“THE VOICE OF MANY HATREDS:” J. EVETTS

HALEY AND TEXAS ULTRACONSERVATISM

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON

As an ultraconservative activist and occasional political candidate inTexas, J. Evetts Haley registered few electoral victories. However, his far-right crusades revealed nationwide right-wing discontent within theDemocratic Party and delineated the anti-statist contours of ultraconser-vatism from the 1930s through the 1960s. Haley’s combination of whitesupremacy, conspiracy theories, anti-statist populism, and rugged individ-ualism reflected the extremities of agrarianism, Cold War anti-communism, and Old Right conservatism. Put simply, Haley constitutedan explanatory link bridging anti–New Deal ultraconservatism and themid-century conservative movement; in addition, he represented a pointof convergence between Sunbelt reactionaries and mainstream conserva-tism. In 1936 Haley chaired the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, a statechapter of a national organization that sought to defeat Roosevelt by sup-porting Republican Alf Landon, despite the predominance of the TexasDemocratic Party. The Jeffersonian’s failure forecast the electoral ineffi-cacy—but grassroots appeal—of mid-century far-right conservatism.During the 1950s Haley fomented fringe movements through his guber-natorial candidacy and the ultraconservative group Texans For America(TFA), but his hardline platforms restricted the success of both. Haley’stime with TFA elicited his most fruitful activism, but his attacks againstLyndon Johnson in 1964 cemented Haley as a national far-right icon.

During the 1956 Texas gubernatorial elec-tion, Democratic candidate J. Evetts Haley connected the populist anti-statism ofWest Texas with the segregationism of East Texas. Indeed, he advocated a fierce

JOHN S. HUNTINGTON earned his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2016 and now worksas a dual credit instructor for Langham Creek High School in Houston, Texas. He would like to thankNancy Beck Young, Sean P. Cunningham, Leandra R. Zarnow, the Western Historical Quarterlyeditorial staff, and the anonymous reviewers.

The Western Historical Quarterly 0 (2017): 1–25. doi: 10.1093/whq/whx105VC The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Western History Association.

All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

traditionalism, which combined the folksy charm of cowboy caricatures with therhetoric of anti-communism and white supremacy. Nevertheless, two CIO union organ-izers approached to ask his opinion on organized labor. Haley, a cattle rancher and prom-inent figure of the Texas far-right, responded, “I believe that you have the same right toorganize that anybody else has, big business or little. I believe you have a right to quitwork whenever you want to.” This answer contained the essence of right-to-work busi-ness conservatism, but Haley also worried about union organizers spoiling his cowpunch-ers. “If on my ranch a bunch of my hands quit and you fellows come up there trying tointerfere with the people I then hire to flank a bunch of yearlings on my land, I’ll meetyou at the fence with a .32,” Haley threatened, “and, if necessary, I’ll draw a bead on youand rim a shell and leave you lying on the fence line.” Demonstrating his fiery indepen-dence, Haley growled, “And if that isn’t plain enough, I’ll make it plainer.”1

As an ultraconservative activist and occasional political candidate, Haley regis-tered few electoral victories, but his far-right crusades revealed nationwide right-wingdiscontent within the Democratic Party and delineated the anti-statist contours ofultraconservatism from the 1930s through the 1960s. Haley constituted an explanatorylink bridging anti-New Deal ultraconservatism and the mid-century conservativemovement, and his grassroots activism provided a point of convergence for mainstreamconservatives and Sunbelt reactionaries. For example, Haley aligned with the ideals ofSenator John Tower (R-TX), a modern conservative who lauded the ideals of individ-ual liberty, anti-communism, and limited government; however, Haley also identifiedwith the anti-statist libertarianism of the Sunbelt West and the ardent segregationismof the Sunbelt South, embodied by Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and SenatorStrom Thurmond’s (R-SC), respectively.2 Haley’s combination of white supremacy,conspiracism, anti-statist populism, and rugged individualism reflected the extremitiesof southern agrarianism, western anti-statism, and Cold War anti-communism.3 Theseviews led the journalist Jim Mathis to define Haley as the “voice of many hatreds,” andpolitical analysts Rowland Evans and Robert Novak described him as an “extremeright-winger even by Texas standards.”4

1 Lynn Landrum, “Thinking Out Loud,” Dallas Morning News, 8 June 1956.

2 Sean P. Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism: Texas and the Rise of the Modern Right (Lexington,KY, 2010), 34 and 60; Robert Alan Goldberg, Barry Goldwater (New Haven, 1995), 139 and 150; andJoseph Crespino, Strom Thurmond’s America: A History (New York, 2012), 172.

3 Sean P. Cunningham, “The Political Culture of West Texas,” in West Texas: A History of theGiant Side of the State, ed. Paul H. Carlson and Bruce A. Glasrud (Norman, 2014), 171–2;Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 10; George Hawley, Right-Wing Critics of American Conservatism(Lawrence, 2016), 24 and 34; Paul V. Murphy, The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians andAmerican Conservative Thought (Chapel Hill, 2001), 14; and George Nash, The Conservative IntellectualMovement in America Since 1945 (New York, 1976), 76.

4 Jim Mathis, “James Evetts Haley: The Voice of Many Hatreds,” Houston Post, 12 October1964, Folder-Political Correspondence 1964, Wallet-Correspondence Clippings and CampaignMaterial 1964, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, J. Evetts Haley Collection, Nita Stewart HaleyMemorial Library, Midland, TX (hereafter JEH Collection); Rowland Evans and Robert Novak,

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In 1936 Haley chaired the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, a state chapter of anational organization that sought to defeat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt bysupporting the Republican Alf Landon, despite the predominance of the TexasDemocratic Party. The Jeffersonians’ failure harbingered the electoral inefficacy, butgrassroots appeal, of mid-century far-right conservatism. During the 1950s Haleyfomented fringe movements through his gubernatorial candidacy and through TexansFor America (TFA), though Haley’s hardline platforms restricted the success of both.5

Haley’s time with TFA elicited his most fruitful activism, but his 1964 attacks againstPresident Lyndon B. Johnson’s liberalism, particularly LBJ’s civil rights advocacy,cemented Haley as a national far-right icon.6 Haley’s organizational leadership andideological arguments helped shape the emergent mid-century conservative move-ment by crystallizing the grassroots networks between Sunbelt right-wingers and main-stream conservatives.7

The foundations of modern conservatism, and Haley’s own ideologies, can betraced back to the 1920s and 1930s with the budding business conservative movement,right-wing anti-statism, and the potency of anti-communism.8 Old Guard conservativepoliticians, like Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), disparaged Roosevelt’s New Deal, de-fining liberty as economic opportunity rather than security.9 Haley agreed with Taft’swariness of federal growth and the libertarian, free market ideals of economists likeFriedrich Hayek, but Haley exceeded mainstream political boundaries by alleging thatliberal sabotage was “bankrupting the nation to forward the plans of Communists and

“GOP Basing Coming Campaign On Books Written in Texas?,” The Daily Oklahoman, 30 July 1964,Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated,Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

5 Sean P. Cunningham referred to Haley as a “seminal figure of the Texas postwar far right,” buthe described the far-right’s electoral efforts as a “miserable failure” in “The Paranoid Style and ItsLimits: The Power, Influence, and Failure of the Postwar Texas Far Right,” in The Texas Right: TheRadical Roots of Lone Star Conservatism, ed. David O’Donald Cullen and Kyle G. Wilkison (CollegeStation, 2014), 111 and 113–5. Ultraconservatives like Haley indeed struggled to win elections, but Iargue that their influence goes beyond electoral valuations because of their grassroots organizingstrategies.

6 Cunningham, “The Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 111.

7 Johnathan Schoenwald, A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism (NewYork, 2001), 5–6 and 10 and Keith Volanto, “The Far Right in Texas Politics During the RooseveltEra,” in The Texas Right, ed. Cullen and Wilkison, 77.

8 For recent books emphasizing the conflicts between New Deal liberalism, anti-communism,and business conservatism, see Kim Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands: The Making of the ConservativeMovement from the New Deal to Reagan (New York, 2009) and Kathryn Olmsted, Right Out ofCalifornia: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism (New York, 2015).

9 Clarence E. Wunderlin, Robert A. Taft: Ideas, Tradition, and Party in U.S. Foreign Policy(Lanham, MD, 2005), 25–6. Chad Pearson illustrated that Taft’s exhortation of “economicopportunity” continued the earlier open shop movement in Reform or Repression: Organizing America’sAnti-Union Movement (Philadelphia, 2015).

