Marion Price Daniel Sr. (October 10, 1910 – August 25, 1988) was an American jurist and politician who served as a U.S. senator and the 38th governor of Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to be a member of the National Security Council, Director of the Office of Emergency Preparedness, and Assistant to the President for Federal-State Relations. Daniel also served as Associate Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
Marion Price Daniel Sr. (properly Marion Price Daniel II) was born October 10, 1910, in Dayton, Texas, to Marion Price Daniel Sr. (1882–1937) and Nannie Blanch Partlow (1886–1955), in Liberty Texas. He was the eldest child. Sister Ellen Virginia Daniel was born in 1912, and brother William Partlow Daniel in 1915. Price, as he was commonly known, was married to Jean Houston Baldwin, great-great-granddaughter of legendary Texas figure Sam Houston. As a teenager Daniel was a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He put himself through law school at Baylor University by working as a janitor and dishwasher, and also working at the Waco News Tribune. He received his degree in 1932. After graduation he established a practice in Liberty County and often accepted livestock and acreage for his fees.
Texas House of Representatives
In 1938, he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. He was subsequently re-elected twice, serving in the 46th, 47th, and 48th legislature from January 10, 1939, until January 9, 1945. Daniel opposed Texas adopting a sales tax.
He served on these committees during the 46th legislature (January 10 – June 21, 1939): judiciary; oil, gas, and mining; privileges, suffrage, and elections (vice chair); and public lands and buildings.
He served on these committees during the 47th legislature (January 14 – July 3, 1941, and September 9–19, 1941): judiciary; privileges, suffrage, and elections; public lands and buildings (vice chair); and revenue and taxation.
He was elected as Speaker of the House for the 48th legislature (January 12 – May 11, 1943).
When the legislature adjourned in May 1943, Daniel waived his draft exemption and enlisted in the United States Army, serving in the Security Intelligence Corps. In this capacity, he saw service in Amarillo, Texas, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He received his Second Lieutenant commission in 1944 after training at the Judge Advocate General Officers School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, afterwards becoming an instructor at the Army School for Personnel Services in Lexington, Virginia.
The Army shared Daniel with the United States Marine Corps in 1945, the latter sending him to Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan to set up a Marine Personnel School. He received "outstanding authority" citations from both branches of service, and was discharged in May 1946.
Price returned to Texas after his military service and won the seat of Texas Attorney General.
As Texas State Attorney General, he argued the 1946 submerged lands ownership lawsuit United States v. California, 332 U.S. 19 before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1947, on behalf of the coastal states. The Supreme Court decided against California on June 23, 1947.
Daniel defended the University of Texas law school in the 1950 Sweatt v. Painter desegregation case. Herman Marion Sweatt, a black student, was denied admission to the University of Texas Law School in February 1946. Sweatt had met all the requirements, except that Texas schools were segregated by law. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in June, 1950, Sweatt must be allowed admission.
In 1952, Daniel was elected to the United States Senate. He was immediately taken under the wing of Senate Minority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson, with the senior senator helping to alleviate office space shortage by allowing Daniel's staff to work out of LBJ's office.
Daniel held positions on committees of the Interior; Interstate and Foreign Commerce; Post Office and Civil Service; and Judiciary, as well as Judiciary subcommittees on Internal Security and Juvenile Delinquency.
The new senator worked on a narcotics probe and reforming the electoral college.
Opposed to desegregation efforts, Senator Price Daniel joined 19 other senators and 77 members of the United States House of Representatives in signing the 1956 Southern Manifesto, which condemned the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and encouraged states to resist implementing it. The Supreme Court's 1958 Cooper v. Aaron decision held that the states were bound to uphold the previous decision on desegregation.
The most long-lasting accomplishment of Price Daniel was in helping to retain Texas title to the submerged lands, and mineral rights therein, off the coast. The victory has netted billions of dollars for Texas schools. Texas viewed this issue as of primary importance during the 1952 campaign. Eisenhower supported state ownership, while Adlai Stevenson stood in opposition. The state of Texas, including many prominent state Democratic party leaders, went with Eisenhower who won the state of Texas in the election.
The Tidelands controversy was over who owned the rights to 2,440,650 acres (9,877.0 km2) of submerged land in the Gulf of Mexico between low tide and the state's Gulfward boundary three leagues (10.35 miles) from shore. Texas acquired the rights as a republic, and later reserved the rights when it entered the Union in 1845. The Texas legislature authorized the School Land Board to execute the mineral leases on behalf of the Permanent School Fund.