J. Evetts Haley and Texas Ultraconservatism

Home , Donald Davidson (poet), Eugene Worley, William Curry Holden

“THE VOICE OF MANY HATREDS:” J. EVETTS HALEY AND TEXAS ULTRACONSERVATISM

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON

As an ultraconservative activist and occasional political candidate in Texas, J. Evetts Haley registered few electoral victories. However, his far- right crusades revealed nationwide right-wing discontent within the Democratic Party and delineated the anti-statist contours of ultraconservatism from the 1930s through the 1960s. Haley’s combination of white supremacy, conspiracy theories, anti-statist populism, and rugged individualism reflected the extremities of agrarianism, Cold War anti- communism, and Old Right conservatism. Put simply, Haley constituted an explanatory link bridging anti–New Deal ultraconservatism and the mid-century conservative movement; in addition, he represented a point of convergence between Sunbelt reactionaries and mainstream conservatism. In 1936 Haley chaired the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, a state chapter of a national organization that sought to defeat Roosevelt by supporting Republican Alf Landon, despite the predominance of the Texas Democratic Party. The Jeffersonian’s failure forecast the electoral inefficacy—but grassroots appeal—of mid-century far-right conservatism. During the 1950s Haley fomented fringe movements through his gubernatorial candidacy and the ultraconservative group Texans For America (TFA), but his hardline platforms restricted the success of both. Haley’s time with TFA elicited his most fruitful activism, but his attacks against Lyndon Johnson in 1964 cemented Haley as a national far-right icon.

During the 1956 Texas gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate J. Evetts Haley connected the populist anti-statism of West Texas with the segregationism of East Texas. Indeed, he advocated a fierce

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON earned his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2016 and now works as a dual credit instructor for Langham Creek High School in Houston, Texas. He would like to thank Nancy Beck Young, Sean P. Cunningham, Leandra R. Zarnow, the Western Historical Quarterly editorial staff, and the anonymous reviewers.

The Western Historical Quarterly 0 (2017): 1–25. doi: 10.1093/whq/whx105 VC The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Western History Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] 2 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

traditionalism, which combined the folksy charm of cowboy caricatures with the rhetoric of anti-communism and white supremacy. Nevertheless, two CIO union organizers approached to ask his opinion on organized labor. Haley, a cattle rancher and prominent figure of the Texas far-right, responded, “I believe that you have the same right to organize that anybody else has, big business or little. I believe you have a right to quit work whenever you want to.” This answer contained the essence of right-to-work business conservatism, but Haley also worried about union organizers spoiling his cowpunch- ers. “If on my ranch a bunch of my hands quit and you fellows come up there trying to interfere with the people I then hire to flank a bunch of yearlings on my land, I’ll meet you at the fence with a .32,” Haley threatened, “and, if necessary, I’ll draw a bead on you and rim a shell and leave you lying on the fence line.” Demonstrating his fiery indepen- dence, Haley growled, “And if that isn’t plain enough, I’ll make it plainer.”1 As an ultraconservative activist and occasional political candidate, Haley registered few electoral victories, but his far-right crusades revealed nationwide right-wing discontent within the Democratic Party and delineated the anti-statist contours of ultraconservatism from the 1930s through the 1960s. Haley constituted an explanatory link bridging anti-New Deal ultraconservatism and the mid-century conservative movement, and his grassroots activism provided a point of convergence for mainstream conservatives and Sunbelt reactionaries. For example, Haley aligned with the ideals of Senator John Tower (R-TX), a modern conservative who lauded the ideals of individual liberty, anti-communism, and limited government; however, Haley also identified with the anti-statist libertarianism of the Sunbelt West and the ardent segregationism of the Sunbelt South, embodied by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and Senator Strom Thurmond’s (R-SC), respectively.2 Haley’s combination of white supremacy, conspiracism, anti-statist populism, and rugged individualism reflected the extremities of southern agrarianism, western anti-statism, and Cold War anti-communism.3 These views led the journalist Jim Mathis to define Haley as the “voice of many hatreds,” and political analysts Rowland Evans and Robert Novak described him as an “extreme right-winger even by Texas standards.”4

1 Lynn Landrum, “Thinking Out Loud,” Dallas Morning News, 8 June 1956. 2 Sean P. Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (Lexington, KY, 2010), 34 and 60; Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, 1995), 139 and 150; and Joseph Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America: A History (New York, 2012), 172. 3 Sean P. Cunningham, “The Political Culture of West Texas,” in West Texas: A History of the Giant Side of the State, ed. Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud (Norman, 2014), 171–2; Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 10; George Hawley, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism (Lawrence, 2016), 24 and 34; Paul V. Murphy, The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought (Chapel Hill, 2001), 14; and George Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York, 1976), 76. 4 Jim Mathis, “James Evetts Haley: The Voice of Many Hatreds,” Houston Post, 12 October 1964, Folder-Political Correspondence 1964, Wallet-Correspondence Clippings and Campaign Material 1964, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, J. Evetts Haley Collection, Nita Stewart Haley Memorial Library, Midland, TX (hereafter JEH Collection); Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, John S. Huntington 3

In 1936 Haley chaired the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, a state chapter of a national organization that sought to defeat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt by supporting the Republican Alf Landon, despite the predominance of the Texas Democratic Party. The Jeffersonians’ failure harbingered the electoral inefficacy, but grassroots appeal, of mid-century far-right conservatism. During the 1950s Haley fomented fringe movements through his gubernatorial candidacy and through Texans For America (TFA), though Haley’s hardline platforms restricted the success of both.5 Haley’s time with TFA elicited his most fruitful activism, but his 1964 attacks against President Lyndon B. Johnson’s liberalism, particularly LBJ’s civil rights advocacy, cemented Haley as a national far-right icon.6 Haley’s organizational leadership and ideological arguments helped shape the emergent mid-century conservative movement by crystallizing the grassroots networks between Sunbelt right-wingers and mainstream conservatives.7 The foundations of modern conservatism, and Haley’s own ideologies, can be traced back to the 1920s and 1930s with the budding business conservative movement, right-wing anti-statism, and the potency of anti-communism.8 Old Guard conservative politicians, like Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), disparaged Roosevelt’s New Deal, de- fining liberty as economic opportunity rather than security.9 Haley agreed with Taft’s wariness of federal growth and the libertarian, free market ideals of economists like Friedrich Hayek, but Haley exceeded mainstream political boundaries by alleging that liberal sabotage was “bankrupting the nation to forward the plans of Communists and

“GOP Basing Coming Campaign On Books Written in Texas?,” The Daily Oklahoman, 30 July 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 5 Sean P. Cunningham referred to Haley as a “seminal figure of the Texas postwar far right,” but he described the far-right’s electoral efforts as a “miserable failure” in “The Paranoid Style and Its Limits: The Power, Influence, and Failure of the Postwar Texas Far Right,” in The Texas Right: The Radical Roots of Lone Star Conservatism, ed. David O’Donald Cullen and Kyle G. Wilkison (College Station, 2014), 111 and 113–5. Ultraconservatives like Haley indeed struggled to win elections, but I argue that their influence goes beyond electoral valuations because of their grassroots organizing strategies. 6 Cunningham, “The Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 111. 7 Johnathan Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (New York, 2001), 5–6 and 10 and Keith Volanto, “The Far Right in Texas Politics During the Roosevelt Era,” in The Texas Right, ed. Cullen and Wilkison, 77. 8 For recent books emphasizing the conflicts between New Deal liberalism, anti-communism, and business conservatism, see Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York, 2009) and Kathryn Olmsted, Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism (New York, 2015). 9 Clarence E. Wunderlin, Robert A. Taft: Ideas, Tradition, and Party in U.S. Foreign Policy (Lanham, MD, 2005), 25–6. Chad Pearson illustrated that Taft’s exhortation of “economic opportunity” continued the earlier open shop movement in Reform or Repression: Organizing America’s Anti-Union Movement (Philadelphia, 2015). 4 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

