GARNER, JOHN NANCE

John Nance "Cactus Jack" Garner (November 22, 1868–November 7, 1967) served in Congress from his election in 1902 until 1933, holding the post of minority leader between 1929 and 1931 and speaker of the House for the last two years. He was elected vice president of the United States on the Democratic ticket with Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936. Garner was a hard-drinking, poker-playing, straight-talking politician, who believed that compromise always superceded demagoguery. In his earliest days in the Texas state legislature, he advocated railroad and insurance company regulation. As he matured politically in the U.S. House, though, he became more pragmatic in his outlook, becoming close friends with Republicans as well as Democrats.

Garner quickly advanced in the Democratic leadership, becoming the whip in 1911. His pre-Depression era agenda included legislation providing construction projects for his district and tariff protection for agricultural producers. However, his greatest influence on national politics came from his behind-the-scenes leadership. He operated a hideaway office called the Board of Education during the Depression and New Deal years, in which he counseled members on the art of compromise. His years as speaker were less productive legislatively; he took an increasingly conservative and independent view of major economic questions on issues such as a national sales tax, which he favored, thus making it difficult to unify the Democratic congressional opposition to Herbert Hoover and the Republicans. One historian has called the period an "interregnum of despair."

Garner made an aborted run for the presidency in 1932, taking the vice presidential nomination when it became clear after three ballots that a continued push for the presidency would likely deadlock his party and spell defeat in the November election. During his first term in office, he masterminded the strategy necessary for passage of much of the New Deal legislation and he maintained a solid working relationship with Roosevelt, differing with the president on issues such as diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union and deficit spending. Garner's frustration with the vice presidency emerged after the 1936 election when Roosevelt pushed to expand membership on the Supreme Court in 1937 and attempted to purge conservative southern Democrats from Congress in 1938, moves that Garner opposed. Garner attempted a run for the presidency in 1940 but gave up after leading Texas Democrats refused to back him. His national political career ended unceremoniously, and Garner returned to Uvalde, Texas, where his wife later burned his public papers.

See Also: ELECTION OF 1932; ELECTION OF 1936; ELECTION OF 1940.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Garner, John Nance. Scrapbooks. Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. Papers. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, New York.

Schwarz, Jordan A. Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression. 1970.

NANCY BECK YOUNG