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Socialists.”10 The fledgling business conservative movement—a national campaign bybusinessmen to retrench government regulations, welfare programs, and the influenceof labor—harnessed fears of subversion to demonize liberalism.11 For example, large-scale farmers in California worried that Roosevelt’s New Deal would empower workersand undermine traditional race relations, so they undercut labor organizing through vi-olence and anti-communist fearmongering.12 Haley shared this anti-communist, anti-labor vision with western growers, as evidenced by his threats against the CIO union-ists, but he also consociated with southern agrarians, like author and social criticDonald Davidson, by arguing for states’ rights as a bulwark against federal power andthe erosion of white supremacy.13 As historian Kathryn Olmsted observes, “The newconservatives [of the 1930s] often connected the economic changes they deploredwith the cultural changes they feared.”14

The onset of the Cold War and the entrenchment of liberalism in the 1940s and1950s intensified Haley’s activism, further attaching Haley to the burgeoning conser-vative movement. In the post–World War II era, the Sunbelt experienced tremendoussuburbanization and affluence as federal defense contracts poured money into the re-gion, which led Sunbelt voters to embrace modern conservative values, like free mar-ket ideals and “bootstrap” politics.15 Haley argued that conservatives rejectedliberalism because welfare “tears down the natural pride of the people by keeping themfrom helping themselves.”16 The business conservative movement flourished throughorganizations and intellectuals—such as the Mont Pelerin Society, the AmericanEnterprise Association, the writer-philosopher Ayn Rand, and the economist MiltonFriedman—who rejected liberalism and sought to “revive an age of laissez-faire.”17

10 Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free Markets Since the Great Depression(Cambridge, MA, 2012), 12–3 and 55–6; Wunderlin, Robert A. Taft, 3; and J. Evetts Haley,“Jeffersonian Democrats Declare Stand They Will Make In Coming Presidential Election,” undated,Folder-Haley, J. Evetts, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

11 Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, xi–xii.

12 Olmsted, Right Out of California, 3.

13 Murphy, Rebuke of History, 93.

14 Olmsted, Right Out of California, 4.

15 Richard M. Bernard and Bradley R. Rice, eds., Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth Since WorldWar II (Austin, 1983), 20; Sean P. Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt: ConservativeGrowth in a Battleground Region (Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2014), 11–2; Lisa McGirr, SuburbanWarriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, 2001), 18; Michelle Nickerson andDarren Dochuk, eds., Sunbelt Rising: The Politics of Space, Place, and Region, (Philadelphia, 2011), 5;and Bethany Moreton, To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise(Cambridge, MA, 2009), 2–3.

16 Radio Address from Station WOAI in San Antonio Texas, 20 July 1956, p. 6, Folder-Speeches and Material, Box 4, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection.

17 Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, ix, 10, and 43–4; Jason Stahl, Right Moves: The ConservativeThink Tank in American Political Culture since 1945 (Chapel Hill, 2016), 3; and Jennifer Burns, Goddessof the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (New York, 2009), 2–4.

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The rise of fundamentalist evangelicalism, first evident in the 1920s, and of resistanceto the nascent civil rights movement energized Sunbelt conservatives, magnifyingHaley’s advocacy for the “sanctity of the church” and the “supremacy of the whiterace.”18 Most importantly, the anti-communism that fueled New Deal antagonismsevolved into a Cold War political bludgeon, ranging from patriotic litmus tests toHaley’s accusatory conspiracies of “creeping communism in disguise.”19 RepresentativeMartin Dies (D-TX), chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee(HUAC) in the early 1940s, used anti-communism as a vehicle to fight liberalism, atactic later expanded by Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) during the early 1950s tovilify political opponents.20 As Cold War anxieties fueled hardline and moderate con-servatism, far-right activists wielded an admixture of conspiracy theories, anti-communism, and grassroots strategies to wrench American politics rightward.21

The Radical Right, including Haley, emerged within the opposition to liberalism,but this national network of ultraconservative agitators existed both within and out-side of mainstream conservatism. Modern conservatism manifested through libertarianfears of federal encroachment, an adherence to social traditionalism, a rejection of cul-tural relativism, and evangelical anti-communism. Two central issues separated ultra-conservatives from their mainstream counterparts: a belief in a vast communistconspiracy and a black-or-white view dividing U.S. politics into a false binary of con-servatism and communism.22 Historian Jonathan Schoenwald noted that far-rightgroups, like the John Birch Society and Haley’s TFA, tapped into lingering discontent

18 Allan J. Lichtman, White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement(New York, 2008), 10; Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America InventedChristian America (New York, 2015), xiv; Darren Dochuk, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-FolkReligion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York, 2011), xx; GeorgeLewis, Massive Resistance: The White Response to the Civil Rights Movement (London, 2006), 20; and J.Evetts Haley, “Rabble-Rousers at the University—Red as Red and Still Boasted ‘Democrats,”undated, p. 1, Folder-JD MSS Unpublished, Wallet 22, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

19 J. Evetts Haley, “Americanism—and the Cowman’s Part,” Speech Transcript, 10 January1955, Program of the 58th Convention of the American National Cattlemen’s Association, Folder-10January 1955, Sub-Series F, Series 4, JEH Collection. For more on Cold War anti-communism, seeRichard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism (New York, 1995);Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (Princeton, 1998); and Landon R. Y.Storrs, The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left (Princeton, 2013).

20 Nancy Beck Young, Why We Fight: Congress and the Politics of World War II (Lawrence, 2013),197–204 and Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes, 369.

21 Julian E. Zelizer, Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security—From World War II tothe War on Terrorism (New York, 2010), 105.

22 Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of theRepublican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party (New York, 2012), 25–6 and Nash, ConservativeIntellectual Movement, xv. For more on conspiracism in American politics see Robert Alan Goldberg,Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (New Haven, 2001) and KathrynOlmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (New York,2009).

John S. Huntington 5

and “helped develop a conservative movement culture” through grassroots activismand conspiratorial worldviews.23 Haley embodied the intersections between ultracon-servatives and the modern conservative movement because his ideologies—commu-nist conspiracy theories, anti-statism, and white supremacy—typified far-rightconservatism and appealed to right-wing voters, and his political activism and grass-roots organizing illustrated the successes and limits of far-right politics.

Haley’s upbringing on the isolated plains of West Texas molded his ultraconserva-tive political ideals and social traditionalism. Born in Belton, Texas, on July 5, 1901,to John A. and Julia E. Haley, Evetts was raised in a politically active household andhe credited his parents for his conservative, traditionalist inclinations.24 Haley’s familytree was drenched in Anglo-Texas tradition; many of his ancestors fought for Texasduring the Texas Revolution and joined the Confederacy during the Civil War.25 TheHaley family quickly traded the rolling hills of Belton for the parched climate of WestTexas’s Llano Estacado, an area that produced, according to one scholar, a “self-suffi-cient, lonely, suspicious citizenry, slow to change.”26 Haley cherished the traditional-ism of the plains, claiming that he was “bogged deeper in its traditions, and moredevoted to its ideals, than to all else besides.”27 This politically-charged upbringing inarid West Texas imbued Haley with a belief in rugged individualism, an adherence towhite supremacist traditions, and an overarching right-wing bent.

During his formative years, Haley made a name for himself regionally as a cattlerancher and historian of the Great Plains. He spent summers developing his cowboyskills by working on his family’s land near the Pecos River and on the legendary LongS Ranch.28 Under pressure from his mother, Haley quit the cowpunching lifestyle topursue higher education, eventually graduating from the University of Texas in 1926with a master’s degree in history.29 Haley spent the 1920s and 1930s polishing hispromising writing career, which coincided with the first red scare and a surge in anti-communist anxieties.30 Additionally, business progressivism—an economic philosophythat valued “public service and efficiency” over state-funded social programs—and the

23 Schoenwald, Time for Choosing, 9.

24 William Curry Holden, “J. Evetts Haley, The Man,” Article, undated, p. 4–5, Folder 8-JEHThe Man, Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH Collection.

25 B. Byron Price, “J. Evetts Haley: Southwestern Historian,” Article, Folder 4-JEH: A CharacterStudy, Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH Collection.

26 George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938–1957(Norman, 1979), 7.

27 J. Evetts Haley, “Crystal Gazing in the Dust Bowl,” undated, p. 1, Folder-JD MSSUnpublished, Wallet 22, Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

28 Bill Modisett, J. Evetts Haley: A True Texas Legend (Midland, TX, 1996), 31 and 34.

29 J. Evetts Haley, “A Survey of Texas Cattle Drives to the North, 1877–1895” (master’s thesis,University of Texas, 1926).

30 Haley wrote numerous histories about the western frontier, including the seminal work onCharles Goodnight, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman (Norman, 1949).

