movement. McDowell, a lawyer and former judge from San Angelo, and Briggs, a

lawyer from Paducah, favored moderately liberal policies and were in sync with

Dewey and his programmatic goals. Briggs, in a letter to Brownell, castigated the

Creager faction as "reactionary and isolationist." He claimed that the conservative

group "has never allowed a labor leader in our organization, and the whole of his

crowd think a union member should be shot at sun rise. They are against the FEPC

and the Civil Rights program."42 Although their position would have attracted many

voters to the GOP in postwar Texas, Briggs was committed to overthrowing the Old

Guard and Dewey was the best option.

 Briggs and McDowell hailed from the panhandle of Texas, one of two areas of

Republican strength in the state. The other, the southeastern portion of the state, was

allied closely to the oil industry and tended to support conservative causes. McLean

and Creager operated in this area, but in 1948 H. Jack Porter challenged their

leadership. Closely allied with longtime oil pioneer Hugh Roy Cullen, Porter had

formed the Texas Independent Oil Producers and Royalty Owners Association, a

lobby group for Texas interests, and hoped to assume control of the state GOP in

order to further the ambitions of the petroleum industry. As the 1946 election cycle

ended, Texas Republicans began working to line up a slate of delegates on behalf of

their favored candidates. In late 1947, Porter made an aggressive move for control and

approached McDowell and Briggs with an offer to finance the 1948 Republican

campaign in exchange for leadership of the organization. McDowell and Briggs

refused Porter's bid to essentially buy-out the panhandle Republicans and continued

building support for Dewey within the state organization.43


42 Colley Briggs, Letter to Herbert Brownell, 16 July 1948. Copy in Folder (Br-Bz (1)), Box 134,
Brownell Papers.

43 Ibid.