Year: 1966
Type: dissertation
Abstract: James Thomas Heflin (1869-1951) helped to focus national attention on the cotton economy of the South from 190b to 1920.This study reports, describes, and evaluates Heflin's speaking during these years while he represented Alabama's Fifth Congressional Dis trict in the United States House of Representatives.The study includes chapters on Heflin's background and train ing, his efforts to acquire national recognition, the nature and extent of his early speaking on cotton, and an analysis of audiences, occasions, and speeches of his cotton advocacy, 1913-1920.Eleven representative speeches are analyzed and evaluated.Finally, an appraisal is made of the man and his public address.The principal source materials were the James Thomas Heflin Papers, deposited in the University of Alabama Library.Other materials included the Howard College Heflin Microfilm Collection, newspapers, the Congressional Record, and other government documents.Motivated by an insatiable desire for attention and sin intense interest in the economy of his section, Heflin became one of the chief spokesmen for the cotton interests.Making use of charm, wit, a magnetic personality, a flamboyant manner of dress, and his story telling, Heflin delighted audiences on the campaign and ceremonial circuitsj consequently, he soon won an extensive following extending far beyond his own district.ix Heflin proved to be adequate though not brilliant in his cotton speeches.His themes echoed the sentiment of his section.His proposition that the federal government should improve the cotton econ omy of the South was clear, concise, and often repeated.Arguing from reasonable premises, Heflin developed interrelated sub-premises which supported his central proposition.Using varied forms of support, Heflin made his credibility an important element in his persuasion and appealed to the deeper wants and needs of his listeners.Although Heflin was influential in obtaining passage of a number of bills helpful to the cotton economy, he made his singular accomplishment that of focusing the attention of the Wilson adminis tration and the nation on the needs of the South during the early years of the century.x States Congressman from Alabama's Fifth District.He served in the ■^Thomas D. Clark, The Emerging South (New Yorks Oxford University Press, 1961), p. xii.^The Register, James Thomas Heflin Papers, University of Alabama, p. U* Hereafter, in this study, these papers will be referred to as Heflin Papers, University of Alabama.^The Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 190? (Montgomery, Alabama: Brown Printing Company, 1907), p. 3 8. 1 House as a member of the Fifty-eighth through the Sixty-sixth Congresses, and in 1920 he was elected to the United States Senate from Alabama, a position which he held until his 1930 defeat for re-election to the Senate.He was denied a place in the primary because of opposition to the 1928 Democratic presidential candidate, A1 Smith.'4Soon after Heflin's election to the House of Representatives in I90I 4, his colorful and flambuoyant manner of speech and dress attracted nation-wide comment from magazines, newspapers, congressional colleagues, and state and national political organizations.Like his early idols Fiddlin1 Bob Taylor of Tennessee and Mississippi's Seargent S. Prentiss, Heflin effected a singularity of dress and an explosive speaking which caught the fancy of such magazines as American Mercury, Commonweal, Collier1s, Newsweek, The North American Review, Outlook, Time, and The Literary Digest.They characterized him with such epithets as "Don Tom," "Cotton Tom," "Tom-Tom," "Tom Quixote," and "The Incredible Heflin."By the end of his second term in the House, Heflin had earned a reputation as "the best dressed man ^The Register, Heflin Papers, University of Alabama, p.I j . .''Allan A. Michie and Frank Ryhlick, Dixie Demagogues (New York The Vanguard Press, 1939)* p» 3li2.on the floor of the House," the "most gorgeously dressed man in 7 Congress."His Alabama cotton creations of "a cream colored doublebreasted waistcoat, along with a Byronic cravat, and a long coat with flowing skirts that suggested a combination of a morning coat, an old-8 fashioned Prince Albert and a dressing gown" intrigued reporters for more than a quarter of a century.Congressional colleagues were no less impressed with Heflin*s unique appearance and oratorical power.Speaker of the House *Uncle* Joe Cannon was reported to have described him as "an Albanian sunset . . .a string of big, red, fat fire-9 crackers all going off at the same time."Alben W. Barkley remem bered Heflin as a "colorful figure . . .later known as 'Tom-Tom* because of his bitter tirades in the Senate . . .who literally talked himself out of the Senate.(L DIn Scrapbook 23, Heflin Papers, University of Alabama, are clippings from more than a dozen newspapers, all with a Washington, June III, 1909 dateline, and each is headlined "Heflin is Best Dressed Man on Floor of House."7 The New York Evening Post, July 15, 1911.O The New York Times, October 30, 1930.% a y T. Tucker, "Don Tom of Alabam," The North American Review, CCXXVI (August, 1923), 129.Alben W. Barkley, That Reminds Me-(Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 195U), p. 129. a The popularity of Heflin's Negro dialect stories, which he told in the House and Senate cloakrooms and on the floors of both Houses, 1 1 earned him the title of ' 'Champion Storyteller" of Congress.For a period of nearly twenty years from 1910 until 1930 fewother political campaigners were more in demand by the National Demo cratic Party.Heflin's campaign speechmaking in support of Democratic candidates for the Presidency, the House, Senate and in state guber natorial campaigns drew high praise from such men as Jim McClintic, Chairman of the Speakers' Bureau, Democratic National Congressional 12 Committee, and Cordell Hull, Chairman of the National Democratic 13 Party in 1921;.Heflin's ability as a campaign speaker was not his only source of attraction to political groups and special interest parties.His congressional speeches on tariff, segregation, immigra tion, the League of Nations, woman's suffrage, the Federal Reserve Board, the Mexican situation, the Nicaraguan dispute, the World Court, the 1928 presidential campaign, Catholicism, and cotton and agricul ture, all resulted in many invitations from various individuals and groups to speak to them at other ceremonial and special occasions.At the same time, special interest groups urged him to represent their particular interests in Congress.His willingness to vocalize for • * * ~The Nashville [Tennessee] Tennesseean, December 21, 192U» ■^McClintic to Heflin, November 10, 1923, Heflin Papers, University of Alabama.*^The LaFayette [Alabama] Sun, August 27, 192l|° such persons and groups is reflected by his representation of the disgruntled former Comptroller of Currency John Skelton Williams.With Williams calling the shots, Heflin conducted a bitter fight against the Federal Reserve Board's deflation policy and against the reappoint ment of the Board's Governor, W. P. G. Harding.^4 Burl Noggle renders an account of Heflin's "joining Caraway of Arkansas as vocal pace-/" setters in Senatorial criticism of the great Republican scandal" 1 £ [Teapot Dome].Thousands of Ku KLux Xian organs and other groups enlisted Heflin's aid to fight the alleged Catholic influence in the Mexican and Nicaraguan disputes and to fight the candidacy of AL Smith, 16 in 1928.Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. sought to enlist Heflin's ora torical abilities on the subject of "America's Oriental Destiny" and appealed to Heflin to lend aid to a movement for the "absolute exclu-17 sion of all Orientals" from the United States.Although Heflin lent his oratorical skills to all of these causes, his most important advo cacy was that which he employed in favor of improving the cotton econ omy of the South."^There is extensive correspondence between Williams and Heflin, in which Williams supplied Heflin with much of the material and many of the arguments which he employed in this fight.Heflin Papers, University of Alabama.
Author: Yeomans, Gordon Allan
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W2726694202