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Figure 1. “A young J. Evetts Haley posing with the day’s haul after hunting on theDiamond A Ranch in Sierra County, New Mexico.” Prints and PhotographCollection, di_02307 (Courtesy The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History,University of Texas at Austin.)

John S. Huntington 7

racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan dominated Texas politics during Haley’s formativeyears.31 This socio-political environment fueled Haley’s ultraconservatism.

When Roosevelt enacted the New Deal to fight the Great Depression in 1933,Haley helped stoke a conservative backlash by characterizing FDR’s liberalism as ex-treme government overreach that threatened to erode the traditional tenets ofAmerican society. On August 7, 1936, delegates from twenty-two states, includingHaley, met in Detroit to air grievances against FDR’s administration. This group, theNational Jeffersonian Democrats, hailed mostly from midwestern and southern statesand sought to refashion the Democratic Party in a conservative image by defeatingRoosevelt’s 1936 re-election bid.32 Led by the former senator James O. Reed (D-MO),the organization promoted an idealized version of American democracy that down-played socio-economic strife and accentuated individual freedom and states’ rights.The Jeffersonians launched conspiratorial accusations, arguing that FDR sought to“[replace] the doctrines of Democracy with the tenets and teachings of a blended com-munism and socialism.”33 The National Jeffersonians’ blend of anti-liberalism and con-spiratorial anti-communism filtered down to the organization’s state branches,including the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas (JDT).

Haley led the Texas Jeffersonians as the primary organizer and propagandist,which amplified his far-right, anti-liberal zeal. The Houston-based judge W. P.Hamblen wrote a declaration for the Texas Jeffersonians: “We re-assert our belief inthe Constitution, in the rights of the States, and in the Jeffersonian principles.Believing thus, we must condemn the Roosevelt administration.”34 What set theJeffersonians apart from other Texas right-wingers was a desire to remove FDR fromthe national Democratic ticket and a willingness to paint liberalism as a cog in a grandcommunist conspiracy.35 As the chief propagandist, Haley criticized New Deal welfarespending, prevaricated about communist subversion and voter manipulation, andwarned that liberalism would distort Texas’s white supremacist traditions.36 In oneJeffersonian pamphlet Haley asserted, “[The] breakdown of color lines and mixture ofthe races, black, white, and tan, is one of the cardinal principles of Red philosophy.Already the initial steps have been carefully taken by leading lights of the New

31 Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921–1928 (CollegeStation, 1984), 6–7.

32 Turner Catledge, “Bolters Assemble to Map Campaign to Beat President,” New York Times, 7August 1936 and Summary of Detroit Jeffersonian Democrat Conference, 8 August 1936, p. 1, Folder-Haley, J. Evetts, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

33 Summary of Detroit Jeffersonian Democrat Conference, 8 August 1936, p. 1.

34 W. P. Hamblen to the Editor of The Cherokeean, Letter, 8 August 1936, Folder 3, Wallet 1,Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

35 Ibid.

36 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74–7.

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Deal.”37 Haley’s white supremacist values inflamed his disdain toward liberal programs.He argued that federal relief only supported “an army of shiftless negroes and aliens atthe expense of all of us,” even though farm workers, many of whom were black orHispanic, were excluded from New Deal benefits.38 Haley’s fear-mongering appealedto the Jeffersonian’s roughly “five thousand active members, primarily disgruntled con-servative lawyers, big businessmen, and large ranchers and landowners.”39 Despite thismodest membership, Haley used the Jeffersonian apparatus to build a far-right move-ment, portraying liberalism as a communist threat to the established socio-politicalmores of southern society.

The Texas Jeffersonians established a statewide apparatus and Haley relied ongrassroots activism to propel his anti-Roosevelt campaign. Haley created mailing andfundraising lists by urging fellow Jeffersonians to provide contact information for like-minded individuals. Thousands of Texans supported the Jeffersonian cause throughmodest donations, usually between one and ten dollars.40 Yet the organization’s appealremained limited because FDR’s subsidies were popular, especially among Texas farm-ers, which further bolstered Texans’ Democratic loyalties.41 More succinctly, an articlein Lubbock, Texas’s Morning Avalanche compared contributing to the Jeffersonians to“pouring sand in a rat hole.”42 Nevertheless, Haley used Jeffersonian funds to distributeanti–New Deal literature across Texas. The organization circulated its self-publishednewspaper, the Jeffersonian Democrat, in every county and made dubious claims thatprint runs exceeded one million.43 As historian Keith Volanto notes, “Readers whopicked up the Jeffersonian Democrat and found no problem with the views expressed, orexcitedly experienced a ‘Give ‘Em Hell!’ moment, were safely in the ultraconservativecamp.”44 The Jeffersonians also advertised in over three hundred weekly newspapers

37 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 237 and Robert Wuthnow, Rough Country: How TexasBecame America’s Most Powerful Bible Belt State (Princeton, 2014), 33.

38 J. Evetts Haley, “The New Deal and the Negro Vote,” Pamphlet, 1936, p. 4, Wallet 20, Box3, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

39 J. Evetts Haley, “Labor and the New Deal,” undated, p. 2, Folder-Advertising #2, Wallet 11,Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection and Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action WasWhite: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York, 2005), 55–7.

40 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74.

41 J. Evetts Haley to L. R. Atkins, Letter, 15 October 1936, Folder 1, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection and Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 74–5.

42 Cunningham, “The Political Culture of West Texas,” 174 and Keith J. Volanto, Texas,Cotton, and the New Deal (College Station, 2005), 143–4.

43 “A Hopeless Undertaking,” Morning Avalanche (Lubbock, TX), 26 August 1936, Wallet 14,Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

44 E. Paul Jones, “Anti-New Dealers Plan Campaigns Will Organize Campaigns Covering EntireState of Texas,” Article, October 1936, Folder-Advertising Rates, Wallet 10, Box 2, Sub-Series A,Series 3, JEH Collection and J. Evetts Haley to E. Lee Tucker, Letter, 22 September 1936, Folder 1,Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

John S. Huntington 9

and at least sixty dailies, with one such advertisement declaring that the South-oriented Democratic Party had “passed completely away” because FDR’s administra-tion was “flouting the Constitution” and “wooing the Negro vote.”45 Despite tappinginto Texas’s white supremacist, anti-statist traditions, the Jeffersonians failed to re-move Roosevelt from the Democratic ticket because of the Democratic Party’s tradi-tional dominance and FDR’s popularity.46

Supplanting Roosevelt proved impossible, so the Texas Jeffersonians abandoned theDemocratic Party to promote the candidacy of Landon, the Republican governor ofKansas. Coordinating with the Republicans represented a pivot from the traditionalDemocratic moorings of southern society toward the pro-business libertarianism emergingin the western Sunbelt.47 Haley disseminated encouraging form letters to fellowJeffersonians predicting a Landon victory: “We are making splendid progress in our move-ment. The Literary Digest poll indicates that Roosevelt will be defeated, and this hasnever failed to be correct.”48 The office manager of the Houston JDT chapter, Fannie B.Campbell, wrote to Haley, “I can barely keep my enthusiasm down as the days go by andhundreds of phone calls come in in answer to our various literature we are sending out. Ifeel so confident at present that we are going to win out.”49 The Jeffersonians deludedthemselves into believing that Landon had a chance for victory in solidly DemocraticTexas, but Haley’s segregationist rhetoric strained the uneasy alliance.

The Republicans, especially Landon, needed to court voters, but the white suprem-acist values of the Jeffersonians alienated African Americans, a key part of the tradi-tional Republican constituency.50 “The South stands at the cross-roads of destiny,”Haley declared in one inflammatory pamphlet, “Is it to continue to be a ‘white man’scountry,’ or is it to be sunk to the cultural level of the negro, and have the purity of itsblood corrupted with mulatto strains?”51 Landon’s campaign refused to embrace race-baiting rhetoric to win southern votes—for example, the Houston GOP branch de-clined to distribute issues of the Jeffersonian Democrat because of Haley’s racially charged

45 Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 76.

46 Prospective Advertisement for the Jeffersonian Democrats of Texas, undated, Folder-Advertising #2, Wallet 11, Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

47 Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 19–20; Ricky Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans: AllanShivers and Texas Two-Party Politics (College Station, 2005), 3; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics,6–7; and Volanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 69.

48 Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “Sunbelt Boosterism: Industrial Recruitment, EconomicDevelopment, and Growth Politics in the Developing Sunbelt,” in Sunbelt Rising, ed. Nickerson andDochuk, 34–9.

49 J. Evetts Haley to R. F. Evans, Letter, 1 October 1936, Folder 1, Wallet 1, Box 1, Sub-SeriesA, Series 3, JEH Collection.

