The Path to Power (151 page)

“The sifting out”:
Deason.
Morgan’s story:
Morgan.
“He knew”:
Richards.
“We knew”:
Jones OH I, p. 12.
“Let’s play awhile”:
Deason OH II, p. 22.

Inspiring:
Deason, Birdwell OHs; Henderson; Jones.
“Put them to work!”:
Birdwell, quoted in Knippa, p. 55; Deason.
“Deep days of the Depression”:
Deason.
8,000 teenagers:
Morgan.
“I saw him get angry”:
Morgan.
“Absolutely frantic”; “Charlie! Charlie!”:
Mary Henderson, Charlie’s wife.
“Sense of destiny”:
Deason OH IV, op. 10, 11.
“I’m working”:
Mary Henderson.
“I named my only son”:
Roth OH, p. 12.
“It all went back to that NYA”:
Deason.
“I was very inept”:
Keach OH II, p. 5.
Johnson’s reason for making Keach his chauffeur:
Latimer.

Johnson on Congress Avenue:
Clark.
“Stand with me”:
Clark.

“A very bad start”:
Williams, quoted in
Time
, July 27, 1936.
Texas statistics:
Self, p. 49.
Negro colleges:
Self, p. 61.
Kept students in school; deserved to be in school:
untitled form in Box 9, JNYA Papers; Self, pp. 62, 64;
Texas Tech Magazine
, Oct. 1937.

Building facilities:
Self, pp. 63–4, 88.
Freshman College Centers:
Self, pp. 36–7, 69–72.
Resident training centers:
Lindley, pp. 86–108;
The Lubbock Avalanche
, June 10, 1938;
HP
, July 26, 1937.
“Theirs are not”:
Lindley, p. 69.
At San Marcos:
Greenville Morning Herald
, Nov. 22, 1938.
“Kind of homesick”:
Lindley, p. 91.
“When you were young”:
Brenham Banner Press
, quoted in “Digest—NYA in Texas,” Feb., 1939, p. 10.
“The lads from the forks”:
Dallas Journal
, April 1, 1938.
“Similar roadside parks”:
Oklahoma Farmer-Stockman
, Oklahoma City, Okla., Feb. 15, 1937.
“A first-class job”:
Williams, quoted in
Texas Outlook
, May, 1937 (in Self, p. 45).
By the end of 1936:
NYA, “Administrative and Program,” pp. 28–29.
Greenhouse:
“Texas Gets Better Roadsides,”
Engineering News-Record
.
Plans for 1937:
The Mission Times
, July 28, 1937; Waco
Tribune-Herald
, Feb. 28, 1937;
DMN
, Nov. 19, 1937;
Galveston Tribune
, Aug. 11, 1937.

H
ERMAN
B
ROWN

The story of his life is based on the author’s interviews with his brother, George R. Brown; with Herman’s longtime attorney and Austin political tactician, Edward A. Clark; with another of his attorneys, Herman Jones; with one of Brown & Root’s Washington lobbyists, Frank C. Oltorf; with various Texas politicians who knew him, including Emmett Shelton, Harold Young, Welly K. Hopkins; with the Bureau of Reclamation official who worked most closely with him during the construction of the Marshall Ford Dam, Howard P. Bunger; and with a Pedernales Electric Co-operative official, E. Babe Smith.

A
LVIN
W
IRTZ

Wirtz’s personal papers are at the LBJL. In addition, his correspondence with Lyndon Johnson is in the LBJA SN file.

The
Seguin Enterprise
, 1925–1936.

Interviews with Wirtz’s law partner, Sim Gideon, and his secretary, Mary Rather; with L. E. Jones, who was for a time his assistant; with his political intimates, Edward A. Clark and Welly K. Hopkins; with his client, George R. Brown; with Texas political friends and foes such as Charles W. Duke, Tom C. Ferguson, D. B. Hardeman, W. D. McFarlane, Daniel J. Quill, Emmett Shelton, Arthur Stehling, Tom Whitehead, Sr., Harold H. Young; with New Dealers in Washington such as Thomas G. Corcoran, Abe Fortas, Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt, James H. Rowe; with Howard P. Bunger of the Bureau of Reclamation; with young men he advised, such as Willard Deason and Charles Herring. With Walter Jenkins and Lady Bird Johnson.

Oral Histories of Russell M. Brown, Willard Deason, Virginia Durr, Welly K. Hopkins, Robert M. Jackson, Henry Wallace, Claude Wickard, Elizabeth Wickenden.

