Texas Politics in Transition The Old Order Segregation Plessy v Ferguson 1896 the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation arguing that separate but equal train cars and other facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment s equal protection clause Democratic Dominance Political control by white Democrats was secured through the Poll Tax and White Primary Loose Factionalism Demagogues As long as I honor the memory of the Confederate dead respect and revere the gallant devotion of my Confederate father to our Southland and wear his name I will never vote for the electors of a Party which sent the carpetbagger and the scalawag to the prostrate South with saber and sword to crush the white civilization on the earth Sam Rayburn D TX speaking at The New Deal Coalition The South The New Deal The South had been the bedrock of the Democratic Party since the 1860s Regional solidarity ability to block legislation that might affect the region s social political and economic status quo Democratic ascendency and southern control of key congressional committees The New Deal Banking Holliday Civilian Conservation Corps Tennessee Valley Authority Rural electrification Works Programs Agricultural Adjustment Act Social Security Act 1935 New Deal partisan loyalty reinforced for rural Texans Emergence of recognizably conservative and liberal factions within the Texas Democratic Party Roosevelt VP Cactus Jack Garner South Texas Jefes In the Hispanic counties of South Texas votes were typically controlled by local bosses Often bosses would pay poll taxes and then transport people to the polls Archie Parr the Duke of Duval Texas in Transition 45 4 urban in 1940 62 7 in 1950 Urbanization destabilized traditional political culture Economics Growth of hispanic population Breakdown of Traditional Loyalties The Texas Regulars 1944 The Dixiecrat Revolt 1948 Truman Dewey Thurmond 1948 Eisenhower Stevenson 1952 Democratic supremacy persists although its original base has shrunk to minor significance In 1940 only one Texan in seven was a Negro White Texans unlike white Mississippians have little cause to be obsessed about the Negro The Lone Star State is concerned about money and how to make it about oil and sulfur and gas about cattle and dust storms and irrigation about cotton and banking and Mexicans