Texas Tangle

As governor of Texas, tall (6 ft. 2 in.), dark & handsome Allan Shivers has been widely regarded as an efficient administrator, but not as a fighter. "Allan has no affection for lost causes," says one of his friends. "He likes to win." Manager of one of Texas' richest private agricultural empires, the John H. Shary Enterprises, built up by his father-in-law, Shivers is a natural spokesman of anti-Truman Texas farmers and cattlemen, but he has squirmed uneasily at the possibility that he might have to lead his party in actual revolt against the national ticket. To stiffen Shivers' backbone. South Carolina's Jimmy Byrnes took him under his wing last year, arranged Shivers' election as chairman of the Southern Governors' Conference.

Last week the pupil was outdoing the old master. Adlai Stevenson's refusal to back up Texas claims to tidelands oil (TIME, Sept. 1) has given Shivers a fighting anti-Administration issue which Byrnes lacks in his home state. Shivers is making the most of it. When he announced that he wouldn't vote for Stevenson in November, Texans poured letters in on him at the rate of 1,000 a day, backed him up by an 8-1 margin. Attorney General Price Daniel, now running for the U.S. senatorial seat to be vacated by Tom Connally, also joined the revolt.

Shivers and Daniel had not actually joined the Republicans, but the Republicans joined them. Oilman Jack Porter, who led the fight against Taft's Texas steamroller in the Chicago convention, last week persuaded the Republican state convention to support the full slate of Democratic nominees for state offices. Porter thinks that Eisenhower will have a better chance of carrying Texas if Democrats are not drawn to the polls by state contests.

The next move may be for the Shivers Democrats also to nominate Eisenhower and Nixon. This cross-filing was provided by a special bill passed in the Texas legislature two years ago, popularly known even then as the "Ike bill." Shivers did not resist the loyalty pledge at Chicago which sought to guarantee the nominees of the national party a place on state tickets. They can be on the ballot under some such heading as "Federal Democrat"; Eisenhower and Nixon could be the 'nominees on a "Texas Democrat" slate.

The Shivers-Daniels defection brought swift reaction from Democratic loyalists. Speaker of the "House Sam Rayburn announced that he was going to stump the state for Stevenson as did U.S. Senator Lyndon Johnson.

However, if Ike's name appears on a "Texas Democrat" as well as the Republican ticket, he will be hard to beat in Texas.

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