The Florida Historical Quarterly
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
COVER The Gainesville Graded and High School, completed in 1900, contained twelve classrooms, a principal’s office, and an auditorium. Located on East University Avenue, it was later named in honor of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith. Photograph from the postcard collection of Dr. Mark V. Barrow, Gainesville. The Historical Quarterly Volume LXVIII, Number April 1990 THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT 1990 by the Florida Historical Society, Tampa, Florida. The Florida Historical Quarterly (ISSN 0015-4113) is published quarterly by the Florida Historical Society, Uni- versity of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620, and is printed by E. O. Painter Printing Co., DeLeon Springs, Florida. Second-class postage paid at Tampa and DeLeon Springs, Florida. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Florida Historical Society, P. O. Box 290197, Tampa, FL 33687. THE FLORIDA HISTORICAL QUARTERLY Samuel Proctor, Editor Everett W. Caudle, Editorial Assistant EDITORIAL. ADVISORY BOARD David R. Colburn University of Florida Herbert J. Doherty University of Florida Michael V. Gannon University of Florida John K. Mahon University of Florida (Emeritus) Jerrell H. Shofner University of Central Florida Charlton W. Tebeau University of Miami (Emeritus) Correspondence concerning contributions, books for review, and all editorial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Florida Historical Quarterly, Box 14045, University Station, Gainesville, Florida 32604-2045. The Quarterly is interested in articles and documents pertaining to the history of Florida. Sources, style, footnote form, original- ity of material and interpretation, clarity of thought, and in- terest of readers are considered. All copy, including footnotes, should be double-spaced. Footnotes are to be numbered con- secutively in the text and assembled at the end of the article. Particular attention should be given to following the footnote style of the Quarterly. The author should submit an original and retain a carbon for security. Authors with access to IBM Word- star or Wordperfect programs are asked to submit both a hardcopy and a diskette. The Florida Historical Society and the Editor of the Florida Historical Quarterly accept no responsibility for statements made or opinions held by authors. The Quarterly reviews books dealing with all aspects of Florida history. Books to be reviewed should be sent to the Editor together with price and information on how they can be ordered. Table of Contents CRAMER V. KIRK: THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN SCHISM OF 1970 Billy B. Hathorn 403 THE READ-ALSTON DUEL AND POLITICS IN TERRITORIAL FLORIDA James M. Denham 427 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS: A WEST POINT GRADUATE IN THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR: WILLIAM WARREN CHAPMAN AND THE VIEW FROM FORT FOSTER Edward C. Coker and Daniel L. Schafer 447 FLORIDA LIBRARY ACQUISITIONS AND ACCESSIONS . 476 B OOK REVIEWS . 480 B OOK NOTES . 515 HISTORY NEWS ................................................................. 523 DIRECTORS MEETING ....................................................... 532 INDEX TO VOLUME LXVIII ............................................ 538 BOOK REVIEWS THE RED HILLS OF FLORIDA, 1528-1865, by Clifton Paisley reviewed by Michael G. Schene THE WILDERNESS COAST: ADVENTURES OF A GULF COAST NATURALIST, by Jack Rudloe reviewed by Jesse Earle Bowden JOHN KNIGHT: A PUBLISHER IN A TUMULTUOUS CENTURY, by Charles Whited reviewed by Paul S. George THE KING SITE: CONTINUITY AND CONTACT IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY GEORGIA, edited by Robert L. Blakely reviewed by Ann F. Ramenofsky SOLDIERS BLUE AND GRAY, by James I. Robertson, Jr. reviewed by Richard M. McMurry LIFELINE OF THE CONFEDERACY: BLOCKADE RUNNING DURING THE CIVIL WAR, by Stephen R. Wise reviewed by Howard Jones THE GUNS OF CEDAR CREEK, by Thomas A. Lewis IF IT TAKES ALL SUMMER: THE BATTLE OF SPOTSYLVANIA, by William D. Matter reviewed by Frank L. Owsley, Jr. THE GRANITE FARM LETTERS: THE CIVIL WAR CORRESPONDENCE OF EDGEWORTH AND SALLIE BIRD, edited by John Rozier reviewed by Phinizy Spalding THE PRIVATE CIVIL WAR: POPULAR THOUGHT DURING THE SECTIONAL CONFLICT, by Randall C. Jimerson reviewed by Lewis N. Wynne AFRO-AMERICAN WOMEN OF THE SOUTH AND THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE RACE, 1895-1925, by Cynthia Neverdon-Morton reviewed by Maxine D. Jones THE PARTY OF REFORM: DEMOCRATS IN THE PROGRESSIVE ERA, by David Sarasohn reviewed by Melvin I. Urofsky BELK: A CENTURY OF RETAIL LEADERSHIP, by Howard E. Covington, Jr. reviewed by Edward F. Keuchel THE NEW DEAL IN THE URBAN SOUTH, by Douglas L. Smith reviewed by Thomas S. Morgan THE PARTY OF FEAR: FROM NATIVIST MOVEMENTS TO THE NEW RIGHT IN AMERICAN HISTORY, by David H. Bennett reviewed by Roger D. Hardaway PARTING THE WATERS: AMERICA IN THE KING YEARS, 1954-63, by Taylor Branch reviewed by David R. Colburn DIVERSITIES OF GIFTS: FIELD STUDIES IN SOUTHERN RELIGION, edited by Ruel W. Tyson, Jr., James L. Peacock, and Daniel W. Patterson reviewed by Mark K. Bauman NEW DIRECTIONS IN AMERICAN INDIAN