Governor of Texas
In 1914, Ferguson was elected Governor of Texas running as an anti-prohibitionist Democrat. He served in this position from January 19, 1915 to August 25, 1917.
After being re-elected in 1916, Ferguson vetoed the appropriations for the University of Texas. The veto was retaliation against the university because of its refusal to dismiss certain faculty members whom Ferguson found objectionable. This move spurred the drive to impeach Ferguson. A leading Ferguson critic on the UT campus was historian Eugene C. Barker. Ferguson was indicted on nine charges in July 1917. The Texas House of Representatives prepared 21 charges against Ferguson and the Senate convicted him on 10 of those charges, including misapplication of public funds and receiving $156,000 from an unnamed source. The Senate removed him from the office of Governor and declared him ineligible to hold office under Texas jurisdiction. Despite this ruling, Ferguson ran for governor in 1918, but he was defeated in the Democratic primary by William P. Hobby of Houston, previously the lieutenant governor.
Read more about this topic: James E. Ferguson
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“Three years ago, also, when the Sims tragedy was acted, I said to myself, There is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of Massachusetts,—what has he been about the last fortnight? Has he had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this moral earthquake?... He could at least have resigned himself into fame.”
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