Bluebonnet Boldness

Bluebonnet Boldness (See front cover)

The breezes that blow year in, year out across the vast grassy plain that is Texas, have for 13 years been murmuring to the bones of Texas' dead heroes that when this great state, a land of great men who will ever do great things, should become 100 years old, the nation would be treated to a memorial celebration that it would not soon forget. True to that promise, up and down the nation for weeks, with a white horse called Texas and his son Jim Boy, 6, the present Governor of Texas, "Jaunty Jimmy" Allred has been traveling as advance agent of the Texas Centennial which is to be, he declares, "bold enough to please the still hearts of Austin, Travis and Houston, and big enough to mirror the accomplishments of Texas to the sons and daughters of the Earth."

Genesis-- Not the winds of Texas, nor Jaunty Jim Allred was the author of Texas Centennial. In 1923 the editor of a Manhattan financial weekly addressed the Advertising Clubs of Texas on "What Texas Has To Advertise and How To Advertise It." History and heroism were Texas' greatest assets, he said. Let Texas celebrate her glorious escape from the yoke of Mexico. The idea spread like fire in the tinder of Texas' best advertising minds. . Governor Pat Neff issued a proclamation calling a Centennial meeting. Some 2,000 Texans came, a Centennial Board was set up. That advertising idea had played into unusual good luck. The original head of the Centennial Board, Cato Sells (Woodrow Wilson's Indian Commissioner) was succeeded by a gentleman named Jesse Jones. An election in 1932 made Jesse Jones and another Texan. John Nance Garner, men of importance in Washington. Therefore the U. S. dipped into its Treasury for $3,000,000, a larger amount than it had ever contributed for a similar occasion, to match Texas' equal appropriation.

No one city in Texas had sole claim to celebrate her Centennial. San Antonio, Goliad, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Houston, all had claims, as sites of critical events in the year 1836 (see p. 13). So the Centennial arrangers granted every city and village a right to its own celebration, raised practically every local rodeo, county fair, flower show, milk festival, fiddlers' reunion to the rank of a Centennial observance.

Dividing the $3,000,000 velvet from the Federal Government was another matter. Houston, as Texas' biggest city (292,000), got $400,000 for memorializing the battlefield of San Jacinto. San Antonio as third largest (232,000) got $440,000 for repairing the Alamo. Austin, the state capital, is relatively small, but has the University of Texas which claimed $300,000. Fort Worth, the fourth city (163,000) had a potent pull in the person of the New Deal's Amon G. Carter and wangled $250,000. Texas' second biggest city, Dallas (260,- 000) ran off with the plum. Not for historical background but because she is Texas' financial capital and offered to put up the most money of her own, she was awarded the right to hold the big show, the Texas Centennial Exposition, and given $1,200,000 of the Federal contribution.

Exposition. With a parade of floats behind him and a pageant of Texas history "under six flags"* before him, Governor Allred will this week tell the world by radio that the Exposition has opened. There next week Franklin Roosevelt will make the major speech of his three-day visit to Texas. And there, if Dallas is to get her money's worth, a good many millions of U. S. citizens will see what Texas has to advertise and how she advertises it.

A $25,000,000 show is what Dallas advertises, but of that sum $12,000,000 is credited to exhibitors (largest: Ford $2,250,000; General Motors $950,000; Chrysler $500,000) and $5,000,000 to concessionaires. Actual amount put into the Fair by the management is somewhat less than $8,000,000, including Federal, state and city contributions. Head of the Exposition corporation is a hardfisted, onetime country banker, Robert L. Thornton. General manager of the Exposition is a onetime Dallas real estate man, William A. Webb. To start with they had the old State Fair grounds plus some 28 acres of condemned residential property, 200 acres in all. The old Fair Park stadium became the "Cotton Bowl," and the job of being bold enough to please the hearts of Texas' heroes, and to attract a profitable gate, began.

Three major difficulties stood in the way. First was that the Dallas Exposition comes right on top of two World's Fairs, Chicago's and San Diego's. Dallas stole their thunder. The Dallas Fair buildings are in a style reminiscent of the Century of Progress, but not quite so modernistic and spiced with a Mexican flavor. Indirect lighting on a grand scale is provided. The approach (admission 50-c-) is past a 300-ft. lagoon, flanked by a Transportation building (emphasis on oil as motive power) and a Hall of Electricity, to a great State of Texas Building which will become a permanent historical building. Other not-so-novelties include a music amphitheatre, buildings of animal husbandry, poultry and agriculture, an art show assembled by Dr. Robert Harshe, who did the same for the Century of Progress.

For sex interest the Exposition will have a force of rangerettes complete with chaps and 10-gal. hats, who will act as ushers, tell timid matrons where to find comfort stations, etc. As official hostess was chosen 21-year-old Frances Nalle, with the title of Texas "Bluebonnet Girl."/- And last week at San Antonio, Governor Allred crowned Janice Jarrat, artists' model (whose portrait appears on the cover of June Cosmopolitan) as the "Sweetheart of Texas Centennial" with the duty of acting as mistress of ceremonies at all the Fair's broadcasts, appearing at all major Centennial celebrations during the next three months.