Socialists.”10 The fledgling business conservative movement—a national campaign by businessmen to retrench government regulations, welfare programs, and the influence of labor—harnessed fears of subversion to demonize liberalism.11 For example, large- scale farmers in California worried that Roosevelt’s New Deal would empower workers and undermine traditional race relations, so they undercut labor organizing through violence and anti-communist fearmongering.12 Haley shared this anti-communist, anti- labor vision with western growers, as evidenced by his threats against the CIO union- ists, but he also consociated with southern agrarians, like author and social critic Donald Davidson, by arguing for states’ rights as a bulwark against federal power and the erosion of white supremacy.13 As historian Kathryn Olmsted observes, “The new conservatives [of the 1930s] often connected the economic changes they deplored with the cultural changes they feared.”14 The onset of the Cold War and the entrenchment of liberalism in the 1940s and 1950s intensified Haley’s activism, further attaching Haley to the burgeoning conservative movement. In the post–World War II era, the Sunbelt experienced tremendous suburbanization and affluence as federal defense contracts poured money into the region, which led Sunbelt voters to embrace modern conservative values, like free market ideals and “bootstrap” politics.15 Haley argued that conservatives rejected liberalism because welfare “tears down the natural pride of the people by keeping them from helping themselves.”16 The business conservative movement flourished through organizations and intellectuals—such as the Mont Pelerin Society, the American Enterprise Association, the writer-philosopher Ayn Rand, and the economist Milton Friedman—who rejected liberalism and sought to “revive an age of laissez-faire.”17

10 Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Great Depression (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 12–3 and 55–6; Wunderlin, Robert A. Taft, 3; and J. Evetts Haley, “Jeffersonian Democrats Declare Stand They Will Make In Coming Presidential Election,” undated, Folder-Haley, J. Evetts, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 11 Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, xi–xii. 12 Olmsted, Right Out of California,3. 13 Murphy, Rebuke of History, 93. 14 Olmsted, Right Out of California,4. 15 Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice, eds., Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since World War II (Austin, 1983), 20; Sean P. Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: Conservative Growth in a Battleground Region (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2014), 11–2; Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001), 18; Michelle Nickerson and Darren Dochuk, eds., Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region, (Philadelphia, 2011), 5; and Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 2–3. 16 Radio Address from Station WOAI in San Antonio Texas, 20 July 1956, p. 6, Folder- Speeches and Material, Box 4, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 17 Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, ix, 10, and 43–4; Jason Stahl, Right Moves: The Conservative Think Tank in American Political Culture since 1945 (Chapel Hill, 2016), 3; and Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (New York, 2009), 2–4. John S. Huntington 5

The rise of fundamentalist evangelicalism, first evident in the 1920s, and of resistance to the nascent civil rights movement energized Sunbelt conservatives, magnifying Haley’s advocacy for the “sanctity of the church” and the “supremacy of the white race.”18 Most importantly, the anti-communism that fueled New Deal antagonisms evolved into a Cold War political bludgeon, ranging from patriotic litmus tests to Haley’s accusatory conspiracies of “creeping communism in disguise.”19 Representative Martin Dies (D-TX), chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the early 1940s, used anti-communism as a vehicle to fight liberalism, a tactic later expanded by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) during the early 1950s to vilify political opponents.20 As Cold War anxieties fueled hardline and moderate conservatism, far-right activists wielded an admixture of conspiracy theories, anti- communism, and grassroots strategies to wrench American politics rightward.21 The Radical Right, including Haley, emerged within the opposition to liberalism, but this national network of ultraconservative agitators existed both within and out- side of mainstream conservatism. Modern conservatism manifested through libertarian fears of federal encroachment, an adherence to social traditionalism, a rejection of cultural relativism, and evangelical anti-communism. Two central issues separated ultraconservatives from their mainstream counterparts: a belief in a vast communist conspiracy and a black-or-white view dividing U.S. politics into a false binary of conservatism and communism.22 Historian Jonathan Schoenwald noted that far-right groups, like the John Birch Society and Haley’s TFA, tapped into lingering discontent

18 Allan J. Lichtman, White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement (New York, 2008), 10; Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York, 2015), xiv; Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York, 2011), xx; George Lewis, Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement (London, 2006), 20; and J. Evetts Haley, “Rabble-Rousers at the University—Red as Red and Still Boasted ‘Democrats,” undated, p. 1, Folder-JD MSS Unpublished, Wallet 22, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 19 J. Evetts Haley, “Americanism—and the Cowman’s Part,” Speech Transcript, 10 January 1955, Program of the 58th Convention of the American National Cattlemen’s Association, Folder-10 January 1955, Sub-Series F, Series 4, JEH Collection. For more on Cold War anti-communism, see Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (New York, 1995); Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Princeton, 1998); and Landon R. Y. Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left (Princeton, 2013). 20 Nancy Beck Young, Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II (Lawrence, 2013), 197–204 and Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 369. 21 Julian E. Zelizer, Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security—From World War II to the War on Terrorism (New York, 2010), 105. 22 Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York, 2012), 25–6 and Nash, Conservative Intellectual Movement, xv. For more on conspiracism in American politics see Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (New Haven, 2001) and Kathryn Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (New York, 2009). 6 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

and “helped develop a conservative movement culture” through grassroots activism and conspiratorial worldviews.23 Haley embodied the intersections between ultraconservatives and the modern conservative movement because his ideologies—communist conspiracy theories, anti-statism, and white supremacy—typified far-right conservatism and appealed to right-wing voters, and his political activism and grassroots organizing illustrated the successes and limits of far-right politics. Haley’s upbringing on the isolated plains of West Texas molded his ultraconservative political ideals and social traditionalism. Born in Belton, Texas, on July 5, 1901, to John A. and Julia E. Haley, Evetts was raised in a politically active household and he credited his parents for his conservative, traditionalist inclinations.24 Haley’s family tree was drenched in Anglo-Texas tradition; many of his ancestors fought for Texas during the Texas Revolution and joined the Confederacy during the Civil War.25 The Haley family quickly traded the rolling hills of Belton for the parched climate of West Texas’s Llano Estacado, an area that produced, according to one scholar, a “self-suffi- cient, lonely, suspicious citizenry, slow to change.”26 Haley cherished the traditionalism of the plains, claiming that he was “bogged deeper in its traditions, and more devoted to its ideals, than to all else besides.”27 This politically-charged upbringing in arid West Texas imbued Haley with a belief in rugged individualism, an adherence to white supremacist traditions, and an overarching right-wing bent. During his formative years, Haley made a name for himself regionally as a cattle rancher and historian of the Great Plains. He spent summers developing his cowboy skills by working on his family’s land near the Pecos River and on the legendary Long SRanch.28 Under pressure from his mother, Haley quit the cowpunching lifestyle to pursue higher education, eventually graduating from the University of Texas in 1926 with a master’s degree in history.29 Haley spent the 1920s and 1930s polishing his promising writing career, which coincided with the first red scare and a surge in anti- communist anxieties.30 Additionally, business progressivism—an economic philosophy that valued “public service and efficiency” over state-funded social programs—and the

23 Schoenwald, Time for Choosing,9. 24 William Curry Holden, “J. Evetts Haley, The Man,” Article, undated, p. 4–5, Folder 8-JEH The Man, Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH Collection. 25 B. Byron Price, “J. Evetts Haley: Southwestern Historian,” Article, Folder 4-JEH: A Character Study, Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH Collection. 26 George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938–1957 (Norman, 1979), 7. 27 J. Evetts Haley, “Crystal Gazing in the Dust Bowl,” undated, p. 1, Folder-JD MSS Unpublished, Wallet 22, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 28 Bill Modisett, J. Evetts Haley: A True Texas Legend (Midland, TX, 1996), 31 and 34. 29 J. Evetts Haley, “A Survey of Texas Cattle Drives to the North, 1877–1895” (master’s thesis, University of Texas, 1926). 30 Haley wrote numerous histories about the western frontier, including the seminal work on Charles Goodnight, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman (Norman, 1949). John S. Huntington 7

