Steve Flowers: Big Jim Folsom’s run for Congress
We will continue this week with the saga of Alabama’s most colorful governor, the legendary Big Jim Folsom. Jim Folsom Jr. shared a story about his father’s early political life. Big Jim always knew that he wanted to go into politics, so he jumped right in. His hometown of Elba in Coffee County was in the sprawling old, third congressional district, which encompassed the southeastern part of the state. It was referred to as the “Wiregrass” district. The venerable and dignified Henry Steagall of Ozark had represented the Wiregrass district for 20 years when Big Jim decided to take him on. Steagall had become a powerful and well-known congressman. He was chairman of the House Banking Committee and had authored the famous Glass-Steagall Act, which revised national banking laws during FDR’s New Deal. As you can imagine, Chairman Steagall enjoyed the fruits of his labors. He hobnobbed with New York bankers. The big banking lobbyists were wining and dining Steagall and taking him to Broadway shows. He was living the high life in Washington. When he came home to the Wiregrass, he wore Brooks Brothers suits even when he was quail hunting. You could say, and many did, that old Henry had lost touch with the folks in the Wiregrass. The aloofness and “Washingtonitis” had created an opening for political challengers, and Big Jim was one of the four who challenged Stegall in 1936. All four of his opponents jumped on Steagall’s lifestyle. They accused him of living the grand life. They said he was not only eating pheasant under glass with New York bankers, but he was also cavorting with young girls in Washington. In this era, Alabama politics was conducted mostly through campaign rallies in the courthouse square. Even in a small town, it was not unusual for 500 people, including many farmers in their overalls, to gather on the square during campaign season for a political rally. Every candidate for every office would show up to speak. The local candidates would talk, and then the gubernatorial candidates, and then the Congressional candidates. They would draw straws to set the order in which they would speak. On this particular day, all of the candidates for Steagall’s seat were there, as well as the congressman. Every one of the challengers jumped on Steagall’s personal life. They lambasted his fine dining and especially harped on the old man’s fooling around with young women. Except for Big Jim, who was 26, all the other candidates were middle-aged. When it finally became Big Jim’s time to speak, he made it short and sweet. He said, “Folks, I’ve been listening to all my opponents talk about Mr. Steagall’s lifestyle in Washington, especially his liking and running with young women. Sounds like to me, if that’s the job of a congressman in Washington, you ought to bring Old Henry home and send a young man up there to take his place. I believe I could do a better job with fine dining and young women. Y’all vote for me.” Big Jim ran second to Steagall that year, but he carried that town. In that same campaign, Big Jim was politicking down a dirt road in rural Geneva County. He stopped by a farmhouse at the end of the dirt road. The farmer and his wife visited with the young candidate. They gave young Jim Folsom several large glasses of buttermilk to drink while they sat on the porch and visited. Big Jim and the farmer bonded. The old farmer lamented that he wished somebody would pave his road so that he could get his produce to market no matter what the weather. Big Jim lost that race for Congress, but he never forgot that old farmer in Geneva County. When Big Jim became governor a decade later, the first dirt road he paved in his famous Farm-to-Market road-building program was that one in Geneva County. It is called the Buttermilk Road. Big Jim got a lot of things said about him on the campaign trail while he was governor, but he had a unique way of disarming and diminishing the effect of the mud being slung at him. He would rear back and tell his rural audiences, “My mama used to tell me that if someone threw mud at you and it landed on your new white starched shirt, you simply ignore it. Don’t try to wipe it off right away while it is still wet because if you do, it will just smear all over your shirt. But if you ignore it and let it dry for a few days, you can just thump it off.” See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
Steve Flowers: Bibb Graves, the Education Governor
Most states have one General Fund Budget. We are only one of five states that have two. Some of you have asked why we have two budgets – one for the General Fund and one for Education. Here is why. During the era of the Great Depression and even afterward, education in Alabama was woefully underfunded, and that is really being generous to simply say underfunded. Our schools were similar to a third-world country. We had two separate systems, one for white students and one for black students. Many rural schools were one-room shanties like folks used in the 1800s, like Blab schools, no air conditioning, wood-burning stoves for heat. There were no buses to transport children, so they really did walk to school, barefooted, many times miles to and from. This was for the white schools. You can only imagine what an abysmal education was afforded black kids. Many times teachers were not even being paid. They were given script notes in hopes of getting paid in the future. We had a governor come along named Bibb Graves that made it his mission to make education a priority in Alabama. He and the Legislature created the Special Education Trust Fund Budget. They earmarked two tax revenues to be used for the new Education Budget. Education was to be the recipient of the state sales tax and the state income tax, which was a new tax system idea just created by the federal government. Little did Governor Bibb Graves know that today, these two revenue streams would be the largest source of revenue for the state. That little Special Education Fund Budget now dwarfs the General Fund by over a two-to-one amount. When I was first elected to the Legislature in 1982, the General Fund and Education budgets were 50/50 dead even. Today, the budgets the Legislature will pass are at least 75% Education and around 25% General Fund. Governor Bibb Graves built an indelible legacy as the Education Governor. His efforts also enhanced higher