More exceptional will be a Negro Life Building (culture, not insurance); exhibits of the oil industry, among which will be a Hall of Religion provided by Lone Star Gas Co.; a radio theatre where audiences can see and hear Fair broadcasting, provided by Gulf Refining Co.; a jungle full of life-size dinosaurs provided by Sinclair Oil.

For an extra 50-c- visitors will be able to see the "Cavalcade of Texas" on a 300-ft. stage at the race track of the fair grounds, complete with all six flags, with cowponies and Wild West resurrected. And for untold small change there will be about 100 side shows on a Midway put together by Paul Massman who managed such matters in Chicago and San Diego. Some of its ventures: "Streets of Paris" for lovers of the nude; "Streets of All Nations" for lovers of the seminude; an "English Village"; Shakespeare plays acted by students of Carnegie Tech. ; Warden Lawes of Sing Sing exposing crime; Admiral Byrd exposing Little America; a "Black Forest"; an "Old Curiosity Shop"; etc., etc.

Second difficulty of the Dallas Fair was a shortage of time. Although the Centennial as a whole was planned more than twelve years ago, the Dallas Exposition did not get a good start until last autumn. Over 40 buildings had to be erected, two whole golf courses bought, cut up into sod and used to grass the Exposition. For the last few months, 7,000 to 10,000 workmen have been working three shifts a day. On every job was a big sign reading " -- days until June 6. We shall not fail." Last week the fateful numbers on the sign fell from 10 to 9 to 8 to 7 and still buildings were going up, statues being cast. Among the buildings likely to be incomplete was the State of Texas building, but still the Expositioneers swore that all would be ready for the grand opening, June 6.

Third difficulty of the Dallas Fair was to make its visitors comfortable. Fearful that ignoramuses from distant States would not regard Texas as the ideal summer recreation grounds which they claim it to be, the Fair's managers announced that 80% of its buildings would be air-cooled. More ambitious were the Fair's publicity men who announced that Dallas would be cooled every evening by breezes from the Gulf of Mexico (250 miles away). More serious than heat was the question of housing. For a city such as Chicago, with over 3,000,000 population, to welcome 150,000 visitors at one time requires only about 5% more beds than usual. For Dallas 150,000 visitors would require over 55% more beds. For the past few weeks Dallas hotels have already been filled by people coming on Exposition business. To house the great influx expected, Dallas has been busy building tourist camps and tent cities on her outskirts, arranging to have Pullman cars kept on sidings for their passengers to live in, arranging a central booking bureau to which visitors can apply to rent rooms in several thousand private homes.

Rump Fair, It is a terrible thing for two cities to be only 33 miles apart. When Fort Worth heard that Dallas was to be the centre of Texas Centennial, her pride was pinched. Amon Carter and friends had got only a quarter of a million out of the Federal grab bag, but they determined to outdo Dallas. They sent for Fanny Brice's husband, little Billy Rose, most grandiloquent of U. S. showmen, the author of Barney Google. Presented to him was a contract reputedly for $1,000 a day for 100 days. Promptly Fort Worth's "Frontier Centennial" was planned.

With a $1,000,000 bond issue sponsored by Fort Worth's businessmen, Rose's dreams took form. First was Casa Manana, a great theatre-cafe with tables for 3,000 to 4,000 diners arranged on mounting terraces. Below in the midst of an artificial lake will be a 130-ft. revolving stage which will gyrate under "250 Eye-Bedeviling Coryphees." Some say Rose's original idea was to keep the stage stationary, make the theatre revolve.

Another Rose vision is a circular theatre with a circular curtain to show a circular audience the great Rose show, Jumbo, which boomed all last winter in Manhattan's Hippodrome, but is "just a side show" in Fort Worth. Other items: "The Last Frontier," musical super-rodeo `a la Rose; "The Pioneer Palace," resurrection of an old Texas barroom and dance hall on a Rose scale; finally "The Sunset Trail," a kind of midway, one of whose attractions is to be "The Nude Ranch" with Sally Rand.

While preparing Fort Worth to startle the country, Billy Rose in person startled Fort Worth. Wearing a 10-gal. hat and chaps as if they were his native costume, the little Broadway Barnum rode around town on a gleaming mustang, sporting a deputy sheriff's gold badge, toting a bejeweled six-gun "as protection against Dallas' angry city fathers." Dallas was indeed enraged when he rented a building opposite the entrance of the Dallas Fair, started to put up a huge electric sign reading: "Forty-five minutes west to whoopee! Dallas for Education, Fort Worth for Entertainment." Dallas promptly declared the building unsafe for so large a sign.