50 Fannie B. Campbell to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 24 September 1936, Folder-Harris Co. Club,Wallet 31, Box 5, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

51 Robert Mason, The Republican Party and American Politics from Hoover to Reagan (New York,2012), 65.

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language—a refusal that illustrated the limitations of Jeffersonian activism.52 Roosevelt’sresounding victory in 1936—he received an astounding 87 percent of the popular votein Texas—underscored the difficulties of building a winning coalition through theTexas GOP.53 The Texas Jeffersonians shuttered their Austin headquarters as quickly asthe wind dissipated from Landon’s sails, but Haley’s closing letter to Hamblen summa-rized the Jeffersonians’ self-perception: “This has been a campaign by patriots.”54

Though Haley and the Jeffersonian Democrats failed to defeat Roosevelt’s secondpresidential bid, the revolt highlighted the right-wing rejection of Democratic liberalismand foreshadowed the ascent of modern conservatism. Texas played a key role in thispolitical shift because of the Democratic Party’s traditional dominance and the state’sgeographic function as a Lone Star buckle connecting the southern and westernSunbelt.55 Haley’s activism in 1936 portended and helped initiate the mid-century con-servative exodus from the Democratic Party, while the Jeffersonians’ grassroots strate-gies, especially their mass-mailing techniques, appeared in future conservativecampaigns.56 The gubernatorial victory of noted red-baiter and segregationist W. Lee“Pappy” O’Daniel in 1938 and the 1944 campaign of the reactionary Texas Regulars, agroup of hardline conservative Democrats, evinced the internecine schisms within theDemocratic Party and the rightward tilt of Texas politics.57 On a national scale, thethird-party Dixiecrat Revolt during the 1948 presidential election revealed right-wingdisenchantment with the Democratic Party and harbingered the South’s politicalrealignment.58 Haley went back to managing ranches after the Jeffersonians crumbled,but his brief political sabbatical ended when the Republican Party put his name on thecongressional ballot in 1948.59

52 Haley, “New Deal and the Negro Vote,” p. 3, JEH.

53 Fred Moore to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 9 October 1936, Folder-Harris Co. Club, Wallet 31,Box 4, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

54 Alice V. McGillivray, Richard M. Scammon, and Rhodes Cook, America at the Polls, 1960–2004: John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush (Washington, D.C., 2005), 19.

55 J. Evetts Haley to W. P. Hamblen, Letter, 2 November 1936, Folder-Committee, Wallet 11,Box 2, Sub-Series A, Series 3, JEH Collection.

56 Edward H. Miller referred to Dallas as the Sunbelt’s buckle in Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallasand the Birth of the Southern Strategy (Chicago, 2015), 8 and Cunningham, American Politics in thePostwar Sunbelt, 24–6.

57 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 115–20; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 198; andVolanto, “Far Right in Texas Politics,” 77 and 84.

58 Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 25–6; Robert Dallek, Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnsonand His Times, 1908–1960, vol. 1 (New York, 1991), 260–4; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 49–57; Samuel K. Tullock, “He, Being Dead, Yet Speaketh,’ J. Frank Norris and the Texas ReligiousRight at Midcentury” in The Texas Right, ed. Cullen and Wilkison, 61; Volanto, “Far Right in TexasPolitics,” 78–9.

59 Kari Frederickson, The Dixiecrat Revolt and the End of the Solid South, 1932–1968 (Chapel Hill,2001), 5–9.

John S. Huntington 11

As the Dixiecrats made national headlines by storming out of the 1948Democratic National Convention, Texas Republicans attempted to capitalize on thegrowing discontent with liberalism in the Democratic Party. The Texas GOP hoped toconvince Haley to run for Texas’s eighteenth congressional district by putting hisname on the ballot. Haley declined to campaign for himself, but he agreed to leave hisname on the ballot to oppose the “socialist practices” of the national DemocraticParty.60 The election represented another opportunity to denounce liberalism, andone issue in 1948 troubled Haley above all others: the vote tampering that aidedJohnson’s controversial victory over Coke Stevenson in the Democratic senatorial pri-mary. Haley decried Johnson’s primary triumph as illegitimate because, as historianRobert Dallek noted, “tainted means had played a significant part in giving Lyndonhis victory.”61

Rather than worrying about his own nomination, Haley joined other right-wingDemocrats, including Stevenson, and stumped for Houston-based oil executive JackPorter, a former Jeffersonian Democrat running for Senate under the Republicanbanner.62 Porter was a staunch conservative, but Haley and Stevenson cared moreabout defeating Johnson, the liberal Democratic nominee. Johnson’s support for fede-ral programs, plus some help from ballot manipulation in South Texas counties, hadbested Stevenson’s anti-statist conservatism in the Democratic Primary.63 The elec-toral returns were not kind to the Texas GOP. Haley lost the congressional election ina landslide to incumbent Eugene Worley (D-TX), hardly a surprise given Haley’s re-fusal to campaign and the traditional weakness of the Republican Party in Texas.Johnson’s victory over Porter—702,985 votes to 349,665—reinforced the lesson of theJeffersonian revolt: conservatives had failed to excise liberalism from the DemocraticParty and struggled to build a successful coalition within the Texas GOP.64 However,the losses masked the fact that western Sunbelt conservatives were gaining politicalstrength as postwar affluence and metropolitanization intensified the region’s anti-statist and anti-communist traditions, while the Dixiecrat Revolt simultaneously sig-naled a broader resistance to liberalism across the Sunbelt South.65 The electoraldefeats in 1948, combined with the rise of Sunbelt conservatism, spurred Haley’sefforts to redeem Democratic conservatism.

60 Modisett, J. Evetts Haley, 93.

61 “Porter-GOP Rally Attended by Sixty,” Amarillo Daily News, 6 October 1948.

62 Modisett, J. Evetts Haley, 62 and Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 348.

63 The Amarillo Globe-Times, Advertisement, 11 October 1948 and “Porter, Stassen ShareSpotlight,” Amarillo Daily News, 15 October 1948.

64 Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 307 and 347–8.

65 William Graf and Ralph R. Roberts, Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election ofNovember 2, 1948 (Washington, D.C., 1949), 41 and Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 5 and 24–8.

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Haley returned to the Democratic fold in 1956 by mounting a gubernatorial cam-paign based on the southern traditions of segregation and white supremacy. His reap-pearance coincided with the decline of Governor Allan Shivers’s grip on theDemocratic Party. Shivers, whom Haley had campaigned for in 1954, decided not torun for a fourth term amid criticisms of his scandal-ridden administration.66 The 1956Texas gubernatorial election represented a watershed moment as liberal Democrats,newly empowered by the sagging Shivers administration, battled with the conservativeDemocratic forces that dominated Texas politics. Multiple politicians were vying forthe Democratic nomination: Price Daniel, representing moderate conservatives;Ralph Yarborough, running as a liberal, party-loyalist Democrat; and the former gover-nor Pappy O’Daniel, clinging to his folksy segregationism.67 Haley’s entrance furthercrowded the already congested primary, and he faced an uphill battle because helacked statewide name recognition and his rhetoric resembled that of Shivers. Despitehis history of activism, Haley portrayed himself as a political outsider and used his cow-boy persona to solidify his conservative bona fides; Haley’s campaign slogan,“Qualified-Honest-Fearless,” accentuated his identity as a straight-shootingcattleman.68

Harkening back to his days in the Jeffersonian Democrats, Haley utilized raciallycharged, conspiratorial language to combat liberalism and perceived federal encroach-ment. Haley argued that the doctrine of interposition—the idea that the TenthAmendment empowered states to nullify federal action—buttressed southern segrega-tion. Interposition became a hallmark of the far-right in the Sunbelt South because, ashistorian Ricky Dobbs observed, it “elevated arguments against integration from theshameful muck of sectional racism.”69 Despite advocating interposition, Haley thrivedin the muck. “I am for [the use of interposition] to stop this mixing, by coercion andimmoral force, of white and Negro children in public schools, with its consequent de-struction of our race and our way of life,” Haley declared in one inflammatorypamphlet.70 This racially charged language connected Haley’s campaign to the“massive resistance” movement that permeated the South during the 1950s. In re-sponse to the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and the ensu-ing push for integration, southern politicians developed “massive resistance” by

66 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 40–3 and Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt,7–9.

67 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 115–20 and 130; Allan Shivers to J. Evetts Haley, Letter,15 July 1954, Folder-Election 1954, Wallet-Texas For America Form Letters, Box 3, Sub-Series B,Series 3, JEH Collection.

