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Miriam A. Ferguson
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Miriam Amanda Wallace "Ma" Ferguson (June 13 1875 – June 25 1961) became the first female governor of Texas in 1925. She was born in Bell County, Texas. Her husband, James Edward Ferguson, the governor from 1915 to 1917, was impeached, convicted, and removed from office during his second term. Under terms of the conviction, he was not allowed to hold state office again.
After her husband's impeachment and conviction, she ran as a Democrat for the office herself.
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Miriam Amanda Wallace "Ma" Ferguson (June 13 1875 – June 25 1961) became the first female governor of Texas in 1925. She was born in Bell County, Texas. Her husband, James Edward Ferguson, the governor from 1915 to 1917, was impeached, convicted, and removed from office during his second term. Under terms of the conviction, he was not allowed to hold state office again.
After her husband's impeachment and conviction, she ran as a Democrat for the office herself. During the campaign she said she would follow the advice of her husband and that Texas would get "two governors for the price of one." A common campaign slogan of the time was, "Me for Ma, and I Ain't Got a Durned Thing Against Pa."
Against what would have seemed insurmountable odds, another Ferguson was elected not only as governor, but the first woman governor of Texas. She was the second female state governor in the United States. Two weeks before her inauguration, Nellie Tayloe Ross was sworn in as governor of Wyoming to finish the expired term of her late husband.
Ferguson got her nickname "Ma" partly because "M.A." were her initials, and also because it was novelty term referring to women at the time. Before her marriage to James Ferguson when she was twenty-four, she was educated at Salado College and Baylor Female College.
"Fergusonism," as the Fergusons' brand of populism was called, was still a controversial subject in Texas. As governor, she tackled some of the tougher issues of the day. Though a teetotaler like her husband, she aligned herself with the "wets" in the battle over prohibition and took a firm stand against the Ku Klux Klan. She was a fiscal conservative.
During her first administration she averaged over 100 pardons a month, and accusations of both bribes and kickbacks overshadowed her term, resulting in unsuccessful attempts to impeach her. This led to her defeat in the primaries of both 1926 and 1930. However, she ran again in 1932. She narrowly won the Democratic nomination over incumbent Ross S. Sterling. She then defeated Republican Orville Bullington in the general election. Bullington fared stronger than most Texas Republican candidates did at that time. Her second term as governor was less controversial than her first.
According to rumor, state highway contracts only went to companies that advertised in the Fergusons' newspaper, Ferguson Forum. A House committee investigated the charge but nothing ever came of it.
Miriam Ferguson, along with a few other people, have been credited with the quote: “If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it ought to be good enough for the children of Texas.” She was an educated woman and fairly well-read, so it is somewhat unlikely that she actually ever uttered those words. There are also variations of these words going back to 1881 that were often used to ridicule the backwardness of various unnamed Christians which strengthens the argument that the attribution to Ferguson was incorrect.
Mrs. Ferguson's infamously generous granting of pardons was her way of relieving the overcrowded conditions in Texas prisons. Some said that the pardons were the result of bribes, though that was never proved. Those actions led the Legislature to amend the law so that the Governor cannot unilaterally issue a pardon. Today, the Texas Board of Pardon and Parole must first recommend a pardon (though if the Board recommends a pardon, the Governor can choose not to grant it).
In October 1933, she signed Texas House Bill 194 into law which was instrumental in establishing the University of Houston as a four-year institution.
Except for an unsuccessful bid to replace Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel in 1940, the Fergusons remained retired from political life after 1934. In that campaign, she trailed O'Daniel's principal rival, Texas Railroad Commissioner Ernest O. Thompson of Amarillo.
Miriam Ferguson died from congestive heart failure at the age of eighty-six.
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