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  Hearnes, Warren E.
CANDIDATE DETAILS
AffiliationDemocratic  
  1971-01-01  
 
NameWarren E. Hearnes
Address
Charleston, Missouri , United States
EmailNone
WebsiteNone
Born July 24, 1923
DiedAugust 16, 2009 (86 years)
ContributorUser 13
Last ModifedRBH
Sep 26, 2018 01:42pm
Tags
InfoGovernor of Missouri
1964 - 1972

I left the hills, small mountains, and rough country of the Ozarks where I live and went south and east into the Missouri "boot heel" region, where I met former Democratic Governor Warren Hearnes (1964-1972). An early advocate of devolution, Hearnes now resides in his home town of Charleston with his wife Betty, a five-term veteran of the Missouri House, and practices law. This political couple were participants in the pivotal years of the post World War II period in American history. Like Missourians a century before, they were soldiers against an old foe: central government.

If we are to believe history at all, we know that after the War for Southern Independence, we entered a vague and troubling period antiseptically called Reconstruction. This period ended with what C. Vann Woodward described as the "Invisible Compromise of 1877": Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats made a covert deal to (among other things) remove the occupation troops from the South and allow the states to resume a growing measure of sovereignty. The South became a sort of "semi-autonomous zone" in a period of diminishing federal involvement. But in 1964 Lyndon Baynes Johnson, symbol of the "New South", political powerbroker, and arguably the most liberal and nationalistic President the United States have ever seen, was elected by a landslide over conservative Barry Goldwater. Warren Hearnes, West Point graduate, veteran legislator with a reputation as an anti-establishment populist, won the governor's race in Missouri. The "Invisible Compromise" was about to come to an end.

Reconstruction in Missouri had been accomplished through the dreaded "Drake Constitution". As in other states, disenfranchisement of former Confederates was the law as well as a quasi-official policy of expropriation and outright theft of the property and land of former secessionists and their supporters. The looting and humiliation was as thorough as could be accomplished by the post-war Republicans. Perhaps the "beginning of the end" of Reconstruction in Missouri was the inauguration of Gen. John Sappington Marmaduke (C.S.A.) as Railroad Commissioner in 1877, and its completion his election as governor in 1884 - the only former Confederate general ever to be elected as governor.

As did Marmaduke', Warren Hearnes's election came at an uneasy and transitional time. America was changing from a regional to a global power, engaging in numerous trade and military wars to do so. By the second half of the century the drive to consolidate the states into a vast homogenous union was again part of the agenda of the powerbrokers. Initially, the political fallout from the War for Southern Independence had been divisive; regional animosities and ceaseless wars with Native Americans took their toll on those who would centralise power. But by the end of World War II centralisation began again in earnest.

Hearnes was young, handsome, popular, and charismatic. He had a taste for controversy and a cocky attitude to match his energy. A political cartoon of him after his election portrayed a Sampson-like character breaking up a Roman-style temple with the caption "Disestablishmentarian". This proved an important and prophetic distinction. Far from a liberal and not really a dogmatic conservative or a dime-store reformer, Hearnes was unique in a political milieu dominated by centralists hiding behind the Cold War and a plethora of other patriotic pretensions.

By the 1960s the country was at or near its zenith of power. The American military could intimidate other former powers at will. American products dominated the world market still recovering from the war. Industry boomed. The central government could (and did) dispense a seemingly endless variety of services as well as fund industry's appetite for enormous construction and defence projects. Yet with government largesse came government control. With each beneficial new program came regulation. The strings attached to projects seemed benign enough at first but as the paperwork mounted and the number of civil servants proliferated, the nature of restrictions became increasingly political.