68 Patrick L. Cox and Edward M. Kennedy, Ralph W. Yarborough: The People’s Senator (Austin,2002), xvi–xvii.

69 J. Evetts Haley Campaign Postcard, undated, Folder-Haley Clippings, Box 4, Sub-Series C,Series 3, JEH Collection.

70 Lewis, Massive Resistance, 62 and Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 127.

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harmonizing the conspiratorial anti-communism of the Cold War with segregationistrhetoric.71 For example, Governor Herman Talmage of Georgia stumped against thedual threats of integration and communism, while over one hundred congressmensigned the “Southern Manifesto,” a bold defense of segregation and states’ rightspenned by Thurmond and Richard Russell, to protest the perceived tyranny of integra-tion.72 Haley’s ideological connections to “massive resistance” illustrated his combina-tion of Deep South segregationism and West Texas anti-statism, and interpositionreflected Haley’s effort to appeal to anti-liberal voters that favored states’ rights overcivil rights.

The sectional support for segregation in Texas and Haley’s relative anonymityconstituted his two greatest electoral hurdles, so Haley employed grassroots strategiesto promote his candidacy and build a constituency. Haley barnstormed all over Texas,participating in local events like the Stamford Cowboy Reunion and the SidewalkCattleman’s Association parade in Madisonville.73 He stumped in major metropolitanareas like Houston and Dallas, which led to the creation of local Haley for GovernorClubs.74 Throughout the campaign Haley played up his cowboy charm. In one legend-ary story, Haley stopped at a stoplight, handed the driver next to him some campaignliterature, and said, “I’m Evetts Haley. I’m running for Governor. Hope you will readthis. If you disagree with me, then by gosh just vote against me.”75 When Haley’s oper-ation arrived in Dallas, the conservative local journalist Lynn Landrum wrote, “Haleywas in town Wednesday night and gave something like 300 people every chance inthe world to cross him off their list—and they whooped and clapped and ate up justabout every word he said.”76 Haley adopted Jeffersonian tactics, particularly local ac-tivism and mass-mailer fundraising, to expand his outreach. Contributions to Haley’soperation ranged from one dollar to five hundred dollars, but the vast majority of thedonations were small, indicating that establishment benefactors, namely the oil

71 J. Evetts Haley, “States Rights—The Issue! Announcement for Governor of Texas,”Pamphlet, 29 February 1956, Folder-Pamphlets, Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEHCollection.

72 George Lewis, The White South and the Red Menace: Segregationists, Anticommunism, andMassive Resistance, 1945–1965 (Gainesville, FL, 2004), 40 and 47, and Jeff Woods, Black Struggle, RedScare: Segregation and Anti-Communism in the South, 1948–1968 (Baton Rouge, 2004), 5.

73 Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton,2005), 23–4 and Lewis, Massive Resistance, 33–5 and 65–7.

74 J. Evetts Haley for Governor Headquarters to Scott Syler, Letter, 27 June 1956, Folder-Rallies, Wallet 7, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection and Panhandle Committee Haley forGovernor to Gib Gilchrist, Letter, 4 June 1956, Folder-Rallies, Wallet 7, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series3, JEH Collection.

75 The Houston and Dallas metropolitan areas teemed with ultraconservative activity and werecritical for the evolution of conservative Republicanism. For more see Miller, Nut Country, 5–6 andBill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, Dallas, 1963 (New York, 2013), 3–6.

76 Richard M. Morehead, “Evetts Haley: No Pussyfooter,” Dallas Morning News, 8 April 1956.

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industry, spurned Haley’s campaign.77 Instead, Haley’s far-right conservatism appealedto tens of thousands of Texans disillusioned with the direction of the DemocraticParty and, in general, U.S. society. Haley’s sectional constituency embraced segrega-tionism and conspiratorial anti-communism, fretting about “the destruction of thewhite race,” “red-tinged judicial tyranny,” and “the conspiracy to change our form ofgov’t.”78 Enthusiasts extolled Haley as a “man of strong convictions” and, perhapsmost importantly, a “true conservative.”79 Not everyone agreed: one Texan calledHaley’s defense of segregation “farcical” and “un-American.”80 Nevertheless, Haley’scampaign tapped into white anxieties regarding desegregation and the widespread un-dercurrent of anti-statism in Texas politics, and he successfully linked—at leastaccording to his supporters—federal tyranny and communism to liberalism.

Despite Haley’s grassroots success, white supremacy proved to have only sectionalappeal in the Lone Star State, and Haley lacked the fundraising capabilities and noto-riety of the other Democratic candidates.81 O’Daniel, in particular, siphoned potentialvotes away from Haley because he boasted similar race-baiting rhetoric. When thevotes were tallied, moderate conservative Daniel won a plurality of 629,000 votes, lib-eral Democrat Yarborough received 463,400, O’Daniel received 347,750, and Haleyplaced fourth with just 88,800 votes.82 Most of Haley’s support came from the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the site of Haley’s most active headquarters, and from his ownbackyard, the parched plains of West Texas.83 East Texas voters split between theother three major candidates, even though Haley’s white supremacy seemed tailor-made to appeal to white anxieties in the racially diverse region.84 Haley also receivedpaltry support along the Mexican border and in San Antonio, which suggested that

77 Landrum, “Thinking Out Loud.”

78 Campaign Financial Report, 18 July 1956, Wallet 3, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEHCollection and Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, 18.

79 J. B. McMillan to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 9 June 1956, Folder-N (Nacogdoches, Navarro,Nueces), Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection; J. B. McMillan to J. Evetts Haley,Letter, 23 June 1956, Folder-N (Nacogdoches, Navarro, Nueces), Wallet 6, Box 2, Sub-Series C,Series 3, JEH Collection, and Mary Bosworth to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 29 March 1956, Folder-H-A-M, Wallet 4, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection.

80 Mary Bosworth to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 29 March 1956, Folder-Hs A-M, Wallet 4, Box 1,Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection, and Dan Smoot to J. C. Phillips, Letter, 13 May 1956, FolderD, Wallet 2, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection.

81 Robert C. Leathers to J. Evetts Haley, Letter, 12 March 1956, Folder D, Wallet 2, Box 1, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection.

82 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 175.

83 Ibid.

84 Haley advertised heavily in East Texas, especially Fort Worth, Dallas, and Houston. Amarillowas Haley’s only West Texas headquarters, and he had no official presence near the Texas-Mexicoborder; Campaign Financial Report, 18 July 1956, JEH Collection.

John S. Huntington 15

areas with higher percentages of Mexican Americans rejected his segregationistmessage.85

The 1956 gubernatorial campaign marked the end of overtly racist campaigns inTexas, truly the end of an era.86 Indeed, Haley’s defeat underscored the broader limita-tions of segregationist rhetoric: the 1948 Dixiecrat Revolt failed to create inroads inTexas, and mainstream politicians eschewed the acerbic rhetoric of segregationismand moved toward moderate conservatism, or, at the very least, more subtle racial poli-tics, in the late 1950s.87 Racial politics continued to play a role in Texas—during the1956 election both Democrat Daniel and Republican Bruce Alger wielded the lan-guage of states’ rights—but Texans were drifting away from overt racism, a hallmark ofDeep South politics, and shifting toward the dog-whistle rhetoric of modern con-servatism.88 This transition explained the limited appeal of Haley’s platforms.Regardless, Haley’s crusade demonstrated that far-right voters remained a significantoutspoken minority in Texas politics; and, as Mathis observed, Haley’s gubernatorialcampaign “catapulted him into the leadership of their fights.”89 Haley built a constitu-ency attuned to the language of states’ rights and anti-communism, and his earlierefforts with the Jeffersonian Democrats and 1948 congressional candidacy created con-nections with Republican conservatives. Haley never again campaigned for office, buthe augmented his right-wing leadership by cultivating grassroots action through thegroup For America.

Following the election in 1956, Haley poured his energy into the ultraconserva-tive organization For America and its state affiliate, Texans For America. For Americawas founded on June 1, 1954, just weeks after the Supreme Court rendered the Brownv. Board of Education decision. Clarence Manion—former chair of theIntergovernmental Relations Committee under Eisenhower before turning to far-rightradio broadcasting—co-chaired For America with General Robert E. Wood. Wood, anOld Guard conservative and chair of Sears Roebuck, was later replaced by Dallas-based ultraconservative publisher Dan Smoot.90 Manion sought to combat an“inexorable rising peril” by rooting For America in ultraconservative principles likestrict constitutionalism, Americanism, free enterprise, and conspiratorial anti-

85 Historian David Cunningham noted a correlation between interracial economic competitionand racism in Klansville, U.S.A.: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan (New York,2012), 101.

