Dan Moody: Difference between revisions

|image = DanMoody.jpg

|order = 30th

|office = Governor of Texas

|term_start = January 18, 1927

|term_end = January 20, 1931

|lieutenant = [[Barry Miller (politician)|Barry Miller]]

|predecessor = [[Miriam A. Ferguson]]

|successor = [[Ross S. Sterling]]

|order2 = 32nd [[Texas Attorney General|Attorney General of Texas]]

|term_start2 = January 1925

|term_end2 = January 1927

|governor2 = Miriam A. Ferguson

|predecessor2 = [[Walter Angus Keeling]]

|successor2 = [[Claude Pollard]]

|order3 = [[Williamson County, Texas|Williamson County]] District Attorney

|term_start3 = 1922

|term_end3 = 1925

|birth_name = Daniel James Moody Jr.

|birth_date = {{birth date|1893|6|1}}

|birth_place = [[Taylor, Texas]], U.S.

|death_date = {{death date and age|1966|5|22|1893|6|1}}

|death_place = [[Austin, Texas]], U.S.

|restingplace = =[[Texas State Cemetery]]

|party = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]]

|spouse = {{marriage|[[Mildred Paxton Moody]]|1926}}

|alma_mater = [[University of Texas Law School]]

|profession = Attorney

|allegiance = {{flag|United States}}

|branch = {{army|United States}} <br> {{Flagdeco|Texas|size=23px}}[[Texas National Guard]]

|battles = [[World War I]]

|rank = 2nd Lieutenant and Captain (Guard)<br>2nd Lieutenant (Army)

'''Daniel James Moody Jr.''' (June 1, 1893{{spnd}}May 22, 1966), was an American lawyer and [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] politician. Originally from [[Taylor, Texas]], he served as the [[List of Governors of Texas|30th governor of Texas]] between 1927 and 1931. At the age of 33, he was elected. andHe took office as the youngest governor in Texas history.<ref name=":2">{{cite web|url= http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmo19|title= Moody, Daniel James Jr.|publisher= Texas State Historical Association |access-date= January 23, 2013|date= June 15, 2010}}</ref> After his two terms as governor, he returned to private law practice. andHe continued to prosecute and represent various functions of the [[US government]] later in his later life.

Moody was born on June 1, 1893, in Taylor, Texas. He was the son of Taylor's mayor, justice of the peace, and school board chairman, Daniel James Moody, who was one of the town's first settlers in 1876. His mother, Nannie Elizabeth Robertson, was a local school teacher when Moody married her in 1890.{{clarify|date=March 2020}}

During [[World War I]], Moody served in both the [[Texas National Guard]] as first a 2nd Lieutenant and then Captain and also in the [[United States Army]] as a 2nd Lieutenant.<ref>{{cite book|last=Michna|first=Irene K|title=Taylor|year=2011|publisher=Arcadia Publishing|isbn=978-0-7385-8502-4|pages=39, 40}}</ref>

In 1920, Moody served as [[Williamson County, Texas|Williamson County]] Attorney, a position he held for two years before becoming District Attorney in 1922. In 1923, Moody obtained an assault conviction against four members of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] for beating and tarring a white traveling salesman. The [[Texas Historical Commission]] wrote, "These trials were considered the first prosecutorial success in the United States against the 1920s Klan and quickly weakened the Klan's political influence in Texas."<ref>{{Citation|last=Pi3.124|title=English: Texas historical marker for the Ku Klux Klan trials|date=2017-10-08|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_historical_marker_for_the_Ku_Klux_Klan_trials.jpg|access-date=2020-07-29}}</ref> The Klan was very powerful in Texas, with an estimated 150,000 members in the state, including the national [[imperial wizard]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Texas Klansmen included a US senator and the mayors of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Wichita Falls mayors. The case was widely reported and gave him political momentum despite Klan opposition.<ref>{{cite journal | title =Breaking the Back of the Texas Klan |last=Paulsen |first=James W. |date=March 2012 |journal=Texas Bar Journal |volume=75 |issue=9 |page=209 |location=Austin, TX |publisher=State Bar of Texas |editor1-first=Michelle |editor1-last=Hunter}}</ref>

After his election as [[Texas Attorney General]] in 1925, Moody conducted investigations of the highly-corrupt [[James E. Ferguson]], whose wife, [[Miriam A. Ferguson]], was serving as the governor of Texas. His investigation recovered $1 million for the taxpayers of Texas. In 1927, Moody defeated her in a runoff election and became the youngest governor of Texas.<ref name=":2" /> Suffragists' activism provided a major contribution to her defeat, as they rallied behind Moody and campaigned for him.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/suffrage/aftermath/page2.html|title=Votes for Women! - Aftermath - Page 2 - Texas State Library {{!}} TSLAC|website=www.tsl.texas.gov|language=en|access-date=2018-08-09}}</ref> The activist [[Jane Y. McCallum]], whom Moody would later appoint as his [[Secretary of State of Texas|Secretary of State]], hosted the campaign headquarters in her own home. She and her colleagues hired a secretary, and they sent "letters, editorials, and pamphlets" to Texas women to ask them to vote for Moody.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news|url=http://austin-tx.aauw.net/files/2017/01/jane_mccallum-08-31-1953-article.pdf|title=Mrs. Jane McCallum Still Fights for Old Ideals--Recognition of Women|last=Bishop|first=Curtis|date=31 August 1953|work=The Austin Statesman|access-date=31 October 2017|archive-date=January 8, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230108015342/https://austin-tx.aauw.net/files/2017/01/jane_mccallum-08-31-1953-article.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

A conservative Democrat, he served two terms as governor before he left public office. He opposed the nomination of "wet," Catholic [[Al Smith]] in the [[Democratic Party presidential primaries, 1928|1928 presidential primaries]], but unlike the Fergusons, he supported Smith against [[Herbert Hoover]] in the [[United States presidential election in Texas, 1928|general election]],<ref>Campbell, Randolph B.; ''Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State'', p. 376 {{ISBN|0195138422}}</ref> which saw Texas vote Republican for the first time in its history. Moody supported a reform program of state prisons, roads, and auditing system.<ref name=":2" /> In the 1930s, he became a staunch critic of US President [[Franklin Roosevelt]]’s [[New Deal]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}}

In 1931, Moody resumed private law practice in [[Austin, Texas]], after his last term as governor. A request from President Roosevelt made Moody help to prosecute income tax evasion schemes in Louisiana as a special assistant to the [[US Attorney General]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}} Moody continued to represent Texas and its executives throughout the 1930s.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}}

Moody represented [[Coke R. Stevenson]] in his case against [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] over the hotly-contested 1948 Democratic senatorial primary electoral dispute, and Allred represented Johnson.{{Citation needed|date=May 2023}}

[[Category:GovernorsDemocratic Party governors of Texas]]

[[Category:PeoplePoliticians from Austin, Texas]]