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NEW EXHIBIT AT THE OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM EXPLORES ARKANSAS POLITICS IN THE 20TH CENTURY
April 16, 2008
LITTLE ROCK--Over the years, Arkansas elections have been full of drama, excitement and even scandal. And while campaigns more often revolved around personalities than policies, the choices that voters made over the years profoundly shaped our history and public persona. Our state’s political legacy is powerfully demonstrated in the Old State House Museum’s new exhibit, A Circus Hitched to a Tornado: Arkansas Politics in the 20th Century. The title is taken from a Saturday Evening Post reporter’s description of Hattie Caraway’s whirlwind canvass of the state with powerful Louisiana politician Huey Long for her U.S. Senate campaign in 1932.
The exhibit opens Friday, April 25, 2008, and will remain on exhibit through October 25, 2009. Admission to the Old State House Museum and all of its exhibits is free. Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Curators and Cartoonists
Noted Arkansas political scholar Jay Barth and respected journalist Ernest Dumas serve as co-curators for the exhibit. Barth is a professor of politics at Hendrix College and the co-author, with the late Diane Blair, of Arkansas Politics and Government: Do the People Rule? Dumas has written about Arkansas politics for over forty years, first as a reporter and opinion columnist for the Arkansas Gazette, and currently with the Arkansas Times. They divide the state’s political history into several distinct eras, and examine 20th century Arkansas politics by focusing on the state’s most important politicians and the elections that cemented their place in history. An additional gallery explores Arkansas politics from the unique perspective of Arkansas’s foremost political cartoonists, including George Fisher, Jon Kennedy, Roger Harvell, Tommy Durham, Vic Harville, and Jon Deering. Deering, political cartoonist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, served as a special advisor for this gallery.
Artifacts included in A Circus Hitched to a Tornado
The exhibit showcases many items from the Old State House Museum’s extensive collection of Arkansas political memorabilia including vintage campaign buttons and signage, photographs, clothing, and the personal effects of many of the state’s most notable politicians. Among the items featured:
• the typewriter Carl Bailey used during his gubernatorial campaigns;
• a cartoon booklet extolling Sid McMath’s life and career for his 1948 race;
• the ever-present Fedora hat Orval Faubus wore throughout each of his campaigns;
• a 45-rpm recording of We Like Faubus, that sang his praises to all who listened;
• a sticker advertising Winthrop Rockefeller’s 1968 race;
• a necktie painted with cherries and the slogan “It’s Cherry Picking Time in Arkansas,” worn by a young David Pryor when he worked as a campaign aide for Francis Cherry’s 1954 gubernatorial contest.
Highlights of the political cartoonists’ gallery include prints and originals of some of the most memorable cartoons of Arkansas politics, including a George Fisher cartoon portraying Bill Clinton on a tricycle. Visitors will also see the drawing table and desk chair that Fisher used to create his cartoons.
Exhibit Summary
Reformers and Icons
The first era explored in the exhibit, entitled Tawdry Populism, Timid Progressivism: 1900-1930, saw real attempts at political reform in the efforts of governors George Donaghey, Charles Brough, and Tom McRae. These progressives believed that government should promote policies and programs that would directly benefit and improve the lives of all its citizens. However, the period may be most remembered for the two dominating personalities of the time, Jeff Davis and Joe T. Robinson, neither of whom were considered to be true progressives. Davis, Arkansas’s first three-term governor, was loud, belligerent, and charismatic but an ineffective leader within state government. Robinson was a shrewd dealmaker who worked behind the scenes. He ultimately became a national political power, selected as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1928, and later serving as U. S. Senate majority leader during the early years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.
Hard Times and Political Battles
In Reaction and Factions: 1930-1948, the exhibit examines a period in which progressivism declined along with the economy as the Great Depression took hold. In contrast to President Roosevelt’s New Deal relief programs, a reactionary conservatism prevailed in state politics. This philosophy opposed social change and government intervention and was reflected in the policies of J. Marion Futrell, Homer Adkins, and Ben Laney. Futrell curtailed state spending so severely that the federal government threatened to suspend all its relief programs within Arkansas unless the state made a minimal effort to help its own people. Nevertheless, a progressive faction led by Carl Bailey and adopted by J. William Fulbright remained to challenge and sometimes overcome the conservatives.
Brief Progress, Long-Term Consequences
The third era discussed in the exhibit, Reform, Race, and Reaction: 1948-1966, began as a post-World War II revival of the progressive impulse, but it later devolved into the dogmatic, status-quo politics also typical for the state, this time focused not on economics but race. Sid McMath, a reform-minded lawyer and war hero, made gains in improving Arkansas’s schools, highways, and rural electrification over two terms as governor. Two years later a protégé, Orval Faubus, won an underdog campaign for governor and initially continued McMath’s forward-thinking philosophy. But Faubus’ liberal tendencies were set aside when he got caught up in the politics of school desegregation. Faubus wanted a third term, and felt he had to appease white voters by adopting much of the program of the hard-line segregationists. His political posturing won him six terms altogether, but it hindered progressive government in the state for a decade.
Sustained Growth and the Big Three
In Real Reform: 1966-1990, the exhibit focuses on the first truly sustained period of progress and reform in the state’s history. This era was ushered in by a liberal Republican outsider, Winthrop Rockefeller, who won over Arkansas voters tired of the corrupt practices and segregationist attitudes of the Faubus regime. With little cooperation from the state legislature Rockefeller’s success was limited, but his Democratic successors, Dale Bumpers, David Pryor, and Bill Clinton, were able to build on his progressive outlook and transform state government over the next 20 years. They re-organized state government, created new programs, and found new ways to pay for them. Their accomplishments in the areas of public education, health care, economic development, highways, and tourism substantially improved the quality of life for most of Arkansas’s
citizens.
Claiming a Seat at the Table
The final period discussed in the exhibit, A Two-Party Arkansas: 1990-2000, saw the first true expansion of Republican Party influence in the state since the Reconstruction era of the 1870s. Building on long-standing support in northwest Arkansas and party gains nationally, Republicans garnered an increasing measure of success in races elsewhere in the state. By 1997, Arkansas Republicans occupied the offices of governor and lieutenant governor, two congressional seats, and a U. S. Senate post. But party leaders and state legislators often did not see eye-to-eye with Governor Mike Huckabee, also a Republican. A moderate on taxes and government programs, he successfully promoted new healthcare, education, interstate highway, tourism, and heritage conservation initiatives. The party as a whole had difficulty building on the success of its most prominent office-holders, and Democrats easily maintained control of the state legislature throughout the decade.
Education Programs
Exhibit-related programs include exhibit tours, youth programs, curriculum-building workshops for educators, and special tour programs for school groups. Living history presentations will feature four famous Arkansas political characters, Jeff Davis, George Donaghey, Hattie Caraway, and Winthrop Rockefeller, and will be incorporated into all tours and youth programs. Guided tours are available seven days a week; please call in advance for group tour reservations at (501) 324-9685.
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