Flour Salesman

Texas last week buzzed with a rumor. Franklin Roosevelt having come and gone after conferring a Federal Judgeship on 39-year-old Governor Allred (TIME. July 18), the story was that there had been a political deal: Son Elliott Roosevelt had got his friend Mr. Allred the Judgeship and Mr. Allred would help Elliott get elected to office, perhaps the lieutenant-governorship in 1940. Prompt and explicit in his comment was Son Elliott: "I do not plan to run for any political office now, two years from now or four years hence."

Texas' biggest political news of the week was. however, the race to succeed Mr. Allred as Governor. In a field of twelve for the Democratic nomination (virtual election), leading contestants until last month were Attorney General William ("Bill") McCraw and redheaded Railroad Commissioner Ernest Othmer ("Red Colonel") Thompson. Then into the race stepped Wilbert Lee O'Daniel, of Fort Worth, a radio character well-known to Texans, for years a flour salesman, later a miller.

As vice president of Burrus Mill & Elevator Co., Mr. O'Daniel used to plug sales of "Light Crust Flour" with a "hillbilly band" over a Texas network. A persuasive announcer and able musician, Salesman O'Daniel popularized not only his company's flour but songs of his own, Beautiful Texas and Sons of the Alamo. Four years ago he formed his own Hillbilly Flour Co., made a half-million dollars, got elected president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. He and his hillbillies stayed on the air.

One day recently he asked his radio listeners if he should make a "businessman's campaign" for Governor. He claims that "54,499" people soon wrote in urging him to run. So, in a sound truck with a speaker's stand on top, he set out through the State--with no manager, no party machine, no platform, no headquarters except his home or his hotel room, no knowledge of any political rules except to entertain the crowds, to promise $30 per month to every Texan 65 or over, to kid "professional politicians."

Strapping, black-haired, 46, conservatively dressed, grammatical but homespun, Wilbert Lee O'Daniel has further assets in a pretty grey-haired wife named Merle, two good-looking boys in their teens, Pat & Mike, and a cute 16-year-old daughter, Molly. All musical, the children accompanied him and his hillbilly band everywhere. Their meetings soon far surpassed other candidates' in size.

Like Huey Long the shortening salesman, Lee O'Daniel, flour salesman, has the common touch. He solicits campaign cash in little barrels (passed by smiling Pat, Mike & Molly) labeled "Flour--NOT Pork." As a slogan he uses a line from one of his songs: "Please pass the biscuits, Pappy!" When people interrupt his speeches to ask where Texas will get the money to pay $41,000,000 yearly in old-age pensions, he says to his musicians: "Strike up a tune, boys!"

Or he says : "Why we ought to have ten times more factories in Texas . . . and that's what I intend to bring about. . . . We'll have ten times the taxes to care for administrative matters!"

Last week, with the primary almost at hand (July 23), organized Labor belatedly was out to deflate Candidate O'Daniel's sudden, sensational boom by recalling how he sponsored an open-shop movement in Fort Worth. When his rivals taunted him with having paid no poll tax he re plied: "No politician in Texas is worth $1.75." When they called him a "carpet bagger" born in Ohio, raised in Kansas, he snapped back: "Sure. I moved to Texas 15 years ago . . . because I like Texas and want to live here." Awestruck observers predicted that if he did not get nominated by the required majority, Lee O'Daniel's vote total would be one of the two biggest and put him in the run-off primary. Meantime, Wilbert Lee O'Daniel said soberly: "I don't know whether or not I'll get elected, but, boy! it sure is good for the flour business!"

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