The differences between Hearnes and Johnson were sharp and bitter. Gov. Hearnes related this story of a governors' meeting at LBJ's ranch in 1966:

After being harangued by Johnson, Hearnes stood up and began to list the demands the states had of his administration. An argument ensued and Johnson told Hearnes to shut up. After an icy silence, Gov. McNair of South Carolina stood up and said, "Mr President, dont jump on Gov. Hearnes; he speaks for all of us." After the meeting a stunned Johnson told his advisors to "get that s.o.b. Hearnes out of here before the press gets to him." That was only the beginning.

The "Solid South" Democrat Warren Hearnes was only vaguely aware of the ominous changes about to affect nearly every cherished institution in Dixie. He was neither a political scientist nor a sociologist. A son of the rural South, his values were decidedly traditional and small-town. However, along with his military education, he received a law degree from the University of Missouri while he was a state legislator. His wife, a daughter of a Southern Baptist minister from Arkansas, attended both Baylor and Southeast Missouri State.

Unlike others in his generation who sought to remake the world in the modernist mode, Gov. Hearnes sought instead to revisit and improve the world he was raised with: a humane society with values and tied to the cycles of nature.

Although Missouri was in transition from an agricultural to an urban economy, Hearnes felt that continuity could be preserved and that revolutionary measures were counterproductive. St Louis, the major city in the state, was clamouring for more state and federal funds to "fix" its mounting problems.

Johnson pushed hard for uniform national planning, crucial to his policy aims of consolidation, unification, and homogenisation of the states into a great national entity (fulfilling Lincoln's century-old dream). Hearnes thought the way to solve social problems was through the use of small-scale state programs that would parallel the federal government, but lock the Fed out of state affairs. Setting up agencies within the state to handle state problems would work better, he believed. Many federal projects didn't work at all; others were simply give-aways and pork barrel politics. Hearnes could see that strings were attached to every dollar of tax money returned to the states and that central involvement was corrosive of state sovereignty.

Anticipating uniform national planning in Missouri, Hearnes began programs under a new Office of State and Regional Planning and a Department of Community Affairs to set state priorities before the Feds could enter.
Hearnes received national press when he was one of the first new governors to fight national urban renewal. Along with civil rights legislation, Hearnes saw urban renewal as a "Trojan horse" to grab state power. Urban renewal would work directly with city government, bypassing the states and creating enclaves of federal power within the states, but not under state control - not unlike the Union army's strategy in Missouri 100 years earlier, seizing most of the urban centers and leaving control of the rural areas to the Confederates. Hearnes saw through the program and called it a boondoggle of high rise slums and concrete Calcuttas.

He fought the federal program with his own policies. The fight got so bitter that former Hearnes administration officials say that Johnson got angry and threatened to freeze all federal funds to Missouri. Hearnes continued the offensive by setting up the Ozarks Economic Opportunity program, across state lines into Arkansas and Oklahoma. It was a farsighted innovation that would have cut the federal administration from the economic development arena. When it became a topic of great interest to other Southern governors, Johnson - and then Nixon -came down on it hard. The idea of multi-state agencies set up by states with little central intervention and no federal funding is a policy idea that could serve future political leaders.

Governor Hearnes pointed out that his original idea was to solve problems in urban areas by promoting development in rural areas of the state. By bolstering the economy of the agrarian sector, out-migration to the cities would be stopped, thus ending many urban problems. It was an elegant and simple solution to the incessant carping of cities for more funds. It was also a model for states to regain powers lost to the central government by joining into sectional alliances -not a new idea to Southerners.

Hearnes was strong in Missouri and popular with other Southern governors such as McNair, Connelly, and George Wallace (who was by then a third-party candidate for President) but outside the Southern Governor's Conference, no other regional organisation existed to champion Hearnes' program of "creative localism." The South itself was divided on the issue. Many responded to the sirens' song of a seemingly inexhaustible federal purse. The idea of a united nation vanquishing the Nazis, Soviets, Red Chinese and all other evils of the world was appealing. Not to mention the money the military/industrial complex was spending in the Southern states. This "nationalism" weakened the bond of the Solid South and eventually undid it.