education in the state. He established teacher’s colleges at Troy, Florence, Jacksonville, and Livingston, along with enhancing funding at the State’s two flagship institutions. The University of Alabama and at the time the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, now Auburn University, were recipients of new education dollars. Every university in the State has a primary building, usually in the center of the campus, named after Governor Bibb Graves. That is quite appropriate because Governor Bibb Graves left an education legacy as governor. He may very well be Alabama’s greatest Governor. In fact, he was our only two-term governor between 1901 and 1954. Alabama law did not allow governors to succeed themselves. Therefore, they would have to wait out four years to run again. Graves was governor from 1927 to 1931 and again from 1935 to 1939. The only other two-term governor in the no succession era was James E. “Big Jim” Folsom. He also had an indelible legacy. Many of the rural roads in the state were dirt and impassable when the rains would come. Most folks in the state farmed for a living. When the roads washed out, they could not get their crops to the market, so their year-long work was washed out. Big Jim knew the plight of these farmers; he was the little man’s and rural man’s big friend. Big Jim paved almost every rural road in the state with his legendary Farm-to-Market Road Program. Ole Big Jim has a legacy as Governor. His son, Jim Folsom, Jr., has a legacy as governor. Even though he was only Governor for two years, he brought Mercedes to Alabama. The German company now builds more of their luxury automobiles at their Vance-Tuscaloosa plant than anywhere in the world. This initial Mercedes coupe by Folsom was the impetus for Hyundai, Honda, and now Toyota-Mazda making Alabama the home of automobile manufacturing. With these facilities come major spin-off accessory manufacturing plants. We are now the second-largest automobile manufacturing state in America and are poised to supersede Michigan and become number one in the next few years. Some Governors have left a legacy. Bibb Graves, “Big Jim” Folsom, and Jim Folsom, Jr. are three that have left their mark on Alabama history. Bibb Graves has a legacy as Alabama’s Education Governor. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
Steve Flowers: BP oil spill money, a missed opportunity for Alabama’s natural resources
We have unbelievable natural resources in Alabama starting with the Tennessee Valley and transcending to the beautiful white sands at Gulf Shores. Many of our natural resources have been exploited over the years. The prime example would be the exploitation of our rich vaults of iron ore discovered in Jefferson County in the early 20th Century. It created the city of Birmingham, the Steel City of the South. U.S. Steel swept in and bought the entire region and used cheap labor in the mines and steel mills and kept poor whites and blacks in poverty wages and shantytowns. They owed their soul to the company store. Finally, they organized into labor unions. The United Steel Workers Union Local in Birmingham became the largest in the nation. Alabama also became the most unionized state in the south. The TVA workers and Reynolds Aluminum workers in the Tennessee Valley were all unionized. The tire workers in Gadsden, Opelika, and Tuscaloosa were unionized. The federal workers around Ft. Rucker in the Wiregrass were union. The largest employer in Mobile was the docks. The dockworkers were unionized. When you combine these locales with the steelworkers in Birmingham, we were a pretty unionized state. In the course of our recent history, we have been more prudent with our natural resources. The prime example of that would be during the late 1970s when we sold the oil rights in Mobile Bay to Exxon Mobil. We got a fair price, and we put the entire corpus aside and preserved the money into a trust called the Heritage Trust Fund. Governor Fob James deserves credit for this accomplishment. It is the crowning achievement of his two terms as governor. It is quite a legacy. Not all governors leave a legacy. Ole Fob has one. Not as much can be said for our most recent governors. Don Siegelman, Bob Riley, and Robert Bentley cannot point to any accomplishment that will distinguish their time as governor. Jim Folsom Jr., who only served two years as governor, can lay claim to having lured and landed Mercedes, which has been the crucible that has catapulted us into the second leading automaker in the nation. Governor Bentley was given a golden opportunity to garner a place in history with the one-time BP oil spill money. Granted, it was not as much money as the Exxon Mobil oil rights nor did we get as good a settlement as could have been garnered. We will only see $693 million of the $1 billion settlement because we bailed out and sold out to get our money up front. Compared to Louisiana and Florida, it was not a good settlement. Essentially this one-time windfall will be squandered. The BP money was appropriated in a special session last September. The Legislature spent the entire BP oil settlement proceeds with a compromise bill that divided the money between state debt repayments, roads for Baldwin and Mobile counties and Medicaid. The allocation was $400 million for paying off state debts, $120 million for highway projects in Baldwin and Mobile counties, and a total of $120 million to Medicaid over the next two years. There had been a contentious battle over the funds for Baldwin and Mobile going back to last year’s regular session. Lawmakers from the coastal counties fought diligently for the road money because their counties received the brunt of the 2010 oil spill. Lawmakers from North Alabama felt that the BP settlement should compensate all Alabamians equally. Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur), who chairs the Education Budget Committee in the Senate, led the fight for North Alabama and Sen. Trip Pittman (R-Baldwin), who chairs the Senate General Fund Committee, spearheaded the battle for Baldwin/Mobile. Senators compromised the final day of the special session. The money from BP is spent. The only thing to show for it will be some highway to the beach. They ought to at least name it the BP Expressway. It would be the only legacy from the windfall. See you next week. ___ Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.