“My dearest friend”:
Johnson, quoted in
AA
, June 16, 1952.
“Lodestar”:
Mrs. Johnson in
Woman’s Day
, Dec., 1967.
Wirtz personality:
Durr, Hopkins, Deason OHs; Deason, Herring, Hopkins, Rowe, Goldschmidt, Hardeman, McFarlane, Clark, Gideon, Duke, Shelton, Young.
“I have not called his attention”:
Wirtz to Johnson, Dec. 12, 1939. “Independent Offices: REA,” Box 36, LBJA SN.

T
HE
D
AM

The legal problems encountered in the effort to finance and build the Marshall Ford (now the Mansfield) Dam are detailed in the files of the Lower Colorado
River Authority, which are now in the LBJL, particularly Boxes 167, 168, 178, 179, 185. They are also detailed in the Alvin Wirtz Papers in the Library, particularly Box 36, and there are some revealing letters in correspondence between Herman and George Brown and Lyndon Johnson (Boxes 12 and 13, LBJA SN). They were also detailed in interviews with George Brown; with Wirtz’s law partner (and his successor as LCRA counsel, Sim Gideon); with the member of the original LCRA board who accompanied Wirtz on his early trips to Washington to try to solve the problems, Tom C. Ferguson; with the Bureau of Reclamation official supervising the construction of the dam, Howard P. Bunger; and with Abe Fortas, on whose desk, as will be seen in Chapter 23, most of the problems landed. Also helpful were interviews with Arthur (Tex) Goldschmidt, Thomas G. Corcoran, and Charles Herring, and with the following present and former officials of the Bureau of Reclamation: Thomas A. Garrity, Frederick Gray, Louis Maurol, Theodore Mermel, K. K. Young.

Record Group 48, Secretary of the Interior, Central Classified Files, Selected Documents Relating to Lyndon B. Johnson, Roll 1, LBJL (Ickes Files), contains memoranda and correspondence relating to the dam, as do the files of the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA Files) at the LBJL.

Jones,
Fifty Billion Dollars;
Long,
Flood to Faucet
.

Comer Clay, “The Lower Colorado River Authority: A Study in Politics and Public Administration” (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis), Austin, 1948.

Colorado River Improvement Association,
Improvement of Colorado River from Austin to the Gulf
, Austin, 1915;
Application: Colorado River Project (of Texas)
, presented to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Jan. 1933, San Antonio, 1933; Minutes, Board of Directors, Lower Colorado River Authority, 1937–1941;
Contract Between the United States of America and LCRA in Regard to Operation and Maintenance of Marshall Ford Dam and Partial Reimbursement of the United States, March 13, 1941
, “Trust Indenture—Lower Colorado River Authority to Chemical Bank & Trust Company as Trustee and the American National Bank of Austin as Co-Trustee,” May 1, 1943, Twentieth Century Press, Inc., Chicago.
Report on Allocation of Construction Costs—Marshall Ford Dam—Colorado River Project, Texas
, Washington, U.S. Dept. of Interior, 1947.

Wirtz’s alliance with Insull:
Seguin Enterprise
, 1927,
passim;
Clay, pp. 58–84; Long, pp. 73–86;
Hollamon shooting:
NYT
, Feb. 27, 1934; Duke, Hopkins.
“Run Out”:
Duke.
Redistricting; renaming the dam;
Long, p. 78.
Creating the LCRA:
Clay, pp. 88–130; Ferguson, Clark, Gideon.
“I want a birthday present”:
Ferguson;
AA
, Feb. 23, 1937.
Ickes considered:
Foley to Fry, Jan. 11, 1936, “General Information File—Administrative Data … Wirtz A J,” Cong. Corres., Box 1, LCRA Papers; Foley to Wirtz, April 19, May 4; Wirtz to Foley, March 7, April 13, 26; Wirtz to Johnson, May 7; Foley to Fry, July 15, 1937, Wirtz to Farbach and to Johnson, Jan. 5, 1938, Box 36, LBJA SN; Corcoran, Ferguson, Gideon.
$85,000:
See Chapter 30.
A voice in their selection:
Bunger; Wirtz Letters and Papers, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, Boxes 36, 37, LBJA SN.

Lack of authorization for dam:
George Brown, Ferguson; Gideon to Gottlieb, Oct. 6, 1978.

Forbidden to build it:
Act of June 17, 1902, 32 Stat. 389 (43 USC 421); 33 L.D. 391–1905 of the Federal Board of Land Appeals; Mermel, Ferguson, Maurol; Gideon.
Reaffirmed:
For example, in 34 L.D. 186–1905, the Justice Department ruled: “This act contemplates that the United States shall be the full owner of irrigation works [including dams] constructed thereunder, and clearly inhibits the acquisition of property, for use in connection with an irrigation project, subject to … obligation to … a landlord holding the legal title.”
If someone:
Garrity.
The difference in Texas:
Bascom Giles, Commissioner, General Land Office of Texas, “Disposition of Public Domain,”
Texas Almanac
, 1941–1942, p. 338.
No one had thought to check:
Ickes file; Wirtz Papers,
passim;
Ferguson, Gideon, Fortas.
Legislative prohibitions on LCRA:
Chap. 7, 43rd Leg, 4th Called Session; Gideon.
No realistic possibility:
Gideon, Ferguson.
Wirtz’s report; Wirtz’s solution:
Wirtz Papers,
passim;
George Brown; Ferguson.

