A
group of right-wing members of the Democratic
Party began
plotting against President Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
In 1944 they joined together to form the Texas Regulars. Members included
Wilbert Lee O'Daniel,
Martin
Dies, Eugene B. Germany and Hugh
R. Cullen.
Supported by Texas oilmen, the group were also opposed to the fixed
prices of oil and gas imposed by Roosevelt's government during the
Second World War. They also campaigned against
the New Deal, civil
rights and pro-trade union legislation.
The group disbanded in 1945 after they failed to remove Roosevelt
as the leader of their party.
Former
members of the Texas Regulars were also opposed
to Harry S. Truman and his Fair Deal proposals
that included legislation on civil rights, fair employment practices,
opposition to lynching
and
improvements in existing public welfare laws. When Truman won the
nomination in 1948, these men joined the States' Rights Democratic
Party (Dixiecrats) and Storm
Thurmond was
chosen as its presidential candidate. It
was thought that with two former Democrats, Thurmond and Henry
Wallace standing, Truman would have difficulty defeating the Republican
Party candidate, Thomas Dewey. However,
both Thurmond and Wallace did badly and Truman defeated Dewey by 24,105,812
votes to 21,970,065.
These right-wingers continued
to be active in politics after Harry
S. Truman became
president. In
1952 Hugh
R. Cullen,
Sid
Richardson and Clint Murchison
gave
their support to Dwight D. Eisenhower
and the Republican Party. His main
political concern was in the preservation of the oil
depletion allowance. He was therefore pleased by Eisenhower's
decision to employ
Robert Anderson (the former president
of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association) as Secretary of
the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury. In this post Anderson introduced
legislation beneficial to the oil industry.
This group were also great
supporters of Joseph McCarthy. In 1952
Hugh R. Cullen, Jesse
H. Jones, and Clint Murchison all
provided funds for McCarthy. As Murchison pointed out in 1954: "We
all made money fast. We were interested in nothing else. Then this
communist business suddenly burst upon us. Were we going to lose what
we had gained?"
Some former members of
the Texas Regulars were also involved in the Suite
8F Group, a collection of right-wing political and businessmen. The
name comes from the room in the Lamar Hotel in Houston where they
held their meetings. Members of the group included George
Brown and Herman Brown (Brown &
Root), Jesse H. Jones (multi-millionaire
investor in a large number of organizations and chairman of the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation), Gus Wortham (American
General Insurance Company), James Abercrombie
(Cameron Iron Works), Hugh R. Cullen
(Quintana Petroleum), William Hobby (Governor
of Texas and owner of the Houston
Post),
William Vinson (Great Southern Life Insurance),
James Elkins (American General Insurance
and Pure Oil Pipe Line), Albert Thomas
(chairman of the House Appropriations Committee), Lyndon
B. Johnson
(Majority Leader of the Senate) and John
Connally (Governor of Texas). Alvin Wirtz
and Edward Clark, were two lawyers who
were also members of the Suite 8F Group.
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