Coke R. Stevenson
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Coke Robert Stevenson (1888–1975) was the United States Governor of Texas from 1941 to 1947. He is the only 20th century Texas politician to serve as speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, lieutentant governor, and governor.
Born March 20, 1888 in Mason County, Texas to Robert Milton and Virginia Hurley Stevenson; his parents named him after Thomas Coke, a Methodist bishop. As a teenager, he went into the business of hauling freight. In 1913, Coke Stevenson became President of the First National Bank in Junction, Texas. He served as Kimble County Attorney from 1914 to 1918, and Kimble County Judge from 1919 until 1921. In 1928 he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives and served there from 1929 until 1939, when he was elected Lieutenant Governor.
Stevenson succeeded to the governorship on August 4, 1941, when Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel resigned to take his seat in the U.S. Senate, which he won in a special election. A dramatic contrast to the flamboyant and unpredictable O'Daniel, Stevenson's approach was so conservative and taciturn that his critics accused him of doing nothing. But Stevenson was reelected in 1942 and 1944 by substantial margins, and when he left the governorship in January 1947 he was the longest-serving governor in the history of Texas and had presided over a broad and deep economic recovery during the years of World War II.
He ran for the U.S. Senate in 1948, and was defeated in a furious and controversial Democratic Party, primary runoff by Austin Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson. The disputed final margin of victory for Johnson was 87 votes, the closest senatorial vote in the nation's history.
After the loss to Johnson, Stevenson retired to Junction; disenchanted with the Democratic Party, he supported Republicans for the rest of his life. He died June 28, 1975, in San Angelo. Stevenson was a major figure in the second volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, covering the disputed 1948 election for the U.S. Senate. Caro characterized the conservative Stevenson as a reluctant, honest statesman. Some critics of Caro's analysis believe that he portrayed Stevenson in an overly heroic manner in order to be a clear contrast to Johnson. Stevenson was a traditional Democratic Texas politician. Very popular, but he was a racist. In 1943, for example, when Stevenson was governor, a black man was lynched in Texarkana, Texas. They asked Stevenson about it, and he said, "Well, you know these Negroes sometimes do those kinds of things that provoke whites to such action."
[edit] References
Tex. Legis. Council, Presiding Officers of the Texas Legislature: 1846-1995 77, 185 (1995)
[edit] External links
- Coke Robert Stevenson from the Handbook of Texas Online
- Historic photographs of Coke R. Stevenson, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
| Preceded by: W. Lee O'Daniel |
Governor of Texas 1941-1947 |
Succeeded by: Beauford H. Jester |
| Preceded by: Walter Frank Woodul, Sr |
Lieutenant Governor of Texas 1939–1941 |
Succeeded by: John Lee Smith |
| Preceded by: Fred Hawthorne Minor |
Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives 1933–1937 |
Succeeded by: Robert Emmett Morse |
| Preceded by: Roscoe Runge |
Texas House of Representatives, District 86 1929–1939 |
Succeeded by: Claud Henry Gilmer |
| Governors of Texas |  |
|---|---|
| J.P. Henderson • Wood • Bell • J.W. Henderson • Pease • Runnels • Houston • Clark • Lubbock • Murrah • Stockdale • Hamilton • Throckmorton • Pease • Davis • Coke • Hubbard • Roberts • Ireland • Ross • Hogg • Culberson • Sayers • Lanham • Campbell • Colquitt • J. Ferguson • Hobby • Neff • M. Ferguson • Moody • Sterling • M. Ferguson • Allred • O'Daniel • Stevenson • Jester • Shivers • Daniel • Connally • Smith • Briscoe • Clements • White • Clements • Richards • Bush • Perry |
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