The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971 Page: 47
616 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Defeat of the Roosevelt Court Bill in I937
Committee met, and voted 0o-8 that the bill should not pass." Con-
nally, who voted with the majority, felt that members of the committee
now knew the President already had a chance to appoint one new
member." When the report of the Committee came out on June 14,
it was a "document without precedent in recent state papers for the
savagery of its attack on the President. . . ." It was some time before
Roosevelt forgave Connally for his part in the affair."
While Sumners and Connally were central figures in Texas' oppo-
sition to the President's court-reorganization plan, other influential
Texans in Washington opposed the scheme or were at best lukewarm
to it. At the instigation of the President, Jesse Jones went to see his
friends about the bill, but he did so only as a duty."' Nor was a ma-
jority of the Texas congressional delegation in favor of the proposal,
for they were at best apathetic. According to Congressman William
McFarland, the Democratic platform of 1936 did not appear to mean
much to them, as they seemed to feel that "their first allegiance [was]
due to their reactionary friends, under whose influence they [had]
apparently become hypnotized, and who [had] made them subser-
vient.""
In the meantime, after the battle had been raging four months, the
vice-president and his wife left for Texas on June 11-the first trip
he had ever taken while Congress was in session. Garner said that he
was going on a five or six weeks fishing trip, but there were rumors
of a split with Roosevelt which Garner, of course, denied. Yet, the
story persisted that he had staged a walk-out."' His departure crystal-
"Reorganization of the Federal Judiciary, Senate Reports, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. (Serial
10076), Report No. 711, p. 23; Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 306; New York
Times, May 19, 1937. The bill now went back to the full Senate for consideration.
"Connally and Steinberg, My Name is Tom Connally, 191.
"6Robert H. Jackson, The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy: A Study of a Crisis in
American Power Politics (New York, 1941), 193-194; Patterson, Congressional Conserva-
tism in the New Deal, 112-113; Connally and Steinberg, My Name is Tom Connally,
184; James A. Farley, Jim Farley's Story: The Roosevelt Years (New York, 1948), 82.
Quotation is from Jackson, The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy, 193-194.
S'Jesse Jones with Edward Angly, Fifty Billion Dollars: My Thirteen Years with the
R. F. C. (New York, 1951), 263.
"$McFarland to Roosevelt, September 11, 1937, President's Personal File, 4925, Roosevelt
Papers. ]
'"Timmons, Garner of Texas, 220. Garner was also upset over the labor situation and the
failure to balance the budget. See also Alsop and Catledge, "The 168 Days" (October 16,
1937), log; Garner Scrapbooks, No. 13 (Achives, University of Texas Library, Austin).
These scrapbooks are all that are left of the Garner papers, which were burned by the
vice-president's family in his backyard in Uvalde, 'Texas. Ickes said Garner had "more or
less run out." Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes, II, 151.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 74, July 1970 - April, 1971, periodical, 1971; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101200/m1/59/: accessed April 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.