Figure 1. “A young J. Evetts Haley posing with the day’s haul after hunting on the Diamond A Ranch in Sierra County, New Mexico.” Prints and Photograph Collection, di_02307 (Courtesy The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.) 8 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan dominated Texas politics during Haley’s formative years.31 This socio-political environment fueled Haley’s ultraconservatism. When Roosevelt enacted the New Deal to fight the Great Depression in 1933, Haley helped stoke a conservative backlash by characterizing FDR’s liberalism as extreme government overreach that threatened to erode the traditional tenets of American society. On August 7, 1936, delegates from twenty-two states, including Haley, met in Detroit to air grievances against FDR’s administration. This group, the National Jeffersonian Democrats, hailed mostly from midwestern and southern states and sought to refashion the Democratic Party in a conservative image by defeating Roosevelt’s 1936 re-election bid.32 Led by the former senator James O. Reed (D-MO), the organization promoted an idealized version of American democracy that down- played socio-economic strife and accentuated individual freedom and states’ rights. The Jeffersonians launched conspiratorial accusations, arguing that FDR sought to “[replace] the doctrines of Democracy with the tenets and teachings of a blended communism and socialism.”33 The National Jeffersonians’ blend of anti-liberalism and conspiratorial anti-communism filtered down to the organization’s state branches, including the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas (JDT). Haley led the Texas Jeffersonians as the primary organizer and propagandist, which amplified his far-right, anti-liberal zeal. The Houston-based judge W. P. Hamblen wrote a declaration for the Texas Jeffersonians: “We re-assert our belief in the Constitution, in the rights of the States, and in the Jeffersonian principles. Believing thus, we must condemn the Roosevelt administration.”34 What set the Jeffersonians apart from other Texas right-wingers was a desire to remove FDR from the national Democratic ticket and a willingness to paint liberalism as a cog in a grand communist conspiracy.35 As the chief propagandist, Haley criticized New Deal welfare spending, prevaricated about communist subversion and voter manipulation, and warned that liberalism would distort Texas’s white supremacist traditions.36 In one Jeffersonian pamphlet Haley asserted, “[The] breakdown of color lines and mixture of the races, black, white, and tan, is one of the cardinal principles of Red philosophy. Already the initial steps have been carefully taken by leading lights of the New

31 Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921–1928 (College Station, 1984), 6–7. 32 Turner Catledge, “Bolters Assemble to Map Campaign to Beat President,” New York Times,7 August 1936 and Summary of Detroit Jeffersonian Democrat Conference, 8 August 1936, p. 1, Folder- Haley, J. Evetts, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 33 Summary of Detroit Jeffersonian Democrat Conference, 8 August 1936, p. 1. 34 W. P. Hamblen to the Editor of The Cherokeean, Letter, 8 August 1936, Folder 3, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 35 Ibid. 36 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74–7. John S. Huntington 9

Deal.”37 Haley’s white supremacist values inflamed his disdain toward liberal programs. He argued that federal relief only supported “an army of shiftless negroes and aliens at the expense of all of us,” even though farm workers, many of whom were black or Hispanic, were excluded from New Deal benefits.38 Haley’s fear-mongering appealed to the Jeffersonian’s roughly “five thousand active members, primarily disgruntled conservative lawyers, big businessmen, and large ranchers and landowners.”39 Despite this modest membership, Haley used the Jeffersonian apparatus to build a far-right movement, portraying liberalism as a communist threat to the established socio-political mores of southern society. The Texas Jeffersonians established a statewide apparatus and Haley relied on grassroots activism to propel his anti-Roosevelt campaign. Haley created mailing and fundraising lists by urging fellow Jeffersonians to provide contact information for like- minded individuals. Thousands of Texans supported the Jeffersonian cause through modest donations, usually between one and ten dollars.40 Yet the organization’s appeal remained limited because FDR’s subsidies were popular, especially among Texas farmers, which further bolstered Texans’ Democratic loyalties.41 More succinctly, an article in Lubbock, Texas’s Morning Avalanche compared contributing to the Jeffersonians to “pouring sand in a rat hole.”42 Nevertheless, Haley used Jeffersonian funds to distribute anti–New Deal literature across Texas. The organization circulated its self-published newspaper, the Jeffersonian Democrat, in every county and made dubious claims that print runs exceeded one million.43 As historian Keith Volanto notes, “Readers who picked up the Jeffersonian Democrat and found no problem with the views expressed, or excitedly experienced a ‘Give ‘Em Hell!’ moment, were safely in the ultraconservative camp.”44 The Jeffersonians also advertised in over three hundred weekly newspapers

37 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 237 and Robert Wuthnow, Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible Belt State (Princeton, 2014), 33. 38 J. Evetts Haley, “The New Deal and the Negro Vote,” Pamphlet, 1936, p. 4, Wallet 20, Box 3, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 39 J. Evetts Haley, “Labor and the New Deal,” undated, p. 2, Folder-Advertising #2, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection and Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 2005), 55–7. 40 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74. 41 J. Evetts Haley to L. R. Atkins, Letter, 15 October 1936, Folder 1, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub- Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection and Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74–5. 42 Cunningham, “The Political Culture of West Texas,” 174 and Keith J. Volanto, Texas, Cotton, and the New Deal (College Station, 2005), 143–4. 43 “A Hopeless Undertaking,” Morning Avalanche (Lubbock, TX), 26 August 1936, Wallet 14, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 44 E. Paul Jones, “Anti-New Dealers Plan Campaigns Will Organize Campaigns Covering Entire State of Texas,” Article, October 1936, Folder-Advertising Rates, Wallet 10, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection and J. Evetts Haley to E. Lee Tucker, Letter, 22 September 1936, Folder 1, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 10 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

and at least sixty dailies, with one such advertisement declaring that the South- oriented Democratic Party had “passed completely away” because FDR’s administration was “flouting the Constitution” and “wooing the Negro vote.”45 Despite tapping into Texas’s white supremacist, anti-statist traditions, the Jeffersonians failed to remove Roosevelt from the Democratic ticket because of the Democratic Party’s traditional dominance and FDR’s popularity.46 Supplanting Roosevelt proved impossible, so the Texas Jeffersonians abandoned the Democratic Party to promote the candidacy of Landon, the Republican governor of Kansas. Coordinating with the Republicans represented a pivot from the traditional Democratic moorings of southern society toward the pro-business libertarianism emerging in the western Sunbelt.47 Haley disseminated encouraging form letters to fellow Jeffersonians predicting a Landon victory: “We are making splendid progress in our movement. The Literary Digest poll indicates that Roosevelt will be defeated, and this has neverfailedtobecorrect.”48 TheofficemanageroftheHoustonJDTchapter,FannieB. Campbell, wrote to Haley, “I can barely keep my enthusiasm down as the days go by and hundreds of phone calls come in in answer to our various literature we are sending out. I feel so confident at present that we are going to win out.”49 The Jeffersonians deluded themselves into believing that Landon had a chance for victory in solidly Democratic Texas, but Haley’s segregationist rhetoric strained the uneasy alliance. The Republicans, especially Landon, needed to court voters, but the white supremacist values of the Jeffersonians alienated African Americans, a key part of the traditional Republican constituency.50 “The South stands at the cross-roads of destiny,” Haley declared in one inflammatory pamphlet, “Is it to continue to be a ‘white man’s country,’ or is it to be sunk to the cultural level of the negro, and have the purity of its blood corrupted with mulatto strains?”51 Landon’s campaign refused to embrace race- baiting rhetoric to win southern votes—for example, the Houston GOP branch declined to distribute issues of the Jeffersonian Democrat because of Haley’s racially charged