86 Texas Almanac, 1958–1959 (Dallas, 1957), 461–3; Cunningham, Cowboy Conservatism, 5 and9; and John T. “Jack” Becker, “The Texas Panhandle,” in West Texas, ed. Carlson and Glasrud, 37.

87 Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190.

88 Frederickson, Dixiecrat Revolt, 188; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 112; and Miller, NutCountry, 8–9 and 81.

89 Dobbs, Yellow Dogs and Republicans, 4, 46, and 135; Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190;and Lewis, Massive Resistance, 69.

90 Nicole Hemmer, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation ofAmerican Politics (Philadelphia, 2016), 133.

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communism.91 TFA’s platforms mirrored those of the national organization; as theTFA state chair, Haley fought for issues of “individual liberties and sound government”and warned about the power of “socialists and communists. . . to divide and conquer.”92

The ultimate goal for Haley and TFA was to promote far-right ideals with the intentof transforming one of the major political parties—the focus eventually became theGOP—into a bastion of conservatism.

The mass mailing campaigns of TFA’s Committees of Correspondence repre-sented the bulk of the organization’s grassroots action in the Lone Star State. Many ofthe letter writers recruited by Haley and by Kara Hart, who was a fellow conspiracytheorist and chair of TFA’s Committees of Correspondence, saw the specter of social-ism around every corner, especially concerning federal economic regulations.93 Thecommittees targeted conservative anxieties, ranging from dread about communist in-filtration to fears of integration and increased taxation. For example, Haley allegedthat Governor Daniel’s plan to increase teachers’ salaries, which TFA derisively calledthe “teacher tenure” bill, was a clandestine scheme to increase taxes.94 TFA’s commit-tees responded by writing hundreds of letters criticizing the bill and urging Daniel toslash the budget instead.95 The debate over teacher salaries raged for two years, butDaniel’s teacher pay bill passed in 1961 despite far-right acrimony.96 The committees’activism extended beyond Texas and into the realm of foreign affairs. Hart thoughtSoviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s proposed visit to Washington constituted an“abject surrender to the communist conception of co-existence,” and she sent instruc-tions to the letter writers: “Register your opposition.”97 Additionally, Hart urged TFAmembers to write in support of the Connally Amendment—a legislative reservationthat prevented the United Nations (UN) from theoretically claiming jurisdiction overU.S. courts—because it “assured some protection from this communist-atheistic

91 Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus(New York, 2001), 10–1 and “For America,” Conference of National Policy Committee, 19 March1955, Folder-For America, Box 3, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEH Collection.

92 “Summary of Proceedings at a Meeting of Certain Members of the For America Policy andFinance Committees,” 23 May 1955, Folder-For America, Box 3, Sub-Series C, Series 3, JEHCollection and J. Evetts Haley, “Special Report to the Committees of Correspondence,” 1 October1959, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection.

93 References to communist subversion permeated the committee of correspondence documents,but, unfortunately, I was unable to locate an official roster of letter writers.

94 Daniel’s economic platform called for tax increases, particularly on oil and natural gasbusinesses; “Daniel Asks Aid of Schoolteachers,” Dallas Morning News, 23 March 1959.

95 Allen Duckworth, “Writers to Papers Organize,” Dallas Morning News, 3 December 1959.

96 Jimmy Banks, “Teacher Pay Bill Passed by House, Sent to Governor,” Dallas Morning News,8 August 1961.

97 Kara Hart, TFA Newsletter, undated, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 2, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection.

John S. Huntington 17

monster [the United Nations].”98 This anti-UN stance aligned TFA with other far-right groups that denigrated the UN as a communist front, such as the TexasMinutewomen and the John Birch Society.99 TFA’s Committees of Correspondencewere crucial for building the grassroots coalition that Haley envisioned would trans-form conservatism in Texas by pressuring politicians to address right-wing concerns.Furthermore, the mass-mailer campaigns highlighted TFA’s conspiratorial ultraconser-vatism, and Haley’s ability to cultivate a politically engaged constituency illustratedhis maturation as a far-right leader.

Haley recognized that, in order to influence the broader conservative movement,TFA needed to coordinate with other far-right leaders and organizations, like BillyJames Hargis’s Christian Crusade and Robert W. Welch’s John Birch Society (JBS).TFA teamed up with Hargis to fight the Forand Bill, formally titled the “SocialSecurity Amendments of 1958,” which tried to extend Social Security hospital insur-ance benefits to elderly citizens.100 Haley decried the Forand Bill as “communizingmedical treatment,” while Hargis prevaricated that “left-wingers” devised the legisla-tion to implement “a fully socialized medical system in America.”101 Ultimately, theForand Bill failed to pass the House Ways and Means Committee; Secretary of HealthArthur S. Flemming argued that the legislation neglected Social Security’s prob-lems.102 Haley and TFA also targeted liberalism by accusing Supreme Court JusticeEarl Warren of “usurping” power through civil rights cases. A TFA petition demandingthe impeachment of the entire Supreme Court contained around twelve thousand sig-natures by January 1959.103 The signature count by no means indicated an ultraconser-vative mandate, but TFA’s anti-Warren campaign provided a grassroots foundation forthe Birch Society’s quixotic fight against the Supreme Court in 1961.104 By

98 Kara Hart, “The Connally Reservation Again Under Attack—It Must Be Retained,” undated,Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection and TFANewsletter, 20 January 1960, Folder-Committees of Correspondence, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3,JEH Collection.

99 Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics, 125–8 and D. J. Mulloy, The World of the John BirchSociety: Conspiracy, Conservatism, and the Cold War (Nashville, 2014), 142.

100 Wilbur J. Cohen, “The Forand Bill: Hospital Insurance for the Aged,” The American Journalof Nursing 58 (May 1958): 698–702.

101 TFA Newsletter, “Report to Texas for America, Committees of Correspondence,” undated,Wallet - TFA Form Letters, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection and Billy James Hargis,“Uncle Sam M.D.?,” Folder 19, Box 1, Billy James Hargis Papers, University of Arkansas SpecialCollections.

102 Lenore A. Epstein and James C. Callison, “Financing Health Care for the Aged,” Law andContemporary Problems 27 (Winter 1962): 106–7.

103 “Court Impeachment Petition Growing,” Ft. Worth Star Telegram, TFA Newsletter, 7January 1958, Folder-TFA Newsletter Jan 1958 Issue, Wallet -TFA Newsletters late 1950s, Box 3,Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection.

104 Mulloy, World of the John Birch Society, 109–17.

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coordinating with other fringe organizations, Haley created an ultraconservative net-work intent on influencing the mid-century conservative movement.

Haley attempted to establish similar connections with the business community tobolster TFA’s fundraising and further strengthen far-right organizing. Big business, es-pecially the oil industry, played a crucial role in Texas politics, and Haley recognizedthat recruiting businesspeople would legitimize TFA as a mainstream conservative out-let. Haley told his constituents, “We cannot succeed without the support of business,”citing “the deadly threat to free enterprise” as “an opportunity to enlist strong financialsupport.”105 Though Haley’s ideologies intersected with the free market ideals of thebusiness conservative movement, TFA’s financial statements revealed that the organi-zation operated on a shoestring budget. The dearth of corporate donations indicatedthat Haley’s ultraconservative rhetoric disaffected commercial benefactors and re-stricted TFA to the political fringe.106

Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, southern rhetoric moved away fromovert anti-communist and segregationist language, and the modest support for TFAhighlighted this gradual transition.107 TFA operated at a turning point in Texas poli-tics as politicians softened their racially tinged, red-baiting rhetoric.108 Many southern-ers were alarmed by the rapidly changing racial mores of southern society; but, ingeneral, Texans had greater tolerance for racial inclusion than the rest of the DeepSouth.109 Nevertheless, Haley tapped into an ultraconservative constituency thatviewed liberalism as anathema to traditional socio-political norms. TFA’s mass-letter-writing campaigns indicated an eagerness to amplify conservative demands through lo-cal activism and organizational networks. Haley’s time with TFA proved influentialbecause the organization galvanized local right-wingers and established connectionswith other far-right groups; however, TFA and its parent organization failed to bringabout a conservative revolution in U.S. politics.110 The Republican Partymaintained a middle-of-the-road stance and continued to house liberals into the early1960s, while the national Democratic Party championed the liberalism of John F.Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Nevertheless, the ascendance of Arizona’sGoldwater provided an opportunity for Haley to coordinate with the burgeoning con-servative movement.

105 “For America—Our Urgent and Immediate Problems,” Newsletter, 31 December 1958,Folder-Notes on 1958 Campaign, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection.

106 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 34; Phillips-Fein, Invisible Hands, ix-xi;TFA Financial Statement, 30 November 1958, Wallet - Notes on 1958 Campaign, Correspondence-General, Box 3, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collection.