In election year 1968 Johnson attempted to force through the National Governor's Conference a resolution of support for his more-and-more unpopular wartime policies. All but three governors acquiesced: two Republicans, Mark Hatfield from Oregon and George Romney of Michigan; and one lone Democrat, Warren Hearnes. Hearnes action sent shock waves through the Democratic Party and enraged Johnson. The former West Point officer told the national press that he supported the troops, but could not support an administration plan without sufficient knowledge of its intentions. In effect he was saying that Washington's leadership was so remote from the people's will and so obscure in its purpose that it did not deserve to be endorsed. Years of domestic policy infighting, personal and political rivaly, and flat-out philosophical disagreement came to a head with Hearnes' announcement. Missiourians overwhelmingly re-elected their governor with the largest landslide in Missouri history; Johnson's administration foundered and eventually fell.

But sometimes frustration begets expedience. Years of fighting Johnson turned into years of fighting Nixon. The old zeal for competent state programs gave way to accommodations like revenue sharing and other national solutions for local problems. Lacking sturdy regional alternatives, going to the federal trough seemed to be the only way for state leaders to tend the needs of their citizens.

The seventies were a time of ceaseless investigation of Warren Hearnes. Every federal agency that could be mustered shamelessly hounded him for all sorts of imagined corruption, but nothing was ever found and he was never prosecuted for any violation. Although eventually completely vindicated, he was physically and financially exhausted. That is another story.

If the paradigm of states' rights and responsibility could have been carried by one man in one state, Warren Hearnes would have done it. With a united people, a solid mandate unencumbered by racial turmoil, Hearnes strove to rebuild his state. But one man and one state cannot do it. Both political party leaders saw to that. But the legacy of Hearnes' philosophy may be in seeking sectional solutions. Alliances across state lines point the way out of the centralist dilemma we find ourselves in today.


Governor Warren Hearnes & the Triumph of Centralism
contributed by David S. Reif
[Link]

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Date Category Headline Article Contributor
Aug 17, 2009 09:00am Obituary Former [MO] Gov. Warren Hearnes dies at 86  Article Monsieur 

DISCUSSION
Importance? 9.00000 Average

FAMILY
Wife Betty Cooper Hearnes Jul 02, 1948-Aug 16, 2009

INFORMATION LINKS
RACES
  11/07/1978 MO Auditor Lost 48.17% (-3.66%)
  08/08/1978 MO Auditor - D Primary Won 57.20% (+32.19%)
  11/02/1976 MO US Senate Lost 42.49% (-14.44%)
  08/21/1976 MO US Senate - D Replacement Nominee Won 63.33% (+26.67%)
  08/03/1976 MO US Senate - D Primary Lost 26.38% (-19.01%)
  11/05/1968 MO Governor Won 60.80% (+21.59%)
  08/06/1968 MO Governor - D Primary Won 85.47% (+78.08%)
  11/03/1964 MO Governor Won 62.06% (+24.12%)
  08/04/1964 MO Governor - D Primary Won 51.91% (+7.92%)
  11/08/1960 MO Secretary of State Won 56.18% (+12.36%)
  08/02/1960 MO Secretary of State - D Primary Won 42.15% (+7.62%)
  11/04/1958 MO State House - Mississippi County Won 88.10% (+76.20%)
  11/06/1956 MO State House - Mississippi County Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
  11/02/1954 MO State House - Mississippi County Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
  11/04/1952 MO State House - Mississippi County Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
  11/07/1950 MO State House - Mississippi County Won 100.00% (+100.00%)
ENDORSEMENTS
MO Attorney General - D Primary - Aug 05, 2008 D Jeff Harris
MO US President - D Primary - Feb 05, 2008 D Hillary Clinton
MO Governor - D Primary - Aug 03, 2004 D Bob Holden
MO District 6 - D Primary - Aug 08, 1972 D Dexter Davis
US President - D Primaries - Jun 06, 1972 D Edmund S. Muskie