45 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 76. 46 Prospective Advertisement for the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, undated, Folder- Advertising #2, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 47 Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 19–20; Ricky Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans: Allan Shivers and Texas Two-Party Politics (College Station, 2005), 3; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 6–7; and Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 69. 48 Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “Sunbelt Boosterism: Industrial Recruitment, Economic Development, and Growth Politics in the Developing Sunbelt,” in Sunbelt Rising, ed. Nickerson and Dochuk, 34–9. 49 J. Evetts Haley to R. F. Evans, Letter, 1 October 1936, Folder 1, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 50 Fannie B. Campbell to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 24 September 1936, Folder-Harris Co. Club, Wallet 31, Box 5, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 51 Robert Mason, The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan (New York, 2012), 65. John S. Huntington 11 language—a refusal that illustrated the limitations of Jeffersonian activism.52 Roosevelt’s resounding victory in 1936—he received an astounding 87 percent of the popular vote in Texas—underscored the difficulties of building a winning coalition through the Texas GOP.53 The Texas Jeffersonians shuttered their Austin headquarters as quickly as the wind dissipated from Landon’s sails, but Haley’s closing letter to Hamblen summa- rized the Jeffersonians’ self-perception: “This has been a campaign by patriots.”54 Though Haley and the Jeffersonian Democrats failed to defeat Roosevelt’s second presidential bid, the revolt highlighted the right-wing rejection of Democratic liberalism and foreshadowed the ascent of modern conservatism. Texas played a key role in this political shift because of the Democratic Party’s traditional dominance and the state’s geographic function as a Lone Star buckle connecting the southern and western Sunbelt.55 Haley’s activism in 1936 portended and helped initiate the mid-century conservative exodus from the Democratic Party, while the Jeffersonians’ grassroots strategies, especially their mass-mailing techniques, appeared in future conservative campaigns.56 The gubernatorial victory of noted red-baiter and segregationist W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel in 1938 and the 1944 campaign of the reactionary Texas Regulars, a group of hardline conservative Democrats, evinced the internecine schisms within the Democratic Party and the rightward tilt of Texas politics.57 On a national scale, the third-party Dixiecrat Revolt during the 1948 presidential election revealed right-wing disenchantment with the Democratic Party and harbingered the South’s political realignment.58 Haley went back to managing ranches after the Jeffersonians crumbled, but his brief political sabbatical ended when the Republican Party put his name on the congressional ballot in 1948.59

52 Haley, “New Deal and the Negro Vote,” p. 3, JEH. 53 Fred Moore to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 9 October 1936, Folder-Harris Co. Club, Wallet 31, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 54 Alice V. McGillivray, Richard M. Scammon, and Rhodes Cook, America at the Polls, 1960– 2004: John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush (Washington, D.C., 2005), 19. 55 J. Evetts Haley to W. P. Hamblen, Letter, 2 November 1936, Folder-Committee, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection. 56 Edward H. Miller referred to Dallas as the Sunbelt’s buckle in Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy (Chicago, 2015), 8 and Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 24–6. 57 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 115–20; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 198; and Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 77 and 84. 58 Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 25–6; Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908–1960, vol. 1 (New York, 1991), 260–4; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 49– 57; Samuel K. Tullock, “He, Being Dead, Yet Speaketh,’ J. Frank Norris and the Texas Religious Right at Midcentury” in The Texas Right, ed. Cullen and Wilkison, 61; Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 78–9. 59 Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (Chapel Hill, 2001), 5–9. 12 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

As the Dixiecrats made national headlines by storming out of the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Texas Republicans attempted to capitalize on the growing discontent with liberalism in the Democratic Party. The Texas GOP hoped to convince Haley to run for Texas’s eighteenth congressional district by putting his name on the ballot. Haley declined to campaign for himself, but he agreed to leave his name on the ballot to oppose the “socialist practices” of the national Democratic Party.60 The election represented another opportunity to denounce liberalism, and one issue in 1948 troubled Haley above all others: the vote tampering that aided Johnson’s controversial victory over Coke Stevenson in the Democratic senatorial primary. Haley decried Johnson’s primary triumph as illegitimate because, as historian Robert Dallek noted, “tainted means had played a significant part in giving Lyndon his victory.”61 Rather than worrying about his own nomination, Haley joined other right-wing Democrats, including Stevenson, and stumped for Houston-based oil executive Jack Porter, a former Jeffersonian Democrat running for Senate under the Republican banner.62 Porter was a staunch conservative, but Haley and Stevenson cared more about defeating Johnson, the liberal Democratic nominee. Johnson’s support for federal programs, plus some help from ballot manipulation in South Texas counties, had bested Stevenson’s anti-statist conservatism in the Democratic Primary.63 The electoral returns were not kind to the Texas GOP. Haley lost the congressional election in a landslide to incumbent Eugene Worley (D-TX), hardly a surprise given Haley’s refusal to campaign and the traditional weakness of the Republican Party in Texas. Johnson’s victory over Porter—702,985 votes to 349,665—reinforced the lesson of the Jeffersonian revolt: conservatives had failed to excise liberalism from the Democratic Party and struggled to build a successful coalition within the Texas GOP.64 However, the losses masked the fact that western Sunbelt conservatives were gaining political strength as postwar affluence and metropolitanization intensified the region’s anti- statist and anti-communist traditions, while the Dixiecrat Revolt simultaneously sig- naled a broader resistance to liberalism across the Sunbelt South.65 The electoral defeats in 1948, combined with the rise of Sunbelt conservatism, spurred Haley’s efforts to redeem Democratic conservatism.

60 Modisett, J. Evetts Haley, 93. 61 “Porter-GOP Rally Attended by Sixty,” Amarillo Daily News, 6 October 1948. 62 Modisett, J. Evetts Haley, 62 and Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 348. 63 The Amarillo Globe-Times, Advertisement, 11 October 1948 and “Porter, Stassen Share Spotlight,” Amarillo Daily News, 15 October 1948. 64 Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 307 and 347–8. 65 William Graf and Ralph R. Roberts, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 2, 1948 (Washington, D.C., 1949), 41 and Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 5 and 24– 8. John S. Huntington 13

Haley returned to the Democratic fold in 1956 by mounting a gubernatorial campaign based on the southern traditions of segregation and white supremacy. His reap- pearance coincided with the decline of Governor Allan Shivers’s grip on the Democratic Party. Shivers, whom Haley had campaigned for in 1954, decided not to run for a fourth term amid criticisms of his scandal-ridden administration.66 The 1956 Texas gubernatorial election represented a watershed moment as liberal Democrats, newly empowered by the sagging Shivers administration, battled with the conservative Democratic forces that dominated Texas politics. Multiple politicians were vying for the Democratic nomination: Price Daniel, representing moderate conservatives; Ralph Yarborough, running as a liberal, party-loyalist Democrat; and the former gover- nor Pappy O’Daniel, clinging to his folksy segregationism.67 Haley’s entrance further crowded the already congested primary, and he faced an uphill battle because he lacked statewide name recognition and his rhetoric resembled that of Shivers. Despite his history of activism, Haley portrayed himself as a political outsider and used his cowboy persona to solidify his conservative bona fides; Haley’s campaign slogan, “Qualified-Honest-Fearless,” accentuated his identity as a straight-shooting cattleman.68 Harkening back to his days in the Jeffersonian Democrats, Haley utilized racially charged, conspiratorial language to combat liberalism and perceived federal encroachment. Haley argued that the doctrine of interposition—the idea that the Tenth Amendment empowered states to nullify federal action—buttressed southern segregation. Interposition became a hallmark of the far-right in the Sunbelt South because, as historian Ricky Dobbs observed, it “elevated arguments against integration from the shameful muck of sectional racism.”69 Despite advocating interposition, Haley thrived in the muck. “I am for [the use of interposition] to stop this mixing, by coercion and immoral force, of white and Negro children in public schools, with its consequent destruction of our race and our way of life,” Haley declared in one inflammatory pamphlet.70 This racially charged language connected Haley’s campaign to the “massive resistance” movement that permeated the South during the 1950s. In response to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and the ensu- ing push for integration, southern politicians developed “massive resistance” by