HISTORY, edited by Colin G. Callo- way reviewed by John R. Finger SOVEREIGNS AND LIBERTY: CONSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE IN AMERICAN CULTURE, by Michael Kammen reviewed by Kermit L. Hall CRAMER V. KIRK: THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN SCHISM OF 1970 by B ILLY B. H ATHORN aving languished for nearly a century as a nominal politi- H cal entity, Florida Republicans seemed poised by 1970 to establish parity, if not supplant, the Democrats as the Sunshine State’s majority party. The groundwork for such a metamor- phosis had been laid when Eisenhower and Nixon won Florida in four of the five presidential elections between 1952 and 1968. William Cato “Bill” Cramer was elected in 1954 as the state’s first twentieth-century Republican Congressman, and Claude Roy Kirk, Jr., seized the governorship twelve years later amid the internecine bickering of Democratic factions. Moreover, Ed- ward J. Gurney’s 1968 United States Senate victory was the sole statewide Republican triumph that year outside the presidential contest in the eleven ex-Confederate states. In the crucial 1970 elections, the Republicans seemed poised to re-elect Kirk and win a second Senate seat with what the New York Times termed “inexorable strength and unlimited potential.“1 But the squabbl- ing that previously crippled the Democrats now wreaked havoc on the fledgling GOP as the conflicting interests of five leading Republicans shook the party to its foundation: Congressman Cramer and his senatorial rival, former Judge G. Harrold Carswell; Governor Kirk and his primary foe, businessman Jack M. Eckerd; and Senator Gurney, whose potential soon deterior- ated to the extent that he would retire from politics after a single term. It may be argued, however, that despite the 1970 losses, the GOP could have remained competitive in Florida had Kirk not undermined Cramer’s Senate candidacy. This article examines how the Cramer-Kirk schism helped re-cement Demo- cratic hegemony and delayed the establishment of a competitive two-party system in Florida. Billy B. Hathorn is instructor of history and political science, Laredo Junior College, Laredo, TX. 1. New York Times, September 30, 1970, [403] 404 F LORIDA H ISTORICAL Q UARTERLY Cramer was born in Denver, Colorado, August 4, 1922, and moved with his parents to St. Petersburg where he would wage his first political campaigns in student government at St. Petersburg High School and Junior College. His roots were an- chored in the Protestant “work ethic”: as a teenager he sold fruit, flowers, and candy and worked as a grocery clerk and theater usher. Before entering college at the University of North Carolina, he was a bellhop at a North Carolina resort hotel. When Cramer sought public office, voters who remembered his active youth dubbed him “the orange boy.“2 After World War II service in Europe and subsequent graduation from the Har- vard Law School, Cramer was admitted to the Florida bar. He became a Republican in 1949 when statewide registration was still fourteen-to-one Democratic. Among those nudging Cramer to Republicanism was his law partner, Herman Wilson Goldner, subsequently mayor of St. Petersburg. Florida’s geographic configuration and uneven population distribution has made it more difficult for Democratic factions to persist because urbanites have been unwilling to accept domi- nation by a few party leaders. V. O. Key, Jr., described Florida elections in the years prior to the modern Republican emergence as “personality-oriented within narrow ideological boundaries.” At first, the Republicans, largely migrants from the Midwest and North, challenged Democratic control in Pinel- las County and other retiree centers. The migration of business executives and older citizens had drastically altered the partisan profile of the region. As early as 1928, Herbert Hoover helped carry Pinellas Republicans to victory in races for sheriff, judge, assessor, and state senator. In 1948, Republican Thomas E. Dewey won Pinellas, Sarasota, Palm Beach, Broward, and Orange counties, and a third of the statewide vote. Dissent against the national Democrats resumed between 1952 and 1972, though Lyndon Johnson carried both Florida and Pinellas County as part of his presidential victory. Jimmy Carter, be- 2. William Cramer, tape-recorded interview with author, Washington, DC, February 12, 1988; Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1971 (Washington, DC, 1971), 796. Besides consenting to a twenty-three-page, single-spaced, typed interview with the author, Cramer has deposited his congressional papers with the Cramer Library, University of Tampa. C R A MER V . K IRK 405 neficiary of an influx of blue-collar voters, almost won Pinellas County in 1976.3 Cramer ran for the legislature in 1950, and was campaign manager for the Pinellas Republican slate, none of whose four- teen members had previously sought office. The Republicans, decrying inefficient government and “boss-type” politics, or- ganized at the grassroots and, at Cramer’s insistence, offered a unified ticket, a procedure still followed in the county. All but one of the GOP candidates were elected. Cramer became “titular head” of the Pinellas GOP; in 1974, the State Executive Commit- tee honored him as Florida’s “Mr.