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Shivers' first task, ahead of his own reelection, was to take a conservative delegation to the Democratic National Convention. Stepping up his speaking schedule, Shivers used Harry Truman as his main target and asked Texans to give him "an uninstructed, unpledged and undaunted" delegation to the Democratic convention. At the Democratic state convention in San Antonio, Shivers got his kind of delegation. But he also got some trouble. A group of "loyal" Democrats, led by scowling ex-Congressman Maury Maverick, bolted and named their own delegates to the national convention.
On the Defensive. In Chicago, Shivers' cautious side came out. He could not forget that, back home, Ralph Yarborough, an independent Democratic lawyer from Austin, was putting on a vigorous campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor. The primary was to be held the Saturday after the convention. Shivers, uneasy about Yarborough, was afraid his delegation might be thrown out of the Chicago convention. As a result, in Chicago he took a defensive rather than an aggressive stand.
He managed to get the "loyalty pledge" watered down so that it did not call for support of the nominees, but simply pledged the delegates to try to get the nominees on their state's ballot. This pledge Shivers accepted "without reservation." He got his Democratic delegation seated. He won his primary, 672,000 to 395,000, a big enough margin to indicate that he had been unnecessarily worried. With another term secure, he again became aggressive. He flew to Springfield, Ill. and demanded that Adlai Stevenson take a clear position on tidelands.
After a 4½-hour talk with the presidential nominee, Shivers came out smiling. He was going to visit around town for a while, might eyen take a look at Abraham Lincoln's tomb, while Stevenson made up his mind about tidelands. After visiting the office of a Texas insurance man (he never got to the tomb), Shivers returned to get Stevenson's final word.
The governor of Illinois handed the governor of Texas a statement. It was generally in favor of federal ownership of tidelands. When Shivers bluntly said he thought the statement was full of generalities, Stevenson added: "I agree, therefore, with the presidential veto of the bill ... to restore title ... to ... Texas." An unsmiling Shivers stalked out of the executive mansion and hurried off to the airport. As he went, he said darkly: "This is going to be rough in Texas."
A Compromise. Shivers took the dread word back to Texas and solemnly pronounced Stevenson anathema. A rebel gleam began to shine in the eyes of Texas. But under the loyalty pledge Shivers had accepted, he was committed to do his best to get Stevenson and Sparkman on the Texas ballot. Attorney General Daniel proposed a plan which many other Democratic leaders endorsed: list Stevenson and Sparkman as the "Federal Democratic" candidates, Eisenhower and Nixon as the "Texas Democratic" candidates. That would ease the minds of born & bred Democrats who couldn't bear to step across the party line.