Martin Dies, Sr., Martin Dies, Jr., Cactus Jack Garner, and Un-American activities.
Politically correct Americans quickly denounce racism and bigotry. Nonetheless, just as law-abiding Americans secretly love their gangsters, they also love their bigots and racists in a way, although racists and bigots have little love for them. Contrary to what some professors profess nowadays, everybody is not a racist or bigot; yet we may be certain that every human being has at one time or another hated outsiders and loved insiders. Concrete physical characteristics and abstract religious preferences are superficial markers that identify aliens; when the religious and racial markers are confused, other sorts of flags are raised to identify friend and foe.
Naturally liberal thinkers recognize that people are shaped by their physical and cultural environment, therefore they hesitate to condemn people and are inclined to propose changes in the environment instead of the death penalty. People can and do change, and might even go from one extreme to another when they are converted, say, to a salvation religion, to being a non-smoker, a cop, a psychologist, a monogamist, a Red-baiter. In politics, take, for instance, Ronald Reagan: he was a bleeding-heart liberal until he put himself in the hands of a socialite wife and General Electric, then he became the most right-wing president since McKinley was assassinated in 1901.
So there is always hope for radical reform. Everybody is a liberal to the extent he or she wants to be liberated. Some of us want to be liberated from racism and bigotry, and some don't. Those who do want to be liberated have noticed that no matter how much tolerance they have for diversity, intolerant people have none for them. In fact, once in power, intolerant people will do their best to impose their partial view on the whole society; that is the basis of totalitarianism: forcefully substituting a part for the whole. For instance, at some critical juncture a xenophobic bigot ("by-godder") in political office might abuse his power by setting himself up as God's prophet and high priest, as judge and jury, to publicly expose, defame, scapegoat, discredit, pillory, besmirch, blackmail and ruin the lives of people he calls un-American, Reds, communists, Jews, socialists, atheists, subversives, terrorists, unpatriotic, traitors, seditious, and so on, on the basis of groundless charges, unsubstantiated reports, fallacious logic, gossip and rumors. And he will do so without allowing the accused confront his witness, testify on his own behalf, or refuse to incriminate himself without being cited for contempt or declared guilty for exercising his civil rights.
Therefore welcome to the old House Un-American Activities Committee. One of its foremost targets, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said of the Committee, "It is sordid - flagrantly unfair - and un-American." The founding father of the Committee was Martin Dies, Jr. He has almost been forgotten since McCarthy stole the un-American floodlights. Was Martin Dies some sort of fiend? When we examine his Texas milieu, we begin to understand better who he was and to sympathize with him. His roots were in parochial Texas, in a sort of hillbilly country that has produced many of our heroes and villains. It is easy for liberally minded people to call Martin Dies and his Texas supporters bigots and racists; on the other hand, we might ask how we would feel if we were a group going about our business in say, South Africa, and Martin's clans showed up to mine gold and diamonds and take over our capitol, then called us racists and bigots for objecting.
Beginning in 1930 Martin Dies represented the Second Congressional District of Texas. The district consisted of eleven counties in the Pine Belt of East Texas, a hilly region with a lumber industry that had enjoyed a brief spell of prosperity until the industry exploited the land, leaving it eroded, scarred, and blackened, a valueless area strewn with stumps behind which poor hill-people of relatively undiluted Anglo-Saxon stock took cover for their feuding - at one point the Texas Rangers had to relocate an entire klan to keep the peace. Timber barons controlled the pine district. Most of the native Texans worked in sawmills and did their best to eke out a living from the barren soil. Descendents of early Texas settlers, they were profoundly religious and suspicious. They deeply resented the outsiders coming in to work the oil wells. The oil workers were being organized by the C.I.O., presenting a political threat to the hillbillies, cutting into their numerical superiority. In 1930, the district's population was around 300,000, of which roughly one percent were foreign-born. Of course the latter were suspected of being union agitators or worse. In 1936, Dies' district had around 166,000 eligible voters, but only 65,000 paid a poll tax, and 29,304 of them were residents of Jefferson County where the C.I.O. was strong among the refinery workers. 70,000 Negroes throughout the district were automatically barred from voting by the whites-only primary and the poll tax. Hence the narrow margin held by the small towns of the pine country was in danger of soon being wiped out by further influx of oil workers.
Martin Dies' home was Orange, Texas, a town of 8,000 in Orange County. Martin was a believer in "like father like son", wherefore he followed in the footsteps of his father, Martin, Senior, who had served as U.S. Congressman during Wilson's two administrations. Senior was born in Louisiana in 1870 and raised in Texas. He took a job as a printer's devil and eventually became a newspaper editor. He took up the practice of law in 1892 and was elected county judge of Tyler County, Texas in 1894. In 1898 he became district attorney for the First Judicial Circuit of Texas. He served in the U.S. Congress from 1901 to 1919. His son Martin, Junior, born in Texas in 1901, was brought to Washington where he attended Custer Springs Military Academy and National University.
