Texas Grows and Votes

November 1, 1948

DALLAS—Inside the American boom Texas has a super-boom. Inside the Texas super-boom is the Houston super-duper-boom. It has been on for a long time. A town of less than 2,400 population in 1850, and 385,000 in 1940, Houston claims 495,000 today. Since 1939 the number of its manufacturing plants has almost doubled and its industrial employment has more than trebled. Such growth is no flash in the pan. It is Manifest Destiny.

There are many reasons for the incredible prosperity and industrial expansion of Texas. The chief one is oil. This one state produces more than 44 percent of the nation’s whole output of crude oil. It holds 55 percent of the nation’s entire proven oil reserves. In fact, the Texas oil rush of 1948 is reminiscent of the California gold rush of 1849. The state seems crowded with millionaires who were broke a few years ago and then struck oil. One hears of a dozen men worth more than $50,000,000 each, of half a dozen more worth more than $100,000,000 each.

But such estimates, true or false, give a distorted overall picture. There are more than 100,000 oil wells in Texas, and new ones are being drilled at a rate of 10,000 a year. But thousands of these turn out to be dry holes. As in a lottery, one is apt to hear only about the winners. One hears little about the huge misdirection and waste of capital and labor in the quests for oil that fail. Yet more than four out of every five of the wildcat wells drilled in Texas turn out to be dry. It is significant that the big companies are content to leave the gamble of exploration work largely to wildcatters and independents, and to buy the wells or fields after they have been proven.

But oil is only part of the Texas story. The state has a record cotton crop at high prices. It has been selling its cattle for record prices. It is the fastest growing center for chemical industries. It is a chief beneficiary of the decentralization of industry and of the new defense program. Everything seems to be working for Texas.

Politically the state is boiling. The Democrats are deeply and bitterly split. To the division between conservatives, States’ Righters, and New Dealers has been added the feud between the supporters of former Gov. Coke Stevenson and of Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson that arose from the Senatorial primary race. In the run-off Johnson ran ahead of Stevenson by only 87 votes out of a total of 988,295. The vote turned in from some of “the valley” counties was deeply suspicious. Stevenson supporters have charged fraudulent voting and counting. Johnson and his lieutenants have opposed investigation. Stevenson himself, on the issue of honest elections, has thrown his support to the Republican Senatorial candidate, Jack Porter.

Some political experts believe that the total vote in the Texas Senatorial race will be bigger than in the Presidential, and that Porter may run ahead of Dewey and Warren. Johnson, however, is expected to win. A serious question may then arise whether the Senate will seat him. If the new Senate majority is Republican, or even more if the Republicans need a majority of one to organize, then it is believed that Johnson’s right to a Senate seat will be challenged. So the Texas Senatorial imbroglio could have a decisive national consequence.

That Dewey can capture the Texas electoral vote is regarded by most observers as at best an outside possibility. The range of most guesses is that Truman will get between 50 and 60 percent of the popular vote, Dewey between 25 and 35 percent, Thurmond around 10 percent, and Wallace 3 to 5 percent. Even this, however, would be a remarkable Republican showing for Texas, and a still more remarkable anti-Democratic showing. For the first time on record prominent Texas newspapers, such as The Houston Chronicle, The Houston Post, and The Dallas News, have come out for the Republican ticket. Texas voters by the thousands are publicly and defiantly stripping off their life-long Democratic brass collars. One permanent result of the present revolt may be to make Texas a two-party state.