The Administration of Pat M. Neff, Governor of Texas, 1921-1925.
(Waco: Baylor University Press, 1938. Pp. xiii, 124.)

The Baylor University Press is to be commended for the publi-
cation of this master's thesis on the administration of one of the
greatest governors of Texas. It would be a valuable addition to the
political and historical literature of Texas if we had in published
form a careful study of the administration of each of the Texas
governors from Henderson to Allred. The present study begins
with a biographical sketch, emphasizing the strong influences of
home and religion upon Pat M. Neff, tracing his education through
the attainment, unusual for Texas governors, of the B. A., LL. B.,
and M. A. degrees, recalling that he was the youngest Speaker of
the House of Representatives to preside over that body, and con-
cluding with a summary of his public services since leaving the
governor's office. A chapter each is given to his first campaign
for governor, his first administration, his second campaign for
governor, his second term as governor, and his service as governor.

So tireless that he traveled into more than half the counties of
Texas, several of them, remote from larger centers, and spoke
approximately eight hundred and fifty times during the campaign
of 1920, so earnest and so eloquent that crowds up to twenty
thousand came to listen to him, Neff swept the powerful Joseph
Weldon Bailey from the field in his first campaign and won re-
election by a large majority over several opponents. As governor
he advocated and helped to inaugurate such reforms as the im-
provement of the penitentiary system and the sparing use of the
pardon power; the improvement of rural education, the introduc-
tion of vocational education, and the enlargement of the public
health program; highway improvement and the establishment of
state parks; taxation of natural resources; and the initiation of
a plan for a Texas centennial celebration.

This study is focused almost wholly upon the activity and
policies of Governor Neff himself, and is in no sense a history of
Texas under his administration. Though a great many Texas
newspapers are cited, the author seems to have drawn from them
nothing that could not have been found in the state documents
and in the publications of Pat M. Neff which she consulted.

North Texas State Teachers College.

L. W. Newton.

How to cite:
"Administration of Pat M. Neff, Governor of Texas, 1921-1925", Volume 43, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v043/n1/review_DIVL2745.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 12:24:04 CST 2008]