107 Lewis, Massive Resistance, 180 and Green, Establishment in Texas Politics, 190.

108 Cunningham, “The Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 105.

109 Green, Establishment of Texas Politics, 186.

110 Cunningham, “Paranoid Style and Its Limits,” 111 and 115.

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At the 1960 Republican National Convention, Goldwater commanded conserva-tives to “grow up” and “take this party back.”111 The call to arms sparked a right-wingmovement within the GOP and made the Arizona senator a lodestone for conserva-tive activists, including Haley. When a coalition of right-wing Republicans and far-right agitators thrust Goldwater onto the 1964 GOP ticket, Haley abandoned theDemocratic Party and joined forces with the Republicans. Haley had flirted with theRepublican Party while leading the Jeffersonians and TFA, but Goldwater’s platformsconvinced Haley that the GOP adhered to conservative principles more closely thanthe Democratic Party. Goldwater “would return us to fiscal sanity and return us to ob-servance of the Constitution,” proclaimed an exuberant Haley.112 Other southernDemocrats mirrored Haley’s conversion, including major figures like former Dixiecratand U.S. Senator Thurmond, which reflected the emergence of a conservativeRepublican coalition stretching across the Sunbelt.113 The 1964 campaign gave Haleythe opportunity to advance Goldwater’s nationwide conservative crusade.114

Haley contributed to the divisive 1964 presidential election by disparaging LBJ ina polemical book, A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power. The bookcatapulted Haley’s brand of ultraconservatism into the national political discourse andsymbolized the Democratic Party’s internecine schism. Self-published out of Haley’sPalo Duro Press, A Texan Looks at Lyndon landed during the critical summer monthsbefore the election. Haley claimed his book accurately portrayed Johnson’s personaland political career. In reality, as historian Sean P. Cunningham observes, Haley“vilified [LBJ] as the personification of all that was corrupt and wrong with Americanpolitics.”115 For example, Haley characterized Johnson’s support for the 1964 CivilRights Act as a “complete betrayal of the South” and a “most extreme position” thatwould “end the American Republic.”116 Haley also detested Johnson on a personallevel. He once called LBJ “the slickest operator ever sent to Washington from Texas”and declared, “There is nothing more significant in Johnson’s career than the fact thathe has never been known to take an unpopular position and resolutely go down the

111 Goldberg, Barry Goldwater, 145.

112 “Haley Says Sale of Book Points Goldwater Victory,” Chicago Tribune Press Service,Houston Post, 19 August 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence andClippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

113 Joseph Crespino, “Strom Thurmond’s Sunbelt: Rethinking Regional Politics and the Rise ofthe Right,” in Sunbelt Rising, ed. Nickerson and Dochuk, 61.

114 Robert David Johnson, All the Way with LBJ: The 1964 Presidential Election (New York,2009), 228–9.

115 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 101.

116 J. Evetts Haley, A Texan Looks at Lyndon: A Study in Illegitimate Power (Canyon, TX, 1964),172; “New Party Proposed By Patriots in Chicago,” Texans for America, Vol. II, No. 2 (October-November 1959), p. 3, Wallet - Notes on 58 Campaign and Correspondence, Box 3, Sub-Series B,Series 3, JEH Collection.

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line for it,”117 This was an unfair portrayal of LBJ considering Johnson’s obstinate de-votion to divisive civil rights and foreign policy platforms.118 Despite the wild accusa-tions, Johnson could not sue Haley for libel—the Sullivan v. New York decision setstringent standards for libel suits—so he deflected; LBJ’s special assistant Bill Moyerstold inquirers that Haley’s book had not been a topic of discussion at the WhiteHouse.119 Regardless, Haley spoke for many southerners when he called Johnson a“traitor to the South,” and he augured that Goldwater could restore America’sintegrity.120

Republican campaign headquarters around the nation, especially in the Sunbelt,started proffering right-wing books, including Haley’s, in an effort to bolster Goldwater’selectoral chances.121 Many GOP offices stocked A Texan alongside writer-activistPhyllis Schlafly’s A Choice, Not an Echo and John A. Stormer’s None Dare Call ItTreason.122 Bookstores and airports around the nation also carried Haley’s book, and M.Stanton Evans of National Review noted that readers will learn “more about LyndonJohnson from Mr. Haley than from an army of authorized biographers.”123 JournalistDonald Janson marveled, “Never before. . . have paperback books of any category beenprinted and distributed in such volume in so short a time. Never before has such litera-ture been used to such an extent in a Presidential campaign.”124 The Goldwater cam-paign gave Haley’s book sales an unexpected boost and propelled him into the spotlightas a champion of ultraconservative principles.

The far-right grassroots effort that supported Goldwater’s campaign stretched acrossthe Sunbelt, from the Deep South to California, amplifying the distribution of Haley’sbook. The Birch Society lauded A Texan as a book “loaded with facts” and sent instruc-tions to Birch members: “You need it in your field equipment.”125 Wealthy Birchers

117 TFA Newsletter, “Special Report to the Committees of Correspondence,” 12 November1959, Folder-Committee of Correspondence Letters, Box 1, Sub-Series B, Series 3, JEH Collectionand Haley, Texan Looks at Lyndon, 172.

118 Irving Bernstein, Guns or Butter: The Presidency of Lyndon Johnson (New York, 1996), 65–6,379, and 537; Robert Dallek, Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973 (New York,1998), 111–2.

119 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478.

120 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 105 and Haley, Texan Looks at Lyndon,178.

121 Dallek, Flawed Giant, 177.

122 Ibid.

123 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478; M. Stanton Evans, “The Pamphleteers Return,” NationalReview, 3 November 1964.

124 Donald Janson, “Extremist Book Sales Soar Despite Criticism in G. O. P.,” New York Times,4 October 1964.

125 “Your Own Reading,” John Birch Society Bulletin (August 1964) p. 21, Folder-PoliticalCorrespondence 1964, Wallet-Correspondence Clippings and Campaign Material 1964, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

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heeded the call by bulk purchasing A Texan for distribution at political rallies, while theBirch Society kept Haley’s book stocked in its American Opinion bookstores.126 Hargis’sChristian Crusade advertised Haley’s book in its monthly periodical, encouraging cru-saders to buy and circulate A Texan so people could read the “sordid details” ofJohnson’s life.127 The book also received accolades from a legion of smaller far-right jour-nals and organizations, like the Bulletin Board of Conservatives and the Austin Anti-Communism League.128 Many individuals agreed with Haley’s criticisms of Johnson,with one reader noting, “The American people have a right to know the moral and ethi-cal standards of those who are running for a political office.”129 The groundswell of sup-port for Haley’s book during the 1964 campaign—from individuals, far-right groups andjournals, and GOP branches—illustrated that a significant amount of the populationsought a conservative turn away from Johnson’s liberalism. This constituency com-mended Haley for assailing liberalism and lauding Goldwater as a legitimate politicalchallenger to LBJ.130

Connections with mainstream conservatives and far-right anti-communist groupshelped Haley move more books—an estimated five million were sold during the elec-tion—but the majority of politicians decried A Texan as politically motivated andpoorly researched.131 Governor Robert E. Smylie of Idaho, the chair of the RepublicanGovernors Conference, referred to Haley’s book as “smut,” while Paul W. Wolf, theRepublican chair in Colorado, said his outfit would “try to produce votes by entirelydifferent methods.”132 Texas Governor John Connally, a Democrat, dismissed Haley’sbook as a “propaganda piece” in a White House press conference, highlighting thechasm between Haley’s insurgent ultraconservatism and the party-loyal, moderateconservatism that inhabited the governor’s mansion.133 Additionally, most

126 Perlstein, Before the Storm, 478; Janson, “Extremist Book Sales.”

127 Advertisement, Christian Crusade, October 1964.

128 Mrs. J. Milton Lent, “We Recommend,” The Bulletin Board of Conservatives, 24 July 1964,Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated,Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection; “The Bookshelf,” Freedom Views (Austin, TX), 30 June1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 andundated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

129 E. L. Bynum, “A Texan Looks at Lyndon,” Plains Baptist Challenger, undated, Folder-PoliticalPrinted Material & Clippings-Lyndon Johnson-1964 and undated, Wallet-Correspondence andClippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

130 Evans, “Pamphleteers Return,” 981.

131 Chesly Manly, “Texan Looks Again at L.B.J.—Scathingly,” Chicago Tribune, 16 January1966.

132 Janson, “Extremist Book Sales.”

133 John Connally’s loyalty to Lyndon Johnson stemmed from the fact that LBJ helped jumpstart Connally’s political career; Dallek, Lone Star Rising, 186–7; and “Connally Says Texan’s BookOn Johnson Just Propaganda,” Times-Herald (Waco, TX), 25 September 1964, Folder-1964 II, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

