The Path to Power (130 page)

On Election Day, Mexican-Americans were herded to the polls by armed
pistoleros
, sometimes appointed “deputy sheriffs” for the day; each voter was handed a receipt showing he had paid his poll tax (usually these taxes had been purchased by the
jefes
months before and kept in their safes to, as Key puts it, “insure discipline and orderly procedure”). In some precincts, these voters were also handed ballots that had already been marked; according to one description,

In other precincts, matters were managed less crudely: the voters were told whom to vote for, but were allowed to mark their own ballots; of course, the guards accompanied them into the voting cubbyholes to ensure that the instructions were followed. Even if the voter was allowed to cast his ballot in secrecy, he had little chance of escaping unnoticed if he disobeyed instructions; each ballot was given a number that corresponded to the number on a tear-off sheet attached to the ballot, and a voter had to sign his name on the sheet before it was torn from the ballot and the ballot cast. This procedure had been enshrined in Texas law ostensibly to keep a person from voting more than once, but it also allowed the election judges to know—by matching the tear sheet to the ballot—how a citizen voted. Some
jefes
dispensed with all this bother; an attorney for one of them, who let his voters keep their poll tax receipts, recalls his procedure: “Go around to the Mexicans’ homes. Get the numbers of their [poll tax] receipts. Tell them not to go to the polls. Just write in 100 numbers, and cast the 100 votes yourself.”

The number of votes at the
jefes’
command was not necessarily limited by the number of eligible voters. Another advantage of the poll tax system to the Valley “machines” was that after the age of sixty, a voter did not have to pay the tax. Poll tax lists were checked only irregularly to eliminate the names of those who died after sixty, and, in the words of one expert on the subject, when an election was close in Texas, “in the Valley, the ‘machine’ votes the dead men.” Nor were all voters even American citizens; on Election Day the saloons of the Mexican town of Reynosa, across the Rio Grande from Hidalgo, were cleaned out, and truckloads of Mexicans were brought across to vote in Texas; Starr County was also “an excellent location for bringing voters from across the border,” a commentator notes. In Webb County, the small town of Dolores had about 100 American citizens—and in some elections recorded as many as 400 votes. As a result of such tactics, the vote from the Valley (a vote which generally went “all one way”: the
jefes
had learned to stick together to maximize their impact—and influence—on Texas politics) rarely displayed the diversity of opinion associated with a democracy; some 15,000 votes were generally believed to be controlled in the Valley, and it was not unusual for them to go to a favored candidate by margins as large as ten to one.

The decisive consideration was cash. The power of these petty despots was matched by their greed. Not content with siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars from every aspect of municipal government (the Parrs “treated the county budget virtually as their own personal bank account,” says one Texas historian), the Parrs collected a nickel “tax” on every bottle of beer sold in Duval; visitors inquiring why beer, twenty cents everywhere else in Texas, cost twenty-five cents in Duval, were informed that the extra nickel was for “George.” To some of these despots, votes were a commodity like any other—a commodity to be sold. According to the best history of politics in the Valley, “The State candidates who have the most money to spend usually carry these machine counties.” In 1940, O’Daniel had carried them—with their customary unanimity. George Parr’s Duval County, for example, had given the Governor 3,728 votes, to a total of 180 for the other seven candidates. But in 1941, efforts were being made to ensure that these counties would be carried by Lyndon Johnson instead. These efforts had begun almost as soon as the campaign had begun. Brown & Root played a hand in them; on April 23, the firm’s “Labor Director” informed Johnson that one bloc vote—the state’s captive labor unions—had been secured (“Statewide labor vote assured, but no noise”), and added: “Latin American
support in lower counties is next objective. Looks easy.” For a while, with Mann refusing to buy votes, and Dies refusing to take an interest in buying them, this assessment proved correct. On May 9, Johnson headquarters was assured by a scout it had sent to the Valley that “this district … is for Lyndon Johnson.” The George Parr machine, the scout said, is “very active for Johnson.” The entrance into the campaign of the Valley’s 1940 favorite changed the situation—nor would this be the first time that the Valley’s commitment to a candidate had been changed by a later, higher, offer from another candidate. But Alvin Wirtz was an old ally of the Parrs. He had personally negotiated with old Archie, with whom he had served in the State Senate, for the Parr-controlled votes in Nueces County in a 1928 Democratic attempt to defeat Congressman Harry Wurzbach which failed when Wurzbach made charges of election fraud stick. When, with Johnson hospitalized and the campaign in crisis, Wirtz rushed to Texas, he stopped over in Dallas, where he held a meeting with the campaign’s treasurer, oilman Lechner. Then he disappeared for several days; only later would puzzled newsmen learn that during these days Wirtz had been in South Texas. No one can say with certainty what he was doing there, although, according to sources whose information on other, more verifiable, Wirtz activities invariably proves correct, he and O’Daniel supporters were engaged in a bidding war for the Valley’s votes. Lyndon Johnson himself contacted George Parr on the telephone at least once, in the presence of Polk and Emmett Shelton, two of Parr’s attorneys. By June 18, the situation had been resolved. Horace Guerra of Starr County, Parr’s principal ally, assured Johnson, “You can depend on my and my friends’ wholehearted support. I predict Starr County will give you a substantial majority.”

