Exhausted by three exciting weeks in the United States Senate, 86 year old Andrew Jackson Houston checked into a Washington, D.C. hospital on June 21, 1941.

During the months prior to the April death of Morris Sheppard, Gov. W. Lee O’Daniel had his eye on the Senator’s job. Most Texans believed flamboyant Pappy would resign from office so that his successor, Lt. Gov. Coke Stevenson, could hand him the vacant seat on a silver platter.

A tragic waste? “Absolutely not!” would ...