The son was like father, perhaps with fingers bigger than his father’s thighs. In 1909 he opposed the Payne tariff bill in the grounds that it discriminated against the South, saying it was what the country expected from the Republican Party; if the Republicans wanted the respect of the West and South, they would have to repeal "odious sectional tariff laws", and "make haste to declare for white man's domination of this Government and integrity of the Caucasian race." Senior was a patriot who believed patriotism and intelligence was essential to citizenship in a self-governing nations, therefore he feared illiterate immigrants would undermine the government - they were a danger to "this one remaining Republic on the face of God's earth", therefore a "quarantine" should be imposed to protect the country against their illiteracy as "against the bubonic plague."
Senior pled for "a revival of the old time religions of Democracy." He was opposed to militarism and to planting the flag in foreign countries to "lord it over inferior people." He spoke out against getting involved in the Great War, but when the time came he voted for declaration of war against Germany and for the draft. He called himself a Progressive, and rightly so in respect to his attitude that both the selfish rich and the ignorant poor endangered the Republic. On the other hand, he said, "There have been no new lessons in free government since the Constitution was written." Furthermore, "Human nature is just now what it always has been and probably will remain so until the end of time." In his farewell speech: "That we are departing rapidly from all the spirit and traditions of this republic is apparent to every man with any iota of sense... I only wish, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the Congress, that we might have a return to the spirit of democracy and republicanism."
Senior believed that government should keep its nose out of business. He said that a written constitution and an independent judiciary were indispensable to sound government and the protection of minorities. As for women, they should not have the vote and should do what nature has assigned to them as homemakers and child-bearers. He argued that politics would be too much of a burden on women; besides, women are inclined, as the Socialist Party knew only too well, to socialism, and nothing could be worse for the Republic than socialism. Furthermore, hordes of ignorant Negro women would vote. A staunch anti-conservationist, he believed the natural resources, the parks, preserves and reservations should be turned over to the people for development. Finally, keeping "like father like son" in mind, we should consider that Martin Dies, Sr. did not cotton to special investigating committee; he was personally convinced that Congress was "pure" and "incorrupt" and "honest", hence investigating committees were "not worth a penny" and cost the Government millions. As for the rest of government, he said its abuses had become universal and respectable, and that anyone who spoke out honestly about them like he did would wind up "in a bad odor," hence men who wanted publicity would have to pursue a dishonest course.
After the family returned from Washington, Junior followed in his father's footsteps, worked as an elocution teacher, then took up the practice of law, which he had studied back East. His practice grew modestly - Gulf Oil Company's retainers were helpful. Already well known because of his father's reputation, he decided to run for Congress in 1930. He stumped the stump-strewn timberland, waving the flag, shouting "America for Americans!" and shaking hands. He discovered an effective ploy or Mother Love strategy to win family-oriented people's votes. His parents had recently separated and a newspaper blurb appeared on the subject. Martin proceeded to defend his mother, winning the hearts of many votes. Suddenly a statement criticizing his father appeared, and he defended him too. His seat in congress was assured. After Martin took his seat in Congress, he indicated he was quite pleased with his $10,000 salary, since he was only making $1,200 per annum back home. He demanded a seat on the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, where he sponsored bills for the deportation of aliens and restriction of immigration in order to stymie the alienation of his Texas constituency. And he got into the pork-barrel business right away on behalf of the oil, utility, and construction interests.
“Cactus Jack Garner” of Texas took "boy" Martin under his wing. John Nance Garner was born in a log cabin and became the most powerful vice-president in U.S. history. He was an old-line Democrat with a Progressive Era background. He started out as a lawyer in Texas, took a newspaper as a legal fee and became its editor. That led to his appointment to the Uvalde County bench, and on to serve two terms in the Texas House of Representatives, and beyond to the U.S. House from 1903-1932 - he was elected Speaker in '31. Cactus Jack was a master of cloakroom maneuvering; he applied whiskey and persuasion to "strike a blow for liberty." Garner was the favorite-son presidential candidate of Texas in 1932; he released his Texas and California delegates to Roosevelt, giving the nomination to FDR, whom he served as Vice President during the 1932 and 1936 terms. He was Roosevelt’s New Deal liaison with Congress; absent Cactus Jack's maneuverings among his congressional friends, there would have been no New Deal. But Garner thought Roosevelt was getting "too liberal." He took umbrage with the President's favorable position towards labor on the sit-down strikes in 1936, and the last straw was his furious argument with the President in 1937 over his plan to stack the Supreme Court. Cactus Jack then became a "backstabber", "conniver-in-chief", arch-conservative, New Deal hater.
Martin Dies had certainly found great patron in Cactus Jack, for he got Martin onto the powerful Rules Committee; Martin joined his Southern colleagues there and bottled-up the wage-hour bill in 1937. That struggle against unionized materialism gained him national publicity. He was the first member of the House to denounce the sit-down strikes. And of course he introduced a resolution to investigate the C.I.O.; he knew very well that, if the C.I.O. got a few more votes, he was out his Washington job; his motion was shot down, 236 to 150. Thereafter Martin consulted Cactus Jack, drew up a resolution for a special committee to investigate un-American activities, and managed to get $25,000 appropriated for it. He soon got all the publicity he longed for, as 85% of the American press at the time was opposed to the New Deal. They were about to get quite a showing against "liberals" from Martin Dies, in the name of the one and only god; to wit: the Christian god.
# #
|
