(See front cover) Texas last week rubbed out the one Republican patch on its huge and other wise Democratic Congressional map. By so doing it definitely handed control of the 72nd House of Representatives which meets this week for the first time, over to Democracy by a molecular majority. On that majority a stocky little Texan with fiery blue eyes and stubbly white hair pre pared to mount the rostrum to the stiff high-backed chair which holds the Speaker of the House and a power second only to that of the President. His name was John Nance Garner and for 28 years he had ably and shrewdly represented in Congress his State's 15th district, an area the size of New York State stretching along the Rio Grande from above Eagle Pass to Brownsville on the Gulf.
Solid Texas. What sent the Congressman of the 15th district up to the Speakership were last week's elective doings in the 14th district, running from above San Antonio to the Gulf at Corpus Christi. Until his death last month Republican Congressman Harry McLeary Wurzbach had, sheerly by personal popularity, carried the 14th around in his pocket for eleven years (TIME, Nov. 16). To fill his vacancy a special election was called. Democratic leaders raged in despair when six of their party rushed into the contest against one Republican. In far-off Washington President Hoover, nervously aware of the election's significance, called for the returns, studied them with downcast eyes. For him they spelled another defeat because a Democrat by the name of Richard Mifflin Kleberg was elected. The President needed no political statistician to tell him that this meant that the House, his legislative mainstay for the last two years, was now lost to him, that it would line up:
Democrats .........................................218
Republicans ......................................214
Farmer Laborite ...................................1
Vacancies ..............................................2
On paper the Democrats had a clear-cut majority of one against all combinations.
King Ranch. Congressman Kleberg's election delighted Democrats of the 15th district no less than it did those of his own 14th. It meant the Speakership for their "Mustang Jack" Garner. Besides, the Kleberg family are part owners of the immense King Ranch, largest single one in the U. S., which sprawls across 1,250,000 acres of Southeastern Texas and overflows into the Garner district. In 1925 Henrietta King, widow of Richard King, founder of this rural empire, died at the age of 90, tied her $25,000,000 property up in trust for ten years. A King daughter is Mrs. Alice Gertrudis Kleberg, mother of the new Congressman. After her is named Santa Gertrudis, the great ranch house at Kingsville where visitors are royally entertained, where meals are served at a soft, table by Mexican servants, where a feudal atmosphere still prevails. "Dick" Kleberg once tried ranching but gave it up to move to Corpus Christi, go into the cattle business, play good golf. Today the King Ranch, with its 100,000 head of livestock, its miles of plains and gardens, its oil wells, is managed by the new Congressman's brother Robert, who roams it from dawn to dark.