Documents and newspapers:

The records of Johnson’s campaign headquarters are in Boxes 1, 2, and 3 of the Johnson House Papers (JHP).

Austin American, Statesman
, and
American-Statesman, Johnson City Record-Courier, Blanco County News
—February 23-April 14, 1937.

Oral Histories:

Sherman Birdwell, Russell Brown, Willard Deason, Virginia Durr, Welly K. Hopkins, L. E. Jones, Carroll Keach, Gene Latimer, Ray E. Lee, Daniel J. Quill, Claud Wild.

Interviews:

J. R. Buckner, Howard P. Bunger, Edward A. Clark, Ava Johnson Cox, Mary Cox, Willard Deason, Thomas C. Ferguson, Brian Fudge, Sim Gideon, Stella Glid-don, D. B. Hardeman, A. J. Harzke, Charles Herring, Welly K. Hopkins, Lady Bird Johnson, Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt (RJB), Sam Houston Johnson (SHJ), L. E. Jones, Carroll Keach, Gene Latimer, Ray E. Lee, Gerald C. Mann, Ernest Morgan, Daniel J. Quill, Mary Rather, Emmett Shelton, Carroll Smith, Warren Smith, Clayton Stribling.

(All dates 1937 unless otherwise indicated)

“This was my chance”:
Johnson, quoted in Kearns,
Lyndon Johnson
, pp. 85–86.
Longer average tenure:
Cong. Directory, 75th Cong., 1st Session.
Speeding back to Austin:
Keach, Mrs. Johnson.
“A good ol’ boy”:
Clark.

“Not known at all”:
Quill OH II, p. 15. Says Birdwell: “Many of the people that were leaders in the ten counties that comprised the Tenth Congressional District at that time were people that he’d just not met” (Birdwell OH II, p. 23).
Not even mentioned:
AS
, Feb. 23.

“Lyndon would always”:
Durr OH II, p. 23; OH I, p. 8.
“Just as tall”:
Rather.
Wirtz’s opinion of Avery:
Hopkins.
“Disapproved”; money would run out:
Brown to Johnson, July 16, 1937, “CRA: Financing (PWA),” Box 169 JHP, Ferguson, Corcoran.

Unusual instructions:
Bunger.
Wirtz’s reasons for supporting Johnson:
Ferguson, Hopkins, Clark, Brown OH.

Ickes’ speech:
AS
, Feb. 20.
7 to 1:
AA
, March 28.
Wirtz’s advice to Johnson:
From Jones, who was clerking for Wirtz’s firm and was in the room during this discussion. In his customary fashion, Jones gave a more circumspect version to the Johnson Library in OH II, p. 14.
Wirtz’s true feelings on Court packing:
Shelton, Hopkins, Jones.

Wirtz raising cash:
Quill OH I and II.
Wirtz enlisting Lady Bird:
Mrs. Johnson.

Kellam letting the NYA staff know:
Deason; Lee.
Deason’s car:
Deason.
Latimer’s drive:
Latimer.
“No matter what”:
Latimer.
“Just assumed”:
Deason OH II, p. 26, and see Birdwell OH I, p. 21.

Pledges to Mrs. Buchanan:
AA
, Feb. 28.
Sam Johnson’s advice:
SHJ; confirmed by Cox, Gliddon, who heard the story later that same day, RJB.
Johnson and Mrs. Buchanan announcements:
AA, AS
, March 1, 2.
“Gliddon, I want”:
Gliddon.
“Johnson for Congress”:
JCR-C
, March 4.

Sam Johnson’s speech:
Johnson, quoted in Kearns, p. 87.
Blanco County caravan:
Cox, Gliddon.

“The late Mr. Buchanan”:
AA
, March 9.
“When Miller came out”:
Quill OH.
Analysis of Johnson’s chances:
Shelton, Clark, Ferguson, Quill, Lee, Deason; Wild, Birdwell, Quill, Deason OHs; Austin newspapers.

“He has never voted”:
Avery, quoted in
AA
, April 7.
Misleading about his age:
“He soon will be 30,” in
AA
, March 1. See also
JCR-C
, March 4.
“A young, young man”:
Judge Will Nunn, quoted in
AA
, April 8.
Austin Trades Council:
AS
, March 20.