( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Fergusons-University-Chronological-Outline-Inclusive/dp/1362234362?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1362234362
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Fergusons-University-Chronological-Outline-Inclusive/dp/1362234338?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1362234338
governor presidential candidate
He was born near Salado, Bell County, Texas, the third son and fourth of five children who survived infancy. His parents, James Edward and Fannie (Fitzpatrick) Ferguson, were of Scotch-Irish descent and modest means. The father, a Methodist minister, farmer, and gristmill operator, died when Jim was four years old.
The boy's formal education ended with the sixth grade in Salado public schools.
There he farmed and studied law.
At sixteen he left home for the Pacific Coast, where for two years he worked as an itinerant laborer, bellhop, roustabout, grape picker, teamster, and miner. He then returned to Texas and, after working on construction and railroad gangs, moved back to Bell County in 1895.
There he farmed and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1897 and established a practice in Belton, the county seat. Soon after his marriage, Ferguson moved to Temple, Texas, where he assisted in organizing the Temple State Bank in 1907. He also took an interest in local politics, though his activities were marked neither by uniform success nor by devotion to fixed principle.
In 1902 he supported Congressman Robert L. Henry, a friend of Senator Joseph W. Bailey [Supp. 1] of Texas, in Henry's successful bid for reelection; in 1908, however, he fought in vain against Bailey's control of the Texas delegation to the national Democratic convention.
In 1910 he endorsed a progressive candidate for governor, Attorney General Robert V. Davidson, but saw him lose; in 1912 he helped conservative Governor Oscar B. Colquitt win reelection.
In defeating a widely known ex-Congressman and progressive-prohibition spokesman, Thomas H. Ball, Ferguson unveiled a political style composed in equal parts of wit, slander, and sarcasm which made him immediately popular in the rural areas of the state.
"Farmer Jim" further won the undying loyalty of white tenant farmers when he voiced their demands that the practice by landlords of charging a money bonus in addition to a percentage of the crops be outlawed and that rents be held to one-third of the grain and one-fourth of the cotton crops.
His more basic political beliefs were reflected in promises to veto any legislation extending prohibition and to give the state a rest from the progressive reforms of the preceding decade. Once in office, Ferguson signed a bill which gave lip service to renter demands but which was unenforced at the time and was declared unconstitutional in 1921.
Ferguson won reelection easily in 1916, though charges were made late in the campaign that he had mishandled state funds and received generous loans from brewers. These charges were aired more fully when the legislature convened, but the session ended with the governor's power intact.
Shortly after adjournment, Ferguson vetoed virtually the entire University of Texas appropriation because the board of regents had ignored his suggestions regarding the selection of a president and the dismissal of faculty members known to be hostile to him. His veto brought powerful alumni support to those already seeking his removal--prohibitionists, suffragists, progressives. Members of a legislative committee charged with locating a new agricultural college in west Texas next accused Ferguson of falsifying the report on the proposed site.
On August 1, 1917, the legislature reconvened to consider impeachment. Twenty-one charges were formally voted by the house of representatives, and the senate convicted the governor on ten. Five related to unlawful deposit of state funds in his Temple bank; two involved loans he had received, one from his bank in excess of legal limits and one from parties later identified as brewery officials in the amount of $156, 000; and three charges concerned his interference in University of Texas affairs.
The verdict of the senate removed Ferguson from office and declared him ineligible to hold any state office in the future. Ferguson appealed the decision of the legislature to the electorate by announcing his candidacy for governor in 1918, but was badly defeated by William P. Hobby, the lieutenant governor who had succeeded him in 1917.
The Fergusons campaigned against the Klan's secrecy, its Victorian moral code, and its prohibitionist views, but they "out-Klanned the Klan" on the issue of white supremacy and defeated the Klan candidate, Judge Felix Robertson.
Upon Mrs. Ferguson's election, her husband moved into an office adjacent to the governor's suite. In what was in effect his third administration, Ferguson attracted considerable attention for the excessive number of pardons his wife granted to persons convicted of violating the state liquor laws, and he drew charges of favoritism in the awarding of state highway construction contracts.
The governor succeeded in having the legislature grant amnesty to her husband, though this action was rescinded the following year. She also succeeded in having an antimasking law adopted which furthered the demise of the Klan.
The elimination of the Klan from politics, however, permitted the anti-Ferguson elements of the Democratic party to close ranks, and "Ma" Ferguson was defeated in 1926 and 1930. The depression of the early 1930's once more created a crisis in party leadership favorable to the Fergusons, and in 1932 Mrs. Ferguson won the governorship for the second time.
The repeal of prohibition and the issuance of relief bonds, along with the efficient conduct of the governor's office, made the last Ferguson administration the most successful and the one most free from partisan attack. "Fergusonism, " however, was clearly on the wane after 1934, though Mrs. Ferguson made a token race for governor in 1940.
Four years later James E. Ferguson died of a stroke in Austin, Texas. He was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. His wife survived him by seven years.
Ferguson also ran for President of the United States in the 1920 election as the candidate of the American Party. Ferguson was on the ballot only in Texas, where he received 47, 968 votes (9. 86 percent of the vote in Texas, 0. 18 percent of the vote nationwide). The 1920 presidential election was won by Republican candidate Warren Harding although Democratic nominee James M. Cox won in Texas.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
Though barely known outside Bell County, Ferguson jolted Democratic party leaders in 1914 by winning the gubernatorial primary and general election.
He kept his name before the voters in 1920 as the presidential candidate of his own American party and in 1922 as an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate. When the Democratic party split over the Ku Klux Klan issue in 1924, he seized the opportunity to clear his name. Barred by the courts from running himself, he announced the gubernatorial candidacy of his wife (though in earlier years he had strongly opposed woman suffrage).
He had more success in his fight against prohibition, woman suffrage, and laws regulating corporate wealth, but his most constructive achievements were laws improving rural education and compelling school attendance.
He was a member of the American Party.
On December 31, 1899, he married Miriam Amanda Wallace, daughter of a prosperous Bell County farmer. They had two daughters: Ouida Wallace and Ruby Dorrace.
