The Icarian

Who Was FDR’s FIRST Vice President? No Googling

He was Speaker of the House, a member of Congress for 30 years, was leader of the House Democratic Caucus for four years. He was a representative in his home state for four years. He was a lawyer and judge in his home state.

A conservative, he didn’t like unions or minorities and was actively involved voter suppression. He wanted the Democratic nomination for president in 1932, but agreed to be Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate as VP.

Texas born and bred, John “Cactus Jack” Nance Garner III was the 33rd vice president of the United States from 1933 to 1941 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Garner began his political career as the county judge, the chief administrator, of Uvalde County, Texas. Yes, THAT Uvalde.

In the 1893 primary for the county judge seat, he was opposed by a women, even though women couldn’t vote in Texas. A few years later he would marry his opponent, Mariette Elizabeth “Ettie” Rheiner. Mariette was her husband’s secretary throughout his congressional career, and as Second Lady while her husband was vice president.

Garner was a self-educated lawyer. He went Vanderbilt University in Nashville for one semester, dropped out and went home. Instead, he studied law at the firm of Sims and Wright in Clarksville, Texas. He passed the Texas bar in 1890, hanging out his shingle in Uvalde in 1896.

He served in the Texas House of Representatives from 1898 to 1902. During his tenure in the Texas house the legislature was debating naming a Texas state flower. Garner supported the prickly pear as the state flower, which earned him his nickname. The bluebonnet was ultimately dubbed the Texas state flower.

Texas divisionism

Garner was also in favor of Texas divisionism, introducing a resolution to divide Texas into five smaller states.

Proponents of Texas divisionism contend Texas is too large to be governed efficiently as a single political unit. Texans would gain more power at the federal level if divided into five states, especially in the U.S. Senate since each state elects two senators. Divided into five states, but apparently united in their Texasness, the five new states would also shift the Electoral College since each state gets two electoral votes for their two senators in addition to electoral votes for each representative.

The divisionism plan actually passed, but was vetoed by Gov. Joseph D. Sayers.

Voter suppression is nothing new in Texas and Garner played a role.

Garner voted for a poll tax in 1901 that make voter registration more difficult and reduced the number of minority and poor voters on the voting rolls. As is the case today in Texas, most minority voters were disfranchised and ending challenges to Democratic power. Texas became a one-party state. Today the situation is reversed with Republicans in a super majority.

Garner won election to United States House of Representatives in 1902, representing Texas’s 15th congressional district from 1903 to 1933. Garner served as House Minority Leader from 1929 to 1931. He became Speaker of the House when Democrats won control of the House following special elections in 1931.*

He curried favor with wealthy landowners who gerrymandered district for him, the 15th congressional district. It was shaped in a narrow strip reaching south to include tens of thousands of square miles of rural areas. This ensured his election 14 subsequent times.

Garner considered his Mexican voting base “inferior and undesirable as U.S. citizens” and remained steadfastly loyal to the white landowners in his district.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Single_Star_and_Bloody_Knuckles/lYcHEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA68&printsec=frontcover

When FDR won the presidency, Garner was also reelected in his district in addition to becoming vice president. Garner and Ulysses S. Grant’s vice president, Schuyler Colfax, are the only vice presidents to have been Speaker of the House of Representatives before becoming vice president.

Frustrated Veep

As veep Garner had little to do and little influence. He described the vice presidency as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”

By FDR’s second term, Garner had Texas red ants in his political pants.

Garner’s warm relationship with FDR froze over. Garner disagreed with FDR on several important issues.

Garner wanted to bring the troops to stop the Flint sit-down strike, supported a balanced federal budget, opposed the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional judges. He opposed executive interference with the internal business of the Congress.[18]
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roosevelt_the_Party_Leader_1932_1945/J7QlafgkrnUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA33&printsec=frontcover

Democratic party leaders urged Garner to run for president in the 1940 presidential election.

The April 15, 1940, issue of Time magazine described potential president Garner thusly:

Cactus Jack is 71, sound in wind & limb, a hickory conservative who does not represent the Old South of magnolias, hoopskirts, pillared verandas, but the New South: moneymaking, industrial, hardboiled, still expanding too rapidly to brood over social problems. He stands for oil derricks, sheriffs who use airplanes, prairie skyscrapers, mechanized farms, $100 Stetson hats. Conservative John Garner appeals to many a conservative voter.
https://web.archive.org/web/20121105135536/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,789728-2,00.html#ixzz0qlh51Y5z

Sounds amazingly contemporary. While conservatives may have liked Garner, other people didn’t.

Out Foxed By FDR

A poll showed Garner was a favorite among Democratic voters – assuming FDR didn’t run for a third term. At the time nothing prohibited a president from running for a third term.

Roosevelt wouldn’t say if he would run again. Garner declared his candidacy.

It was a trap.

Roosevelt engineered a “spontaneous” call for his renomination at the Democratic National Convention. He won on the first ballot. Garner received 61 votes. Roosevelt received 1,032.

Henry A. Wallace became FDR’s vice-presidential running mate.
https://archive.org/details/atpresidentsside00walc

When Garner left office on 20 January 1941, he had spent 46-years politics. He retired to his home in Uvalde, where he managed his extensive real estate holdings.

His was an active retirement. Democratic politicians regularly consulted with him. He was friends with Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt’s successor.

President John F. Kennedy called to wish Garner a 95th happy birthday on 22 November 1963. Hours later Kennedy would be assassinated.

Garner’s wife, Mariette Rheiner Garner, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1942. She died in Uvalde, Texas, on 17 August 1948, a month after her 79th birthday.

Garner out lived his wife by nearly 20 years. He died of a heart attack on 7 November 1967, 15 days before his 99th birthday. He is the longest-lived vice president of the United States.

* The Democrats gained 52 seats in the 1930 midterm elections. Republicans retained a narrow majority of 218 seats after the polls closed versus the Democrats’ 216 seats. However, during the 13 months between the elections and the start of the 72nd Congress, 14 members-elect died — including incumbent Speaker Nicholas Longworth. The Democrats gained an additional three seats in the special elections called to fill these vacancies, gaining control of the House. The Democrats had a 219–212 advantage when the new Congress convened.