I
F O’DANIEL COULD
USE the popular revival-meeting tune “Give Me That Old-Time Religion,” Johnson could, too—and his lyrics incorporated the name that in Texas was second in potency only to Christ’s: “Franklin D and Lyndon B / They’re good enough for me.” With Pappy having entered the race, moreover, Johnson felt he needed increased support from “Franklin D”—and he got it. Asked at another Oval Office press conference if he had any additional comment on the Texas race, the President “smilingly” replied that “he thought he had done a good job the first time and was quite certain the people of Texas understood him.” (Their understanding was facilitated by a description of the press conference written at Johnson headquarters and run verbatim by scores of obliging weeklies under a headline also written at headquarters: FDR ENDORSES JOHNSON.) Roosevelt also decided that Steve Early should reply to a letter from a Texas voter who had inquired if Johnson was indeed the President’s choice. Although he was still unwilling to have his support stated flatly, Roosevelt directed Early (and James Rowe, who was helping
to draft the reply) in precisely what words to use so that his support would be clear nonetheless. And to ensure that it became public, he told Rowe that if the voter did not release Early’s letter, Johnson could release it himself. The letter said:

Because of O’Daniel’s entry into the race, another presidential letter was requested—this one to help Johnson counter the strength with the elderly that O’Daniel possessed because of his pension plan. Rowe balked at this request. He was continually being pushed by Johnson and Wirtz for greater presidential involvement in the campaign, and he had, over and over again, given them what they asked for. Now he was fearful that he had gotten the President too involved. And he felt that in the suggested wording of this letter, Johnson had gone too far: it attributed to the junior Congressman a totally non-existent role in the fight for Social Security. “I thought he was asking too much. I said, ‘Goddammit, Lyndon, I can’t do too much. We’ve done so much for you already—I can’t go back” and ask for this. He refused to do so, and even sent the President a cautionary note: “The polls show Lyndon leading at this time (but I suspect they are Lyndon’s polls).” But Johnson only used other avenues to reach the President. “Four days later, the letter comes out anyway,” Rowe says. “He just went right around me.”

(Johnson made the most of this letter, reading it over a statewide radio network and saying, “As your Senator I can and will continue to take your
problems to our President. I have worked with him for years and I shall continue to work with him for you.” And Marsh’s
American-Statesman
—and many country weeklies—carried the story under the headline: F.D. TO HELP JOHNSON ON PENSION PLAN.)