66 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 40–3 and Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt, 7–9. 67 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 115–20 and 130; Allan Shivers to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 15 July 1954, Folder-Election 1954, Wallet-Texas For America Form Letters, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 68 Patrick L. Cox and Edward M. Kennedy, Ralph W. Yarborough: The People’s Senator (Austin, 2002), xvi–xvii. 69 J. Evetts Haley Campaign Postcard, undated, Folder-Haley Clippings, Box 4, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 70 Lewis, Massive Resistance, 62 and Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 127. 14 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

harmonizing the conspiratorial anti-communism of the Cold War with segregationist rhetoric.71 For example, Governor Herman Talmage of Georgia stumped against the dual threats of integration and communism, while over one hundred congressmen signed the “Southern Manifesto,” a bold defense of segregation and states’ rights penned by Thurmond and Richard Russell, to protest the perceived tyranny of integration.72 Haley’s ideological connections to “massive resistance” illustrated his combination of Deep South segregationism and West Texas anti-statism, and interposition reflected Haley’s effort to appeal to anti-liberal voters that favored states’ rights over civil rights. The sectional support for segregation in Texas and Haley’s relative anonymity constituted his two greatest electoral hurdles, so Haley employed grassroots strategies to promote his candidacy and build a constituency. Haley barnstormed all over Texas, participating in local events like the Stamford Cowboy Reunion and the Sidewalk Cattleman’s Association parade in Madisonville.73 He stumped in major metropolitan areas like Houston and Dallas, which led to the creation of local Haley for Governor Clubs.74 Throughout the campaign Haley played up his cowboy charm. In one legendary story, Haley stopped at a stoplight, handed the driver next to him some campaign literature, and said, “I’m Evetts Haley. I’m running for Governor. Hope you will read this. If you disagree with me, then by gosh just vote against me.”75 When Haley’s operation arrived in Dallas, the conservative local journalist Lynn Landrum wrote, “Haley was in town Wednesday night and gave something like 300 people every chance in the world to cross him off their list—and they whooped and clapped and ate up just about every word he said.”76 Haley adopted Jeffersonian tactics, particularly local activism and mass-mailer fundraising, to expand his outreach. Contributions to Haley’s operation ranged from one dollar to five hundred dollars, but the vast majority of the donations were small, indicating that establishment benefactors, namely the oil

71 J. Evetts Haley, “States Rights—The Issue! Announcement for Governor of Texas,” Pamphlet, 29 February 1956, Folder-Pamphlets, Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 72 George Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace: Segregationists, Anticommunism, and Massive Resistance, 1945–1965 (Gainesville, FL, 2004), 40 and 47, and Jeff Woods, Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anti-Communism in the South, 1948–1968 (Baton Rouge, 2004), 5. 73 Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, 2005), 23–4 and Lewis, Massive Resistance, 33–5 and 65–7. 74 J. Evetts Haley for Governor Headquarters to Scott Syler, Letter, 27 June 1956, Folder- Rallies, Wallet 7, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection and Panhandle Committee Haley for Governor to Gib Gilchrist, Letter, 4 June 1956, Folder-Rallies, Wallet 7, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 75 The Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas teemed with ultraconservative activity and were critical for the evolution of conservative Republicanism. For more see Miller, Nut Country, 5–6 and Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, Dallas, 1963 (New York, 2013), 3–6. 76 Richard M. Morehead, “Evetts Haley: No Pussyfooter,” Dallas Morning News, 8 April 1956. John S. Huntington 15 industry, spurned Haley’s campaign.77 Instead, Haley’s far-right conservatism appealed to tens of thousands of Texans disillusioned with the direction of the Democratic Party and, in general, U.S. society. Haley’s sectional constituency embraced segregationism and conspiratorial anti-communism, fretting about “the destruction of the white race,” “red-tinged judicial tyranny,” and “the conspiracy to change our form of gov’t.”78 Enthusiasts extolled Haley as a “man of strong convictions” and, perhaps most importantly, a “true conservative.”79 Not everyone agreed: one Texan called Haley’s defense of segregation “farcical” and “un-American.”80 Nevertheless, Haley’s campaign tapped into white anxieties regarding desegregation and the widespread un- dercurrent of anti-statism in Texas politics, and he successfully linked—at least according to his supporters—federal tyranny and communism to liberalism. Despite Haley’s grassroots success, white supremacy proved to have only sectional appeal in the Lone Star State, and Haley lacked the fundraising capabilities and noto- riety of the other Democratic candidates.81 O’Daniel, in particular, siphoned potential votes away from Haley because he boasted similar race-baiting rhetoric. When the votes were tallied, moderate conservative Daniel won a plurality of 629,000 votes, liberal Democrat Yarborough received 463,400, O’Daniel received 347,750, and Haley placed fourth with just 88,800 votes.82 Most of Haley’s support came from the Dallas– Fort Worth metroplex, the site of Haley’s most active headquarters, and from his own backyard, the parched plains of West Texas.83 East Texas voters split between the other three major candidates, even though Haley’s white supremacy seemed tailor- made to appeal to white anxieties in the racially diverse region.84 Haley also received paltry support along the Mexican border and in San Antonio, which suggested that

77 Landrum, “Thinking Out Loud.” 78 Campaign Financial Report, 18 July 1956, Wallet 3, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection and Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, 18. 79 J. B. McMillan to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 9 June 1956, Folder-N (Nacogdoches, Navarro, Nueces), Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection; J. B. McMillan to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 23 June 1956, Folder-N (Nacogdoches, Navarro, Nueces), Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection, and Mary Bosworth to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 29 March 1956, Folder-H-A- M, Wallet 4, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 80 Mary Bosworth to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 29 March 1956, Folder-Hs A-M, Wallet 4, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection, and Dan Smoot to J. C. Phillips, Letter, 13 May 1956, Folder D, Wallet 2, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 81 Robert C. Leathers to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 12 March 1956, Folder D, Wallet 2, Box 1, Sub- Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 82 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 175. 83 Ibid. 84 Haley advertised heavily in East Texas, especially Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. Amarillo was Haley’s only West Texas headquarters, and he had no official presence near the Texas-Mexico border; Campaign Financial Report, 18 July 1956, JEH Collection. 16 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

areas with higher percentages of Mexican Americans rejected his segregationist message.85 The 1956 gubernatorial campaign marked the end of overtly racist campaigns in Texas, truly the end of an era.86 Indeed, Haley’s defeat underscored the broader limitations of segregationist rhetoric: the 1948 Dixiecrat Revolt failed to create inroads in Texas, and mainstream politicians eschewed the acerbic rhetoric of segregationism and moved toward moderate conservatism, or, at the very least, more subtle racial politics, in the late 1950s.87 Racial politics continued to play a role in Texas—during the 1956 election both Democrat Daniel and Republican Bruce Alger wielded the language of states’ rights—but Texans were drifting away from overt racism, a hallmark of Deep South politics, and shifting toward the dog-whistle rhetoric of modern conservatism.88 This transition explained the limited appeal of Haley’s platforms. Regardless, Haley’s crusade demonstrated that far-right voters remained a significant outspoken minority in Texas politics; and, as Mathis observed, Haley’s gubernatorial campaign “catapulted him into the leadership of their fights.”89 Haleybuiltaconstitu- ency attuned to the language of states’ rights and anti-communism, and his earlier efforts with the Jeffersonian Democrats and 1948 congressional candidacy created connections with Republican conservatives. Haley never again campaigned for office, but he augmented his right-wing leadership by cultivating grassroots action through the group For America. Following the election in 1956, Haley poured his energy into the ultraconservative organization For America and its state affiliate, Texans For America. For America was founded on June 1, 1954, just weeks after the Supreme Court rendered the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Clarence Manion—former chair of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee under Eisenhower before turning to far-right radio broadcasting—co-chaired For America with General Robert E. Wood. Wood, an Old Guard conservative and chair of Sears Roebuck, was later replaced by Dallas- based ultraconservative publisher Dan Smoot.90 Manion sought to combat an “inexorable rising peril” by rooting For America in ultraconservative principles like strict constitutionalism, Americanism, free enterprise, and conspiratorial anti-

