Three days before the filing deadline for Texas' primary elections, 42-year-old Martin Dies threw in the towel instead of his hat.
His explanations for quitting after 14 years in Congress: a throat ailment, a desire to return to private law practice, "a dread of becoming a professional politician." Jubilant liberals, laborites and left-wingers thought they knew other reasons. Had he run again, Dies was in for the toughest fight of his life. Thousands of new workers had poured into the oil refineries and shipyards of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange in Dies's...
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