The wording of this letter made clear to Rowe that he hadn’t understood how far the President was willing to go on behalf of the young Congressman. And Rowe was to be reminded of this again and again. Already well on his way to becoming one of Washington’s smoothest political operators, he understood very well the seldom stated White House rules that governed Roosevelt’s participation in the campaign of even a highly favored candidate, but he became aware that Roosevelt would make an exception to the rules for Lyndon Johnson.

During the last month of the campaign, Roosevelt’s “special feeling” for Johnson was documented over and over again.

Much of it was couched in the form of telegrams.

To many Texans, who had never received one, there was a mystique about telegrams, and they were handy props at campaign rallies because they could be pulled from a pocket and read to an audience. A steady stream of telegrams was sent to Texas at the direction of the White House, to be pulled from Johnson’s pocket and waved dramatically before crowds at rallies, and read by him (to make sure that the audience would remember the message, he read the telegram twice or even three times), and be printed in Marsh’s six papers or in the weeklies that ran the canned stories emanating from his headquarters, and be reproduced in the hundreds of thousands of campaign flyers and pamphlets and brochures that, day after day, poured into homes throughout Texas. Some were endorsements: from Vice President Wallace, from Interior Secretary Ickes and Navy Secretary Frank Knox and other Cabinet members—even from Eleanor Roosevelt, who scarcely knew (and didn’t particularly like) Johnson. And there were numerous telegrams from the President himself. One was designed to counter criticism of Johnson’s long absence from his duties in Washington during a national emergency. (Roosevelt had declared one on May 27, with the Wehrmacht massing on the Russian front and the Battle of the Atlantic at fever pitch—the German battleship
Bismarck
had just been sunk off the French coast.) Johnson sent a plea for help to Missy LeHand, telling her:
I AM BEING CALLED A SLACKER TO AN OLD TRUSTED FRIEND
. To ensure getting the reply he wanted, he had Wirtz draft one:

Thinking the telegram went too far, Rowe deleted the words after “election,” but the rest of the telegram went out over the President’s signature with few other changes; the headline in the
Houston Chronicle
read:
STAY ON FIRING LINE, JOHNSON TOLD IN WIRE
—and the attacks ceased. There was a telegram orchestrated by Corcoran on parity in farm prices. At Tommy’s suggestion, Roosevelt, who was about to sign a new farm parity bill, told Wirtz over the phone that if Johnson sent him a telegram before plans for the signing were announced, he would, in Corcoran’s phrase, “be willing to respond to” the telegram with one of his own. Since this would foster the (incorrect) impression that Johnson had played a significant role in the bill’s passage, Johnson jumped at the opportunity. The wily Wirtz attempted unsuccessfully to sneak past Rowe into the President’s “reply” a “Good luck,” which could be interpreted to mean that the President was openly supporting Johnson, but otherwise the President’s reply,
I WILL APPROVE THE PARITY LOAN BILL THAT YOU HAVE SO ARDENTLY SUPPORTED
, was all that a candidate could have desired, (
FARMERS GIVEN PARITY—JOHNSON GETS THE JOB DONE
, headlined the
Bertram Enterprise
. Unsophisticated rural voters were told that “President Roosevelt, urged to do so by Cong. Lyndon Johnson of Texas, signed into law the farm parity bill. … [Johnson] stopped his campaigning and wired his friend, Roosevelt, and shortly thereafter …”) A private exchange of telegrams provided insight into the relationship between the President and the young Congressman. When Roosevelt proclaimed the May 27 national emergency, Johnson wired him from Tyler, Texas:
YOUR VOICE GAVE ME HAPPINESS TONIGHT, WE WHO HAVE WORKED WITH YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NEVER FAILED WHEN THE HIGH LINE CALLED FOR COURAGE. WHEN HITLER’S MAN THREATENED, WE KNEW THE ANSWER BEFORE YOU SPOKE. I HOPE TO BE WITH YOU BATTLING FOR YOUR FRIENDS AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES ON THE SENATE FLOOR
. Roosevelt’s Staff drafted a form reply, but the President, when signing it, added to it by hand three words that made it personal: “Your old friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt.”