85 Historian David Cunningham noted a correlation between interracial economic competition and racism in Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan (New York, 2012), 101. 86 Texas Almanac, 1958–1959 (Dallas, 1957), 461–3; Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 5 and 9; and John T. “Jack” Becker, “The Texas Panhandle,” in West Texas, ed. Carlson and Glasrud, 37. 87 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190. 88 Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt, 188; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 112; and Miller, Nut Country, 8–9 and 81. 89 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 4, 46, and 135; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190; and Lewis, Massive Resistance, 69. 90 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics (Philadelphia, 2016), 133. John S. Huntington 17 communism.91 TFA’s platforms mirrored those of the national organization; as the TFA state chair, Haley fought for issues of “individual liberties and sound government” and warned about the power of “socialists and communists...to divide and conquer.”92 The ultimate goal for Haley and TFA was to promote far-right ideals with the intent of transforming one of the major political parties—the focus eventually became the GOP—into a bastion of conservatism. The mass mailing campaigns of TFA’s Committees of Correspondence represented the bulk of the organization’s grassroots action in the Lone Star State. Many of the letter writers recruited by Haley and by Kara Hart, who was a fellow conspiracy theorist and chair of TFA’s Committees of Correspondence, saw the specter of socialism around every corner, especially concerning federal economic regulations.93 The committees targeted conservative anxieties, ranging from dread about communist in- filtration to fears of integration and increased taxation. For example, Haley alleged that Governor Daniel’s plan to increase teachers’ salaries, which TFA derisively called the “teacher tenure” bill, was a clandestine scheme to increase taxes.94 TFA’s committees responded by writing hundreds of letters criticizing the bill and urging Daniel to slash the budget instead.95 The debate over teacher salaries raged for two years, but Daniel’s teacher pay bill passed in 1961 despite far-right acrimony.96 The committees’ activism extended beyond Texas and into the realm of foreign affairs. Hart thought Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s proposed visit to Washington constituted an “abject surrender to the communist conception of co-existence,” and she sent instruc- tions to the letter writers: “Register your opposition.”97 Additionally, Hart urged TFA members to write in support of the Connally Amendment—a legislative reservation that prevented the United Nations (UN) from theoretically claiming jurisdiction over U.S. courts—because it “assured some protection from this communist-atheistic

91 Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York, 2001), 10–1 and “For America,” Conference of National Policy Committee, 19 March 1955, Folder-For America, Box 3, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection. 92 “Summary of Proceedings at a Meeting of Certain Members of the For America Policy and Finance Committees,” 23 May 1955, Folder-For America, Box 3, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection and J. Evetts Haley, “Special Report to the Committees of Correspondence,” 1 October 1959, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 93 References to communist subversion permeated the committee of correspondence documents, but, unfortunately, I was unable to locate an official roster of letter writers. 94 Daniel’s economic platform called for tax increases, particularly on oil and natural gas businesses; “Daniel Asks Aid of Schoolteachers,” Dallas Morning News, 23 March 1959. 95 Allen Duckworth, “Writers to Papers Organize,” Dallas Morning News, 3 December 1959. 96 Jimmy Banks, “Teacher Pay Bill Passed by House, Sent to Governor,” Dallas Morning News, 8 August 1961. 97 Kara Hart, TFA Newsletter, undated, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 2, Sub- Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 18 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

monster [the United Nations].”98 This anti-UN stance aligned TFA with other far- right groups that denigrated the UN as a communist front, such as the Texas Minutewomen and the John Birch Society.99 TFA’s Committees of Correspondence were crucial for building the grassroots coalition that Haley envisioned would trans- form conservatism in Texas by pressuring politicians to address right-wing concerns. Furthermore, the mass-mailer campaigns highlighted TFA’s conspiratorial ultraconservatism, and Haley’s ability to cultivate a politically engaged constituency illustrated his maturation as a far-right leader. Haley recognized that, in order to influence the broader conservative movement, TFA needed to coordinate with other far-right leaders and organizations, like Billy James Hargis’s Christian Crusade and Robert W. Welch’s John Birch Society (JBS). TFA teamed up with Hargis to fight the Forand Bill, formally titled the “Social Security Amendments of 1958,” which tried to extend Social Security hospital insurance benefits to elderly citizens.100 Haley decried the Forand Bill as “communizing medical treatment,” while Hargis prevaricated that “left-wingers” devised the legislation to implement “a fully socialized medical system in America.”101 Ultimately, the Forand Bill failed to pass the House Ways and Means Committee; Secretary of Health Arthur S. Flemming argued that the legislation neglected Social Security’s problems.102 Haley and TFA also targeted liberalism by accusing Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren of “usurping” power through civil rights cases. A TFA petition demanding the impeachment of the entire Supreme Court contained around twelve thousand sig- natures by January 1959.103 The signature count by no means indicated an ultraconservative mandate, but TFA’s anti-Warren campaign provided a grassroots foundation for the Birch Society’s quixotic fight against the Supreme Court in 1961.104 By

98 Kara Hart, “The Connally Reservation Again Under Attack—It Must Be Retained,” undated, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection and TFA Newsletter, 20 January 1960, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 99 Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, 125–8 and D. J. Mulloy, The World of the John Birch Society: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville, 2014), 142. 100 Wilbur J. Cohen, “The Forand Bill: Hospital Insurance for the Aged,” The American Journal of Nursing 58 (May 1958): 698–702. 101 TFA Newsletter, “Report to Texas for America, Committees of Correspondence,” undated, Wallet - TFA Form Letters, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection and Billy James Hargis, “Uncle Sam M.D.?,” Folder 19, Box 1, Billy James Hargis Papers, University of Arkansas Special Collections. 102 Lenore A. Epstein and James C. Callison, “Financing Health Care for the Aged,” Law and Contemporary Problems 27 (Winter 1962): 106–7. 103 “Court Impeachment Petition Growing,” Ft. Worth Star Telegram, TFA Newsletter, 7 January 1958, Folder-TFA Newsletter Jan 1958 Issue, Wallet -TFA Newsletters late 1950s, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 104 Mulloy, World of the John Birch Society, 109–17. John S. Huntington 19 coordinating with other fringe organizations, Haley created an ultraconservative network intent on influencing the mid-century conservative movement. Haley attempted to establish similar connections with the business community to bolster TFA’s fundraising and further strengthen far-right organizing. Big business, especially the oil industry, played a crucial role in Texas politics, and Haley recognized that recruiting businesspeople would legitimize TFA as a mainstream conservative outlet. Haley told his constituents, “We cannot succeed without the support of business,” citing “the deadly threat to free enterprise” as “an opportunity to enlist strong financial support.”105 Though Haley’s ideologies intersected with the free market ideals of the business conservative movement, TFA’s financial statements revealed that the organization operated on a shoestring budget. The dearth of corporate donations indicated that Haley’s ultraconservative rhetoric disaffected commercial benefactors and restricted TFA to the political fringe.106 Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, southern rhetoric moved away from overt anti-communist and segregationist language, and the modest support for TFA highlighted this gradual transition.107 TFA operated at a turning point in Texas politics as politicians softened their racially tinged, red-baiting rhetoric.108 Many southerners were alarmed by the rapidly changing racial mores of southern society; but, in general, Texans had greater tolerance for racial inclusion than the rest of the Deep South.109 Nevertheless, Haley tapped into an ultraconservative constituency that viewed liberalism as anathema to traditional socio-political norms. TFA’s mass-letter- writing campaigns indicated an eagerness to amplify conservative demands through local activism and organizational networks. Haley’s time with TFA proved influential because the organization galvanized local right-wingers and established connections with other far-right groups; however, TFA and its parent organization failed to bring about a conservative revolution in U.S. politics.110 The Republican Party maintained a middle-of-the-road stance and continued to house liberals into the early 1960s, while the national Democratic Party championed the liberalism of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Nevertheless, the ascendance of Arizona’s Goldwater provided an opportunity for Haley to coordinate with the burgeoning conservative movement.