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mainstream media outlets roasted A Texan as a political hatchet job. Reviews referredto Haley’s book as “propaganda,” “stridently partisan,” and “outrageously, surrepti-tiously wrong.”134 Many of these criticisms, especially regarding Haley’s questionableresearch, proved correct; and the fact that members of both political parties and themajority of the press repudiated Haley’s work illustrated that far-right conservatismremained out of step with mainstream U.S. politics.135

Years later Haley decried the barrage of criticism as an “attempted character assas-sination,” but in 1964 he heralded Goldwater’s nomination and the support for ATexan as the beginning of the conservative revolution he had spent his life trying tofoment.136 “There is a real stirring at the grass roots,” Haley said, “Otherwise, howcould somebody like me, who is absolutely unknown, and with no sales organization atall and no promotion, bring out a book and have those millions of sales.”137 Haley’sbook tapped into the resentment felt by hardline conservatives, anti-communists, andother groups that felt ignored by the liberal consensus. This disillusion enabled Haleyto sell millions of books that portrayed the current president as a crook; more impor-tantly, A Texan added fuel to the national movement that pushed Goldwater conser-vatism into the political mainstream.138 Through the combined efforts of Republicanand far-right networks, A Texan Looks at Lyndon entered the political lexicon as a cam-paign document highlighting the widespread conservative disillusion with Johnsonand the Democratic Party.

However, Haley’s book epitomized campaign propaganda by presenting a perfidi-ous account of Johnson and American liberalism. Haley presented Johnson as a one-dimensional demagogue, mistook LBJ’s pragmatism and negotiating prowess for a lackof principle, and construed Johnson’s anti-poverty and civil rights crusades as evidenceof federal tyranny rather than salubrious social progress. This characterization ignoredhow the Economic Opportunity Act and Johnson’s adoption of “law and order” rhe-toric, notably after the 1964 Harlem Riot, expanded the federal footprint in urbanareas, creating the foundations for the War on Crime.139 Additionally, Haley

134 “Anti-LBJ Propaganda Flowing in Texas,” The Denver Post, 2 August 1964, Folder-PoliticalPrinted Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964, undated, Box 1, Sub-SeriesE, Series 3, JEH Collection; “Texan’s Look at Lyndon Is Through Biased Eyes,” The Corpus ChristiCaller-Times, 19 July 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence andClippings LBJ 1964, undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection; “J. Evetts Haley Doesn’tPlay by Any Rules,” Houston Post, 13 October 1964, Folder-Political Printed Material 1964, Wallet-Correspondence and Clippings LBJ 1964 and undated, Box 1, Sub-Series E, Series 3, JEH Collection.

135 Dallek, Flawed Giant, 177.

136 J. Evetts Haley, “A Texan Still Looks at Lyndon,” 6 January 1967, p. 18, Folder-6 Jan 1967,Sub-Series F, Series 4, JEH.

137 Chicago Tribune Press Service, “Haley Says Sale of Book Points Goldwater Victory.”

138 Johnson, All the Way with LBJ, 229–30.

139 Elizabeth Hinton, From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of MassIncarceration in America (Cambridge, MA, 2016), 12 and 56.

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committed significant citation errors and relied on hearsay and gossip rather than fac-tual evidence. A Texan contained minor highlights, such as recounting how LBJ stolethe Senate election of 1948 from Stevenson, but the narration remained skewed by ru-mor and Haley’s personal vendettas.140

Ultimately, the 1964 campaign represented the apex for the grassroots conserva-tism Haley had championed as the leader of the Jeffersonians and TFA. DespiteGoldwater’s landslide defeat—the Arizona senator lost the popular vote by nearly six-teen million votes and the Electoral College fifty-two to Johnson’s four hundredeighty-six—the grassroots energy that animated his campaign sowed the seeds of a na-tional conservative movement.141 During the election Haley transitioned from asouthern Democrat to a far-right Republican, a shift mirrored by millions of otherAmericans as southern and western right-wingers merged to create a new Sunbelt con-servative consensus.142 A few years after Goldwater’s defeat, Haley encouraged acti-vists to consolidate “conservative strength in, and control of, one major politicalorganization—obviously now the Republican Party.”143

Haley’s pivot from far-right Democrat to right-wing Republican exemplified thefracturing of the Democratic Party’s traditional coalition and the rise of conservativeRepublicanism, and Texas epitomized this mid-century party realignment. Texas helda key geographical position as the buckle connecting the western and southernSunbelt, and the dominance of the Democratic Party reflected the state’s Old Southconservative moorings. The Jeffersonian revolt in 1936 constituted the first reactionagainst Democratic hegemony in Texas, and Haley’s grassroots organizing in the 1950sand 1960s made him one of the leading voices favoring a conservative exodus to theRepublican Party. Haley’s vitriolic anti-communism and white supremacy estrangedmoderate conservatives, but his anti-statist libertarianism spoke to traditional Texasright-wingers. Haley never won elected office in Texas, but his organizing strategiescreated constituencies attuned to the values of modern conservatism. ConservativeRepublicans like Alger, John Tower, and George H.W. Bush benefitted from the anti-liberal environment fostered by agitators like Haley.144 Indeed, Haley played a centralrole in the rejection of liberalism, which jettisoned Texas from the traditional

140 Ronnie Dugger, The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson (Old Saybrook, CT,1982), 322–39 and Perlstein, Before the Storm, 477.

141 McGillivray, Scammon, and Cook, America at the Polls, 22–3 and Mary Brennan, TurningRight in the Sixties: The Conservative Capture of the GOP (Chapel Hill, 1995), 139. For more onGoldwater’s centrality to modern conservatism, see Goldberg, Barry Goldwater; McGirr, SuburbanWarriors; Perlstein, Before the Storm; and Gregory L. Schneider, Cadres for Conservatism: YoungAmericans for Freedom and the Rise of the Contemporary Right (New York, 1999).

142 Crespino, “Strom Thurmond’s Sunbelt,” 61.

143 Haley, “A Texan Still Looks at Lyndon.”

144 Cunningham, American Politics in the Postwar Sunbelt, 51 and 113.

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Democratic nexus and established the Lone Star State as the linchpin for Sunbeltconservatism.

More broadly, Haley’s ultraconservatism serves as a prism through which to exam-ine the Sunbelt’s conservative ascendance. Haley’s grassroots strategies, notably withthe Jeffersonians and TFA, strengthened interconnectivity both within the RadicalRight and between Republican conservatives and far-right activists, especiallythroughout the Sunbelt. Prominent Sunbelt right-wing organizations like the BirchSociety and the Christian Crusade networked with Haley, using anti-communist con-spiracy theories to vilify political enemies. Haley’s conspiracy theories, particularly re-garding supposed racial and communist threats, proved too radical for moderates anddelineated the difference between ultraconservatives and mainstream right-wingers.However, Haley’s libertarian anti-statism, anti-communism, and moral traditionalismaligned with the Republican Party’s Sunbelt coalition.145 The language of free marketeconomics and individual responsibility, of which Haley was an early advocate, pavedthe way for Sunbelt Republican victories, highlighted by Reagan’s monumental guber-natorial victory in 1966.146 By 1976 Haley was heavily involved with the RepublicanParty, supporting Ronald Reagan’s political ascent and serving as a state delegate forTexas at the Republican National Convention.147 Haley stumped for the GOP inWest Texas, shepherding George Wallace supporters toward Reagan’s modern con-servatism.148 Haley’s conversion from conspiratorial Democrat to right-wingRepublican personified the rising tide of Sunbelt conservatism and the power of grass-roots populism.149 Haley never achieved electoral success or the acclaim of conserva-tive celebrities like Schlafly or Reagan, but, as the “voice of many hatreds,” Haley’sleadership and organizing provided an outlet for disillusioned right-wingers and con-tributed to the shape of modern conservatism.150

145 Ibid., 78.

146 Matthew Dallek, The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive TurningPoint in American Politics (New York, 2000), ix.

147 Roland Lindsey, “Texan Looks at Lyndon’ Author Backing Reagan,” The Monitor (McAllen,TX), 8 July 1976, Folder 14-Clippings, Misc., Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH.

148 “Names in the News,” Conservative Digest, July 1976, p. 23, Folder 14-Clippings, Misc., Sub-Series K, Series 4, JEH.

149 Dominic Sandbrook, Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right(New York, 2011), xiii.

150 Mathis, “James Evetts Haley.”

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