearson, James Blackwood. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://www.voteview.com/person/10817/james-blackwood-pearson

Seaton, F.D. (Winter 2011-2012). Man in the Middle: The Career of Senator James B. Pearson. Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains, 34: 296-315.

https://www.kansashistory.gov/publicat/history/2011winter_seaton.pdf

Time to Close Ranks [Letter to the Editor]. (1962, August 19). The Atchison Daily Globe, 4.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/33917811

Since 2006, Kentucky’s 3^rd district, centered in Louisville, has stood as an exception to the conservative trend of the state. From 2019 to 2023, the district’s Congressman, John Yarmuth, was chairman of the Budget Committee and came out as a friend of Modern Monetary Theory in his strong support for deficit spending and introduced the Inflation Reduction Act in 2021. However, Louisville was not always the liberal center of Kentucky; from 1903 to 1959, the district had as its representatives either Republicans or fiscally conservative Democrats and was the most likely place outside of the Appalachian region of the state to vote for a Republican representative. Its representative during the Roosevelt Administration was Democrat Emmet O’Neal (1887-1967).

An attorney by profession who also engaged in banking, O’Neal hailed from a political family; indeed, his older brother, Joseph, had briefly been mayor of Louisville in 1927. In 1934, he won election to Congress by over 13 points. In his first year in Congress, although O’Neal publicly called Roosevelt the “Savior of America” his record in Congress showed that he often differed with him, especially on government spending. In his first year, he also opposed the Public Utilities Holding Company Act and the Bituminous Coal Act. That year, O’Neal, himself a veteran of World War I, also delivered a speech in opposition to the Patman Bonus Bill, as he thought the money would be better spent on widows and orphans as well as the disabled among soldiers rather than able-bodied men and that soldiers already had preference on the work relief rolls (The Advocate-Messenger). In 1937, O’Neal expressed his limited spending beliefs, “I am a democrat but I do not believe that lavish spending will bring back prosperity. I don’t think one can save by spending a great deal more than one has. I know I can’t do it in my personal affairs, and I don’t think the government can do it” (The Oregonian).

In 1939, O’Neal gave critical support to a cut in the Works Progress Administration and an effort by Clarence Cannon (D-Mo.) to restore it failed on a voice vote. He did support work relief funding later that year. Columnist Joe Hart (1940) identified O’Neal as “an anti-New Dealer by record and the target of organized labor and the American Legion…”. He consistently voted for legislation curbing the power of organized labor until 1943, and as mentioned previously opposed bonus legislation for veterans. His record resulted in a 1940 challenge for his renomination by Leo F. Whalen, who identified himself as a “100 percent New Dealer” (The Louisville Courier-Journal). Unfortunately for supporters of the New Deal, O’Neal survived the challenge. People from the Republican side also appreciated O’Neal’s independence; a letter to the editor from a man who identified himself as a “Dyed-in-the-Wool Republican” from Louisville responded to Hart’s article with, “The electorate no longer votes as this political boss or that pressure group directs; but it choose to think for itself and elects and re-elects men of honor, men of integrity, and patriotism, and men who will not become a “rubber stamp” for the politician, for the pressure group or even for the New Deal. Such qualities of statesmanship the electorate has found in this man, Hon. Emmet O’Neal, and has wisely chosen to re-elect him and send him back to the Congress as the representative of all the people, and not the representative of a few pressure groups” (The Courier Journal, 34). On foreign policy, he was mostly loyal to the Roosevelt Administration. In 1942, UDA-New Republic released their first set of ratings, which found him to be on their side on 10 of 19 issues from 1939 to 1942. He was found favorable on 9 of 10 foreign policy issues but only favorable on 1 of the 9 domestic issues on which he voted.

In 1945, O’Neal was praised in The Cynthiana Democrat for his role on the Appropriations Committee for budget cuts, “The Appropriations Committee of the House has submitted a bill which seeks to cut the appropriations of money to be expended by some fifty-two billion dollars. Emmet O’Neal, the Louisville Congressman, is a member of this committee and is largely responsible for the cuts in these appropriations” (2).

O’Neal on Civil Rights

On the matter of civil rights, Emmet O’Neal twice opposed anti-lynching legislation, but despite this, the head of the United Government Employees, Edgar G. Brown, praised him as a friend of black people for securing them a raise for custodial work in 1938 and playing a key role in prohibiting racial discrimination in hiring in the Civil Aeronautics Authority Pilot Training Law (Atlanta Daily World). He was also far from an exception in this stance in his state, as only two Kentucky representatives supported anti-lynching legislation in his time. O’Neal also thrice supported anti-poll tax legislation as well as Rep. Adam Clayton Powell’s (D-N.Y.) amendment to cut off school lunch funds to segregated schools in 1946.

World War II

During World War II, his conservatism on domestic issues appeared to decline and in 1943 he voted to sustain President Roosevelt’s veto of the Smith-Connally Wartime Disputes Act. However, O’Neal still resisted appropriations increases in certain New Deal programs, such as several agricultural programs and opposed retaining the National Youth Administration. In 1943, Union for Democratic Action found him on their side on 11 out of 16 issues and in their follow-up issue in 1945, 2 of 4 issues. O’Neal’s support for national Democratic initiatives also increased in his opposition to most efforts to weaken price control and he would also vote against overriding President Truman’s veto of the Case labor bill in 1946. That year, however, was a bad one for Democrats, and future Senator Thruston B. Morton defeated O’Neal on Election Day by 16 points, the strong margin surprising all around, with Republicans surprised and O’Neal stating, “I didn’t know there were so many Republicans” (The Louisville Times). By contrast, in 1944, O’Neal had won reelection by almost 15 points. His DW-Nominate score stands at -0.134.

It didn’t take long for President Truman to find a new role for O’Neal, tapping him to be ambassador to the Philippines, serving from seven months. He subsequently retired from elective politics and continued to practice law. He died of a heart attack in Washington D.C. on July 18, 1967, at the age of 80. The days of O’Neal’s sort of Democrat seem long gone, and that is, in this author’s opinion, a pity.

References

A “Chip” On His Shoulder [Letter to the Editor]. (1940, April 21). The Louisville Courier-Journal, 34.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/107353757

A Congress to Win The War. (1942, May 18). The New Republic.

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https://archive.org/details/cainmnh_000157/mode/2up

A Congress to Win the War and the Peace. (1944, May 5). The New Republic, 110 (19), 643-58.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143419115

Congressmen See Oregon, Big Dam. (1937, September 7). The Oregonian, 19.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1083476879

Coy, P. (2021, September 1). Modern Monetary Theory Has a New Friend in Congress. The New York Times.

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Emmet O’Neal on the Bonus. (1935, March 22). The Danville Daily Messenger (Danville, Ky.), 2.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1043373571

Emmet O’Neal Renders Great Service. (1945, November 1). The Cynthiana Democrat, 2.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1141741813

G.O.P. Sweep Wins Congress. (1946, November 6). The Louisville Times, 1.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1345031836

Hart, J. (1940, April 19). Emmet O’Neal Survives as a Political Paradox. The Louisville Courier-Journal, 7.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/107353642

Leo F. Whalen Will Oppose Emmet O’Neal for Congress. (1940, May 11). The Louisville Courier-Journal, 13.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/108003801

O’Neal, Emmet. Voteview.

Retrieved from

https://www.voteview.com/person/7073/emmet-o-neal

Patton, J.G. & Loeb, J. (1945, February 5). Challenge to Progressives. The New Republic, 112 (6), 21-42.

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https://www.newspapers.com/image/1143339882