105 “For America—Our Urgent and Immediate Problems,” Newsletter, 31 December 1958, Folder-Notes on 1958 Campaign, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 106 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 34; Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, ix-xi; TFA Financial Statement, 30 November 1958, Wallet - Notes on 1958 Campaign, Correspondence- General, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. 107 Lewis, Massive Resistance, 180 and Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190. 108 Cunningham, “The Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 105. 109 Green, Establishment of Texas Politics, 186. 110 Cunningham, “Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 111 and 115. 20 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

At the 1960 Republican National Convention, Goldwater commanded conservatives to “grow up” and “take this party back.”111 The call to arms sparked a right-wing movement within the GOP and made the Arizona senator a lodestone for conservative activists, including Haley. When a coalition of right-wing Republicans and far- right agitators thrust Goldwater onto the 1964 GOP ticket, Haley abandoned the Democratic Party and joined forces with the Republicans. Haley had flirted with the Republican Party while leading the Jeffersonians and TFA, but Goldwater’s platforms convinced Haley that the GOP adhered to conservative principles more closely than the Democratic Party. Goldwater “would return us to fiscal sanity and return us to ob- servance of the Constitution,” proclaimed an exuberant Haley.112 Other southern Democrats mirrored Haley’s conversion, including major figures like former Dixiecrat and U.S. Senator Thurmond, which reflected the emergence of a conservative Republican coalition stretching across the Sunbelt.113 The 1964 campaign gave Haley the opportunity to advance Goldwater’s nationwide conservative crusade.114 Haley contributed to the divisive 1964 presidential election by disparaging LBJ in a polemical book, A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power. The book catapulted Haley’s brand of ultraconservatism into the national political discourse and symbolized the Democratic Party’s internecine schism. Self-published out of Haley’s Palo Duro Press, A Texan Looks at Lyndon landed during the critical summer months before the election. Haley claimed his book accurately portrayed Johnson’s personal and political career. In reality, as historian Sean P. Cunningham observes, Haley “vilified [LBJ] as the personification of all that was corrupt and wrong with American politics.”115 For example, Haley characterized Johnson’s support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a “complete betrayal of the South” and a “most extreme position” that would “end the American Republic.”116 Haley also detested Johnson on a personal level. He once called LBJ “the slickest operator ever sent to Washington from Texas” and declared, “There is nothing more significant in Johnson’s career than the fact that he has never been known to take an unpopular position and resolutely go down the

111 Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 145. 112 “Haley Says Sale of Book Points Goldwater Victory,” Chicago Tribune Press Service, Houston Post, 19 August 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 113 Joseph Crespino, “Strom Thurmond’s Sunbelt: Rethinking Regional Politics and the Rise of the Right,” in Sunbelt Rising, ed. Nickerson and Dochuk, 61. 114 Robert David Johnson, All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election (New York, 2009), 228–9. 115 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 101. 116 J. Evetts Haley, A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power (Canyon, TX, 1964), 172; “New Party Proposed By Patriots in Chicago,” Texans for America, Vol. II, No. 2 (October- November 1959), p. 3, Wallet - Notes on 58 Campaign and Correspondence, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection. John S. Huntington 21 line for it,”117 This was an unfair portrayal of LBJ considering Johnson’s obstinate de- votion to divisive civil rights and foreign policy platforms.118 Despite the wild accusations, Johnson could not sue Haley for libel—the Sullivan v. New York decision set stringent standards for libel suits—so he deflected; LBJ’s special assistant Bill Moyers told inquirers that Haley’s book had not been a topic of discussion at the White House.119 Regardless, Haley spoke for many southerners when he called Johnson a “traitor to the South,” and he augured that Goldwater could restore America’s integrity.120 Republican campaign headquarters around the nation, especially in the Sunbelt, started proffering right-wing books, including Haley’s, in an effort to bolster Goldwater’s electoral chances.121 Many GOP offices stocked A Texan alongside writer-activist Phyllis Schlafly’s A Choice, Not an Echo and John A. Stormer’s None Dare Call It Treason.122 Bookstores and airports around the nation also carried Haley’s book, and M. Stanton Evans of National Review noted that readers will learn “more about Lyndon Johnson from Mr. Haley than from an army of authorized biographers.”123 Journalist Donald Janson marveled, “Never before...have paperback books of any category been printed and distributed in such volume in so short a time. Never before has such literature been used to such an extent in a Presidential campaign.”124 The Goldwater campaign gave Haley’s book sales an unexpected boost and propelled him into the spotlight as a champion of ultraconservative principles. The far-right grassroots effort that supported Goldwater’s campaign stretched across the Sunbelt, from the Deep South to California, amplifying the distribution of Haley’s book. The Birch Society lauded ATexanas a book “loaded with facts” and sent instruc- tions to Birch members: “You need it in your field equipment.”125 Wealthy Birchers

117 TFA Newsletter, “Special Report to the Committees of Correspondence,” 12 November 1959, Folder-Committee of Correspondence Letters, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection and Haley, Texan Looks at Lyndon, 172. 118 Irving Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (New York, 1996), 65–6, 379, and 537; Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York, 1998), 111–2. 119 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478. 120 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 105 and Haley, Texan Looks at Lyndon, 178. 121 Dallek, Flawed Giant, 177. 122 Ibid. 123 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478; M. Stanton Evans, “The Pamphleteers Return,” National Review, 3 November 1964. 124 Donald Janson, “Extremist Book Sales Soar Despite Criticism in G. O. P.,” New York Times, 4 October 1964. 125 “Your Own Reading,” John Birch Society Bulletin (August 1964) p. 21, Folder-Political Correspondence 1964, Wallet-Correspondence Clippings and Campaign Material 1964, Box 1, Sub- Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 22 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

heeded the call by bulk purchasing A Texan for distribution at political rallies, while the Birch Society kept Haley’s book stocked in its American Opinion bookstores.126 Hargis’s Christian Crusade advertised Haley’s book in its monthly periodical, encouraging cru- saders to buy and circulate A Texan so people could read the “sordid details” of Johnson’s life.127 The book also received accolades from a legion of smaller far-right journals and organizations, like the Bulletin Board of Conservatives and the Austin Anti- Communism League.128 Many individuals agreed with Haley’s criticisms of Johnson, with one reader noting, “The American people have a right to know the moral and ethi- cal standards of those who are running for a political office.”129 The groundswell of support for Haley’s book during the 1964 campaign—from individuals, far-right groups and journals, and GOP branches—illustrated that a significant amount of the population sought a conservative turn away from Johnson’s liberalism. This constituency com- mended Haley for assailing liberalism and lauding Goldwater as a legitimate political challenger to LBJ.130 Connections with mainstream conservatives and far-right anti-communist groups helped Haley move more books—an estimated five million were sold during the election—but the majority of politicians decried A Texan as politically motivated and poorly researched.131 Governor Robert E. Smylie of Idaho, the chair of the Republican Governors Conference, referred to Haley’s book as “smut,” while Paul W. Wolf, the Republican chair in Colorado, said his outfit would “try to produce votes by entirely different methods.”132 Texas Governor John Connally, a Democrat, dismissed Haley’s book as a “propaganda piece” in a White House press conference, highlighting the chasm between Haley’s insurgent ultraconservatism and the party-loyal, moderate conservatism that inhabited the governor’s mansion.133 Additionally, most

