Bootstrap Liberalism: Texas Political Culture in the Age of FDR by Sean P. Cunningham

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bootstrap Liberalism: Texas Political Culture in the Age of FDR by Sean P. Cunningham Keith Volanto Bootstrap Liberalism: Texas Political Culture in the Age of FDR. By Sean P. Cunningham. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2022. Pp. 328. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) While researching the New Deal’s Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) many years ago, I was intrigued by the extent to which so many traditionally conservative Texas politicians enthusiastically supported Franklin Roosevelt and his domestic agenda. One of these representatives, Marvin Jones of Amarillo, defended the plan to use a system of government subsidies to help the nation’s farmers from critics accusing the administration of promoting dangerous collectivism. While he supported individual liberty as much as the next American, Jones said, he believed the times dictated an interventionist approach by the federal government to facilitate what he termed an “ordered liberty.” I was so struck by the phrase that I used it as the title of the dissertation I was then researching. In this fine book on Texas political culture during the Roosevelt years, Sean P. Cunningham cites Jones’s use of the same phrase while describing the support that the New Deal received from Jones and similar fiscally conservative Democrats from the Lone Star State. [End Page 405] Cunningham also covers FDR’s backing from dedicated liberals such as Maury Maverick, Wright Patman, and Lyndon Johnson, as well as the rabid opposition of hard right-wingers such as the Jeffersonian Democrats and Texas Regulars who, while ineffective at the time, set the stage for future anti-liberal activism. The author’s main focus, however, is clearly on those Texas politicians (and voters) who were conservative at heart but threw their support solidly behind the president. Using a chronological approach, Cunningham analyzes the speeches, writings, and correspondence of such political leaders as Jones, James Buchanan, and George Mahon in order to answer the general question of why most of the state’s politicians and voters embraced the interventionist New Deal so strongly, concluding that a combination of strong messaging coupled with pragmatic economic policies ensured FDR’s loyal following in Texas. Pro-New Deal rhetoric frequently called for Democratic unity in the state, along with consistent portrayals of the rival Republican Party as the tool of Wall Street whose irresponsible policies led to the economic ruin of the country. With respect to the unprecedented interventions of the New Deal, such actions were depicted as necessary, commonsense corrections to the mess that the GOP had created to restore the foundations of the American economy and freedom for the “forgotten man” (for Whites primarily, as the New Deal did not challenge the racial status quo in Texas, yet another reason why FDR maintained the level of support that he enjoyed among most White Texas voters.) Cunningham’s title phrase, “bootstrap liberalism,” explains how most Depression-Era Texans reconciled their traditional beliefs with support for the New Deal. While still buying into the virtue of rugged individualism and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, most Texas Democrats nevertheless realized by the early 1930s that they needed government help to set things right from the Depression that had either broken their bootstraps or taken them away entirely. Rather than being revolutionary, the New Deal would restore life following the proper Jeffersonian American vision in which Texans were raised. Such rhetoric resonated strongly with the Texas public (who supported FDR with at least 71 percent of the vote in his four presidential runs) not to mention so many of the state’s politicians who rode Roosevelt’s coattails into office through their unabashed support for him. This book is recommended for anyone interested in Texas New Deal-era political history, serving as a good complement to Norman Brown’s recently published Biscuits, the Dole, and Nodding Donkeys (University of Texas Press, 2019), which covers state-level politics during these same crucial years. [End Page 406] Keith Volanto Collin College Copyright © 2022 The Texas State Historical Association