"Billy the Kid" Rose further startled Fort Worth by going around with a two- headed snake, keeping three live wolves in his office, falling in with an oldster who insists he is Jesse James and produces birth certificates to prove it. He lectured in the First Methodist Church, showered the State with folders that made Fort Worth's Centennial look almost a 100% nude show, and attracted attention in Los Angeles and Manhattan by advertising: "WANTED: 100 bona fide noblemen, whose titles stem from either active or extinct monarchies and who, for adventurous or economic reasons, are willing to serve as dancing partners for the Flower of Texas, from July 1 to October 15. In answering submit photographs in uniform, with orders, ribbons and decorations evident, and ancestral outline, that your validity may be established easily. Give physical proportions, age and domestic status. Salary $100 a week. Bogus counts, masqueraders and descendants of the Dauphin will get short shrift. Address Billy Rose, Texas Frontier Centennial."

Texans foresee that celebration of the Centennial is not the last boldness which Jim Allred contemplates. This year he again faces Tom Hunter. The odds are on Allred's keeping his job, and he is already pointing for the national arena. Three weeks hence, having opened the Centennial and welcomed Franklin Roosevelt to Texas, he is going to Philadelphia. The job of heading the Texas delegation to the convention is reserved for Senator Tom Connally, but for Allred is reserved the privilege of renominating his fellow Texan, John Nance Garner, for Vice President. This is a compromise achieved with some little coolness between Messrs. Connally and Allred, for Senator Connally comes up for re-election in 1940. More than one Texan makes a shrewd guess that by that time Jim Allred, who will then be 41, will be ready to warm the hearts of Texas Heroes once again, by running for the U. S. Senate.

Whereas at the Dallas Fair liquor will be sold in packages by a drug-store chain concession and it was still doubtful whether Dallas visitors could buy a drink on the Fair premises* Fort Worth, priding itself on its cow-town ancestry, plans to vend refreshments of all kinds. Thus, although $1 will get a visitor into both Casa Manana and Jumbo, Billy Rose figures he can gross $35,000 a day to offset $11,000 a day running expenses. Having started later than Dallas, Fort Worth's Frontier Centennial is not scheduled to open until July 1, plans to keep going till Dec. 1, three days after the Dallas Fair closes.

Able Allred. No ghoulish stethoscope last week dangled into the graves of Texas' heroes to determine whether all this was bold enough to please them, but if boldness and youth were what the heroes were grateful for, James V. (for nothing) Allred was their man 13 years ago when Texas Centennial was a speech at an advertising convention and Jim Allred was a 24-year-old cub attorney at Wichita Falls. Third son of a rural mail carrier of Bowie, Tex., he had been through the War as a gob on a training vessel in the Pacific, had earned his way through law school. In 1924 when a district attorney of Wichita Falls resigned, he recommended young Allred as his successor and Governor Pat Neff made the appointment.

First thing Allred's fellow citizens knew, their stripling district attorney was prosecuting Mayor Collier of Wichita Falls and his wife for murdering their son-in-law, and convicting them. Next Jim Allred, at 27, was running for Attorney General of Texas. He lost to Claude Pollard, a seasoned attorney, by a total of only 3,500 votes out of 700,000 cast. When Pollard resigned in 1929, Allred went to Governor Dan Moody and said, "Appoint me." Instead Moody appointed another seasoned lawyer, Robert Lee Babbitt. In 1930 Allred went once more to the polls and took off with Babbitt's job. As Attorney General, he launched a series of suits demanding over $17,000,000 in fines from 17 major oil companies for violation of the State's anti-trust laws. The anti-trust suit ran aground three years ago on a court decision declaring that NRA superseded all anti-trust laws, but Allred succeeded in recovering Texas school lands on which oil had been discovered, lands which he claimed were worth $100,000,000.

Two years ago he ran for Governor. The State was still being run by the egregious Fergusons, who had been twice ousted from the Governorship but twice came back. In 1917 Pa (James) Ferguson was impeached and removed from office. In 1926 Dan Moody beat Ma (Miriam), who had won back the office. But in 1932 Ma Ferguson won the Governorship again and in 1934 when Jim Allred set out to be elected, the Fergusons were in the field once more in the person of Candidate Charles C. McDonald. In the primary, Allred and another Wichita Falls lawyer, Tom F. Hunter, both beat the Ferguson candidate. For the run-off the Fergusons shifted their strength to Hunter. Again "the little boy in the big breeches," as Tom Hunter called him, beat his elders. Result was that Jim Allred, aged 35, took dowdy Ma Ferguson on his arm into Texas' inauguration ceremonies last year and that this year Ma & Pa Ferguson will sit at home listening to the Texas Centennial by radio instead of in seats of honor at the Dallas Exposition.

*Spain, 1519--1821; France, 1685--87; Mexico, 1821--36; Texas, 1836-46; U. S., 1846-1936; Confederacy, 1861--65.

/-The bluebonnet is Texas' State flower.

*Wrote Hubert Roussel in the Houston Press: "This promises to be the great lemon and strawberry pop fair."

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