126 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478; Janson, “Extremist Book Sales.” 127 Advertisement, Christian Crusade, October 1964. 128 Mrs. J. Milton Lent, “We Recommend,” The Bulletin Board of Conservatives, 24 July 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection; “The Bookshelf,” Freedom Views (Austin, TX), 30 June 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 129 E. L. Bynum, “A Texan Looks at Lyndon,” Plains Baptist Challenger, undated, Folder-Political Printed Material & Clippings-Lyndon Johnson-1964 and undated, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 130 Evans, “Pamphleteers Return,” 981. 131 Chesly Manly, “Texan Looks Again at L.B.J.—Scathingly,” Chicago Tribune, 16 January 1966. 132 Janson, “Extremist Book Sales.” 133 John Connally’s loyalty to Lyndon Johnson stemmed from the fact that LBJ helped jump start Connally’s political career; Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 186–7; and “Connally Says Texan’s Book On Johnson Just Propaganda,” Times-Herald (Waco, TX), 25 September 1964, Folder-1964 II, Wallet- Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. John S. Huntington 23 mainstream media outlets roasted A Texan as a political hatchet job. Reviews referred to Haley’s book as “propaganda,” “stridently partisan,” and “outrageously, surrepti- tiously wrong.”134 Many of these criticisms, especially regarding Haley’s questionable research, proved correct; and the fact that members of both political parties and the majority of the press repudiated Haley’s work illustrated that far-right conservatism remained out of step with mainstream U.S. politics.135 Years later Haley decried the barrage of criticism as an “attempted character assas- sination,” but in 1964 he heralded Goldwater’s nomination and the support for A Texan as the beginning of the conservative revolution he had spent his life trying to foment.136 “There is a real stirring at the grass roots,” Haley said, “Otherwise, how could somebody like me, who is absolutely unknown, and with no sales organization at all and no promotion, bring out a book and have those millions of sales.”137 Haley’s book tapped into the resentment felt by hardline conservatives, anti-communists, and other groups that felt ignored by the liberal consensus. This disillusion enabled Haley to sell millions of books that portrayed the current president as a crook; more importantly, A Texan added fuel to the national movement that pushed Goldwater conservatism into the political mainstream.138 Through the combined efforts of Republican and far-right networks, A Texan Looks at Lyndon entered the political lexicon as a campaign document highlighting the widespread conservative disillusion with Johnson and the Democratic Party. However, Haley’s book epitomized campaign propaganda by presenting a perfidi- ous account of Johnson and American liberalism. Haley presented Johnson as a one- dimensional demagogue, mistook LBJ’s pragmatism and negotiating prowess for a lack of principle, and construed Johnson’s anti-poverty and civil rights crusades as evidence of federal tyranny rather than salubrious social progress. This characterization ignored how the Economic Opportunity Act and Johnson’s adoption of “law and order” rhetoric, notably after the 1964 Harlem Riot, expanded the federal footprint in urban areas, creating the foundations for the War on Crime.139 Additionally, Haley

134 “Anti-LBJ Propaganda Flowing in Texas,” The Denver Post, 2 August 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964, undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection; “Texan’s Look at Lyndon Is Through Biased Eyes,” The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 19 July 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964, undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection; “J. Evetts Haley Doesn’t Play by Any Rules,” Houston Post, 13 October 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet- Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection. 135 Dallek, Flawed Giant, 177. 136 J. Evetts Haley, “A Texan Still Looks at Lyndon,” 6 January 1967, p. 18, Folder-6 Jan 1967, Sub-Series F, Series 4, JEH. 137 Chicago Tribune Press Service, “Haley Says Sale of Book Points Goldwater Victory.” 138 Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 229–30. 139 Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Cambridge, MA, 2016), 12 and 56. 24 2017 Western Historical Quarterly

committed significant citation errors and relied on hearsay and gossip rather than fac- tual evidence. A Texan contained minor highlights, such as recounting how LBJ stole the Senate election of 1948 from Stevenson, but the narration remained skewed by ru- mor and Haley’s personal vendettas.140 Ultimately, the 1964 campaign represented the apex for the grassroots conservatism Haley had championed as the leader of the Jeffersonians and TFA. Despite Goldwater’s landslide defeat—the Arizona senator lost the popular vote by nearly six- teen million votes and the Electoral College fifty-two to Johnson’s four hundred eighty-six—the grassroots energy that animated his campaign sowed the seeds of a national conservative movement.141 During the election Haley transitioned from a southern Democrat to a far-right Republican, a shift mirrored by millions of other Americans as southern and western right-wingers merged to create a new Sunbelt conservative consensus.142 A few years after Goldwater’s defeat, Haley encouraged activists to consolidate “conservative strength in, and control of, one major political organization—obviously now the Republican Party.”143 Haley’s pivot from far-right Democrat to right-wing Republican exemplified the fracturing of the Democratic Party’s traditional coalition and the rise of conservative Republicanism, and Texas epitomized this mid-century party realignment. Texas held a key geographical position as the buckle connecting the western and southern Sunbelt, and the dominance of the Democratic Party reflected the state’s Old South conservative moorings. The Jeffersonian revolt in 1936 constituted the first reaction against Democratic hegemony in Texas, and Haley’s grassroots organizing in the 1950s and 1960s made him one of the leading voices favoring a conservative exodus to the Republican Party. Haley’s vitriolic anti-communism and white supremacy estranged moderate conservatives, but his anti-statist libertarianism spoke to traditional Texas right-wingers. Haley never won elected office in Texas, but his organizing strategies created constituencies attuned to the values of modern conservatism. Conservative Republicans like Alger, John Tower, and George H.W. Bush benefitted from the anti- liberal environment fostered by agitators like Haley.144 Indeed, Haley played a central role in the rejection of liberalism, which jettisoned Texas from the traditional

140 Ronnie Dugger, The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson (Old Saybrook, CT, 1982), 322–39 and Perlstein, Before the Storm, 477. 141 McGillivray, Scammon, and Cook, America at the Polls, 22–3 and Mary Brennan, Turning Right in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill, 1995), 139. For more on Goldwater’s centrality to modern conservatism, see Goldberg, Barry Goldwater; McGirr, Suburban Warriors; Perlstein, Before the Storm; and Gregory L. Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: Young Americans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (New York, 1999). 142 Crespino, “Strom Thurmond’s Sunbelt,” 61. 143 Haley, “A Texan Still Looks at Lyndon.” 144 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 51 and 113. John S. Huntington 25

Democratic nexus and established the Lone Star State as the linchpin for Sunbelt conservatism. More broadly, Haley’s ultraconservatism serves as a prism through which to exam- ine the Sunbelt’s conservative ascendance. Haley’s grassroots strategies, notably with the Jeffersonians and TFA, strengthened interconnectivity both within the Radical Right and between Republican conservatives and far-right activists, especially throughout the Sunbelt. Prominent Sunbelt right-wing organizations like the Birch Society and the Christian Crusade networked with Haley, using anti-communist conspiracy theories to vilify political enemies. Haley’s conspiracy theories, particularly regarding supposed racial and communist threats, proved too radical for moderates and delineated the difference between ultraconservatives and mainstream right-wingers. However, Haley’s libertarian anti-statism, anti-communism, and moral traditionalism aligned with the Republican Party’s Sunbelt coalition.145 The language of free market economics and individual responsibility, of which Haley was an early advocate, paved the way for Sunbelt Republican victories, highlighted by Reagan’s monumental gubernatorial victory in 1966.146 By 1976 Haley was heavily involved with the Republican Party, supporting Ronald Reagan’s political ascent and serving as a state delegate for Texas at the Republican National Convention.147 Haley stumped for the GOP in West Texas, shepherding George Wallace supporters toward Reagan’s modern conservatism.148 Haley’s conversion from conspiratorial Democrat to right-wing Republican personified the rising tide of Sunbelt conservatism and the power of grassroots populism.149 Haley never achieved electoral success or the acclaim of conservative celebrities like Schlafly or Reagan, but, as the “voice of many hatreds,” Haley’s leadership and organizing provided an outlet for disillusioned right-wingers and contributed to the shape of modern conservatism.150

145 Ibid., 78. 146 Matthew Dallek, The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics (New York, 2000), ix. 147 Roland Lindsey, “Texan Looks at Lyndon’ Author Backing Reagan,” The Monitor (McAllen, TX), 8 July 1976, Folder 14-Clippings, Misc., Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH. 148 “Names in the News,” Conservative Digest, July 1976, p. 23, Folder 14-Clippings, Misc., Sub- Series K, Series 4, JEH. 149 Dominic Sandbrook, Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right (New York, 2011), xiii. 150 Mathis, “James Evetts Haley.”