| dc.description.abstract | For almost sixty years John William -Wright Patman of Texas was a hardworking public servant. Born in 1893, raised and educated in East Texas, he served as the Cass County representative to the state legislature from 1921 to 1923. During two terms he presented bills to improve state public education as well as to institute uniform and equitable taxation. At the same time, he led an unsuccessful fight in Texas to destroy the Ku Klux Klan, which he called an "unAmerican organization." Then in 1924 he was elected District Attorney for the Fifth Judicial District in East Texas. In that capacity he earned the reputation as a fearless public defender. He also energetically enforced the Eighteenth Amendment. Thus, as a respected, capable official, he was then elevated to Congress in 1929 by Texas voters. For almost fifty years Patman was a Democratic member of the House of Representatives. From 1929 to 1941 he always seemed to be leading some controversial fight. While a junior congressman he fought unhesitantly the conservative fiscal policies of the Hoover Administration. During the early depression years he advocated some unpopular issues--increasing paper money circulation, eliminating tax loopholes, and strengthening antitrust laws. He also initiated an investigation of the cottonseed oil industry which had fallen under the control or a few large corporations. At the same time he unsuccessfully sought the full and immediate payment or adjusted compensation certificates for World War I veterans. Moreover, in 1932 he tried to impeach Secretary of the Treasury Andrew w. Mellon for malfeasance in office. But he was thwarted when Hoover appointed Mellon as Ambassador to Great Britain. When Roosevelt became President in 1933, Patman had already earned the reputation as a maverick and as a fighter for causes affecting the "common people." In behalf of farmers and laborers he backed such New Deal programs as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Commodity Credit Corporation, and the National Recovery Act. Because the nation's financial structure had collapsed during the depression, he urged that the Federal Reserve System be controlled by the government and not by "New York bankers" who constantly raised interest rates on loans. With Senator Joseph Robinson of Arkansas, he pushed through an antitrust law which prohibited price discriminations and false advertising by chain stores. But more importantly, he continued his fight for immediate payment of the adjusted compensation certificates until he finally succeeded in 1936. By this act millions of dollars were given to veterans who, because of the depression, were in dire need. This study was based on numerous sources. Of greatest importance were the personal and public papers of Wright Patman at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin, Texas. Other significant collections included the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau, Jr., papers at the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York, the Sam Rayburn Papers at the Rayburn Library in Bonham, Texas, and the Wright Patman files in the Eugene c. Barker Library at the University of Texas and the Legislative Library at the Capitol Building, Austin, Texas. Moreover, personal interviews by the author with family, friends, and associates offered additional information which could not be located elsewhere. In addition, Texas and United States government documents were indispensable for his legislative careers. Newspapers such as the Austin Statesman, Dallas Morning News, and New York Times were excellent sources. Unfortunately, newspapers from Cass and Bowie counties were rare for the years 1893 to 1929; but a few local publications such as the Paris Morning News, Jefferson Journal, Naples Monitor and Texarkana Gazette covered, but not completely, the period from 1924 to 1929. | |
