HARDEMAN, D. BARNARD, JR. (1914-1981). D. B. Hardeman, teacher, journalist, politician, and political advisor, was born on August 16, 1914, in Goliad, the son of D. Barnard and Sue (Pettus) Hardeman. After he graduated as valedictorian of his Goliad High School class, he attended the University of Texas, where he served as editor of the campus newspaper, the Daily Texan, and received his B.A. in English in 1933. He attended the University of Texas law school for two years after 1938 and later passed the state bar exam, though he never practiced law. Before World War II Hardeman managed statewide campaigns of candidates for lieutenant governor and superintendent of public instruction (now called commissioner for education). During the war, as a counterintelligence officer in Europe, he earned the rank of major and several battle stars before his discharge in 1946. Later that year he managed the unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign of Homer P. Rainey, after Rainey had been dismissed from the presidency of the University of Texas.
Hardeman was elected to the legislature in 1950. He represented Grayson and Collin counties in 1951-53 and again in 1955-57. In 1952 he worked for the Stevenson-Sparkman presidential campaign in Texas as an assistant to Samuel T. (Sam) Rayburn. Hardeman helped rebuild the Democratic party in Texas after the 1952 loss to Eisenhower and helped establish the state's Democratic Advisory Committee in 1953-54 to oppose Democrats who were supporting Eisenhower. In 1955 and 1956 he was in charge of Adlai Stevenson's campaign in Florida during Stevenson's next bid for the presidency. After 1957 Hardeman worked as an assistant to Rayburn in Washington until the speaker's death in 1961. During the Kennedy-Johnson campaign in 1960, as an advance man for vice-presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson, Hardeman arranged campaign stops from North Carolina to El Paso and Chicago. After Rayburn's death he worked in the Washington office of Democratic majority whip Hale Boggs of Louisiana. In 1964 President Johnson invited Hardeman to join the famed "5 O'Clock Club," which met daily at the White House to discuss presidential campaign strategy.
Hardeman taught political science at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., and returned to Texas to teach in San Antonio at Incarnate Word College, Our Lady of the Lake University, and the University of Texas at San Antonio. In 1964 he was named the first Honorary Congressional Fellow by the American Political Science Association, a distinction later shared with Dean Acheson and Hubert Humphrey. Designated by Sam Rayburn as the longtime speaker's official biographer, Hardeman was writing the biography when he died on December 3, 1981, in San Antonio. The book, Rayburn: A Biography, was completed by Donald C. Bacon in 1987. It was well received by critics and scholars. Before his death Hardeman had arranged for the removal of the body of his grandfather, Joseph Henry Barnard, from Canada to the State Cemetery in Austin. Hardeman and Barnard were buried beneath a twin marker at the State Cemetery after a joint burial service.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Larry Hufford, comp., D. B.: Reminiscences of D. B. Hardeman (n.p.: AAR/Tantalus, 1984). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Larry Hufford
"HARDEMAN, D BARNARD JR.." The Handbook of Texas Online. [Accessed Thu Jul 3 11:24:35 US/Central 2003]. |
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