|
MUMBLINGS January 19, 2006
Governor’s races in Alabama are always interesting, some
more than others.
Recently Bob Ingram, one of the best-versed writers on the political
scene in this state, recently wrote about the gubernatorial elections
from 1950 to 2002. Living in Montgomery, he has been active on
the political scene or an observer for a long time. In this newspaper
and several others throughout the state he reminisced about these
elections since 1950, a total of 14 elections. Being less astute
than Bob on the political scene, never-the-less I have been active
in several of these, or a close observer in all of them. Being
older, I can go back three more elections, including 1938, 1942,
and 1946.
Arriving in Baldwin County in 1936, I was selected by Frank Dixon
to serve with Judge G.W. Robertson and Dr. W. C. “Buddy”
Holmes to head his campaign in Baldwin in 1938. No doubt my selection
was because of the recommendation of Robertson and Holmes and
they more or less made me do most of the footwork.
The candidates were Dixon and Chauncey Sparks. Dixon was an attorney
and war hero from Birmingham. He was a bitter opponent of Governor
Bibb Graves, who had defeated him in 1934. Having gone through
a rough campaign four years previously, Dixon was a knowledgeable
politician, and taught me some of the interesting points of politics.
The main issue was “bibbies”, under Graves’
administration. The legislature passed a one-cent sales tax for
education and had tokens, each worth one mill that were used to
pay the tax as purchases were made. As you can imagine, not only
the one-cent tax but also the “bibbies” as Dixon had
coined the name after Bibb Graves, were quite a nuisance. I toured
the county with the candidate and he ate lunch with my wife, Evelyn
and me in a $12.00 a month furnished apartment on Railroad Street.
We fed him fried chicken.
Dixon won by a good margin and gave me the privilege of making
most of his appointments in Baldwin. The main thing he had accomplished
was taking the state employees out of politics. He passed the
Civil Service Act, putting the state workers under a personnel
board. If you can imagine the scrambling every four years of the
state employees in which the new governor would fire old employees
right and left and would insert his own political friends. As
a pilot, Dixon was shot down in France and lost one of his legs.
He was a popular war veteran.
In 1942, we were in the midst of World War II, and twice elected
Governor Bibb Graves was very popular and was running for his
third term. We believed that he was going to win, not only because
of his popularity but because people thought they needed an experienced
governor during the war period.
Once again I was selected as campaign manager for Baldwin County
along with Judge Robertson and Dr. Holmes. Two of the main opponents
were State Senator Chauncy Sparks and Chris Sherlock, who had
been highway director.
Sparks, considered very conservative, was not given much chance
in the election. But a strange thing happened. Chris Sherlock
had jumped in the campaign stating that he would be a standby
in case something happened to Graves during the campaign, he would
take over. Well, he miscalculated because many of Graves people
resented him doing this.
Graves did die and instead of his campaign committee going over
to Sherlock we all went over to Chauncy Sparks, who was elected
handily. Much to the surprise of many people, Sparks made a good
governor and was a big promoter of education. He made Senator
Robin Swift of Atmore, Highway Director who would only take it
if E.N. Rodgers became his assistant. Rodgers was serving as Baldwin
County’s engineer.
Click here to continue
|
