Allan Shivers, governor of
Texas, was born on October 5, 1907, in Lufkin, Texas, the son of
Robert Andrew and Easter (Creasy) Shivers, and spent his early
childhood at Magnolia Hills, the family home near Woodville. By
the age of thirteen he was "doing a man's job" after school and
during the summer at a nearby sawmill. When his father moved to
Port Arthur, Shivers completed his secondary schooling,
graduating from Port Arthur High School in 1924. He then entered
the University of Texas, intent upon becoming a lawyer like his
father. At the end of his first year he dropped out of school to
work at an oil refinery in Port Arthur. But by 1928 he had
reentered the University of Texas, determined to participate
fully in campus life and to graduate. He ran for and was elected
president of the Students' Association and was a member of the
Friars, the Cowboys, and Delta Theta Phi law fraternity. In 1931
Shivers graduated with a B.A. degree and also passed the state
bar exam, although he did not receive his LL.B. degree until two
years later. He engaged in private law practice in Port Arthur
until 1934, when he was elected as a Democrat to the state
senate, at age twenty-seven the youngest member ever to sit in
that body. In 1937 he married Marialice Shary of Mission, whose
father, John H. Shary,qv was a
prominent citrus fruit grower, cattleman, banker, and realtor in
the Rio Grande valley.qv In
1943 Shivers entered the United States Army and during the next
2½ years served with the Allied Military Government in North
Africa, Italy, France, and Germany.
Upon his discharge from
the army in 1945 with the rank of major (with five battle stars
and the Bronze Star), Shivers became general manager of his
father-in-law's business enterprises. But he soon decided to
pursue an ambitious political career. In 1946 he ran for and was
elected state lieutenant governor; he was reelected two years
later. Together with Democratic Governor Beauford H. Jester,qv
Shivers helped bring Texas into the twentieth century. As
lieutenant governor he initiated the practice of appointing
senators to specific committees and setting the daily agenda.
Subsequently, the Senate passed a right-to-work law, reorganized
the public school system with the Gilmer-Aikin Laws,qv
appropriated funds for higher education, including the Texas
State University for Negroes (now Texas Southern University),
and provided monies for improvements of state hospitals and
highways. On July 11, 1949, Beauford Jester died; subsequently
Shivers assumed the governorship, which he held effectively for
the next 7½ years. During his tenure he pushed through
significant legislation as well as reforms of state government.
He helped create the Legislation Council, which researches and
drafts bills, and the Legislative Budget Board,qv
which sets the budget for legislative consideration. Shivers
also expanded state services by pushing tax increases through
the legislature. His administrations thus augmented
appropriations for eleemosynary institutions, retirement
benefits for state employees, aid for the elderly, teacher
salaries, and improvements for roads and bridges. During his
terms of office the legislature also enacted laws pertaining to
safety inspection and driver responsibility, legislative
redistricting in 1951 (the first in thirty years), and the
expansion of juries and grand juries to include women in January
1955. But Shivers was probably best known for defending state
claims to the Tidelands against the Truman administration and
his break with the national Democratic party over this issue. As
a result, he was instrumental in delivering the state's
electoral votes in 1952 to Republican nominee Dwight D.
Eisenhowerqv and the
subsequent congressional approval in 1953 of the state's claim
to the Tidelands (see
TIDELANDS CONTROVERSY).
During the last years of
his governorship, his popularity diminished. Because of his
support of Eisenhower in 1952 he was accused of disloyalty to
the Democratic party.qv
He also lost support for his opposition to
Brown v. Board of Education,
which legally ended segregation.qv
And even though Shivers was never implicated in any way, his
administration became tainted with corruption because of state
scandals involving insurance and veterans' lands (see
VETERANS' LAND BOARD SCANDAL). After retiring from politics in
January 1957, Shivers served in a number of capacities. He
actively managed vast business enterprises in the valley, which
his wife inherited. He served on the board of directors or as
chairman for a number of banks, including the Austin National
Bank (later Interfirst Bank Austin) and Texas Commerce Bank. He
was president of the United States Chamber of Commerce and, for
a time, chairman of the advisory board of the Export-Import Bank
of the United States. In 1973 Shivers was a appointed to a
six-year term to the University of Texas Board of Regents,
whereupon he served as chairman for four years. During this time
he donated his Austin home, the historic Pease mansion, to the
university to help raise funds for the UT law school. In 1980 he
was instrumental in securing a $5 million grant for the UT
College of Communications, which soon thereafter established an
endowed chair of journalism in his honor. On January 14, 1985,
Shivers died suddenly from a massive heart attack. He was
survived by wife Marialice, three sons and a daughter, and ten
grandchildren.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin
American-Statesman,
January 15, 1985. Current Biography,
1951. George N. Green, The
Establishment in Texas Politics
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1979). D. B. Hardeman,
"Shivers of Texas: A Tragedy in Three Acts,"
Harper's,
November 1956. Sam Kinch and Stuart Long,
Allan Shivers: The Pied Piper of Texas Politics
(Austin: Shoal Creek Publishers, 1973).
Ben H. Procter
-
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v.
","
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/fsh40.html
(accessed March 3, 2008).
(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")
|