September 19, 2024

Ch 6 Tx Politics - Ep 4 LBJ's First Win v. Polk Shelton

25 minutes

Emmett Shelton (1905-2000) tells of LBJ's first political race against his brother, Polk Shelton, for Congress.
Emmett starts out with insights of LBJs college years at Southwest Texas State. LBJ was a few years behind Emmett.
When Tx Congressman Buchanan died in 1937, the Dems, with Roosevelt as president, were running with a proposal to "pack" the Supreme Court. Feelings ran high and being a trial lawyer, Emmett's brother Polk was against Roosevelt's proposal. LBJ was a Roosevelt man.
The campaign was local, flatbeds and loudspeakers - no TV no radio. Emmett had to put up land in Stonehedge Estates in Westlake Hills to pay for the end of the campaign. The Sheltons lost the race but gained a lifelong partner in LBJ.

NOTE: In 1946, Edgar Shelton Jr., (Emmett's brother) a son of George Parr's lawyer who was acquainted with Parr's associates, wrote in his University of Texas master's degree thesis about the possibility of election fraud in Texas runoffs:

"What if we had two men running for an important office such as Senator or Governor, one of them being popular but dishonest, and the other being popular and honest. Assume that the dishonest man had secured a pledge of support from the bosses of the Valley, as he probably would. If the race were close, and the honest man was ahead by only a few thousand votes with all of the returns in except from the Valley... the election could easily be 'stolen' by having the Valley counties send in just enough votes to put the dishonest man in office. Thus the will of the people of the State would be denied by less than a dozen men, all political feudal lords of the Valley. as of 1946, This has probably not yet happened."

Music: Democracy is Coming to the USA by Leonard Cohen

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Stories told by Emmett Shelton / compiled and submitted by Cynthia Shelton.

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