Edgar Lee Bradford, Jr.: Texas Attorney and Legislator (1910–1940)

Edgar Lee Bradford, Jr., attorney and state legislator, son of Edgar Lee Bradford, Sr., and Minnie Lee (Bennett) Bradford, was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 19, 1910. He had one sister, Neva Lucille Bradford. Growing up in Fort Worth, Bradford was a member of the Boy Scouts and pledged to the Beta Gamma chapter of the Phi Delta fraternity. In his senior year at Central High School, he was a member of the Penta mathematics honor society; served on the staff of the 1928 edition of the Panther, Central High School’s yearbook; acted in a class play; and, together with other high school students, performed vaudeville at a midnight show to benefit the city’s high school ROTC programs.

After graduating in 1928 Bradford enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, where he pledged to the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. By 1930 he had transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he served as president of Lambda Chi Alpha and as vice president of the interfraternity council. In Oklahoma Bradford continued to act onstage. He advanced to the rank of captain in the university’s ROTC program and remained a member of the Reserve Officers Association until 1939, when he resigned as a second lieutenant of artillery. His mother died in 1932 while Bradford was still attending school in Oklahoma. After changing his focus from arts and sciences, Bradford graduated from the University of Oklahoma’s law school in 1935.

Bradford was admitted to the Oklahoma Bar Association in 1935 and was licensed to practice law in Texas in 1936. He returned to Fort Worth, where he was connected with the law firm of Sigmund C. Rowe before establishing the firm of Zweifel and Bradford with partner Henry Zweifel. By December 1938 the firm had become Zweifel, Bradford and Floore with the addition of Heard L. Floore. On July 14, 1936, at the age of twenty-five, Bradford married Martha Tucker, who was from Azle, Texas. They spent their honeymoon in Mexico.

In 1938 Bradford ran for state representative for District 101, Place 4. On July 23 he won the Democratic party primary over former state representative Joseph F. Greathouse by a margin of 19,620 to 14,009. That November, after running unopposed in the general election, he was elected to represent Tarrant County in the Forty-sixth Texas Legislature.

After the election Bradford and Tarrant County’s four other state representatives for the upcoming legislative session spoke at a Lion’s Club luncheon. They indicated that they intended to operate as a block but admitted that they did not know whether they would cooperate with Governor-elect W. Lee O’Daniel. They said they were going into the legislative session “in the dark” because O’Daniel had not made his plans clear to them. For his part, Bradford expressed that he favored the payment of old-age pensions and hoped to decrease government expenditures by “abolishing and combining boards and commissions which are unnecessary.” In response to these statements O’Daniel, himself from Fort Worth, explained that this lack of coordination was due to his desire to respect the independence of the legislature and to avoid favoritism.

Bradford was sworn into office on January 10, 1939. In his term in the legislature, he served on the House committees on Common Carriers, Constitutional Amendments, Liquor Traffic, and State Affairs. He co-sponsored several bills, five of which passed both houses and were sent to the governor. One of them, which would have permitted “dry” counties to hold elections to allow the sale of alcohol, was vetoed, while the other four became law. One bill created the State Bar of Texas, of which Bradford became a member. Another established the office of county purchasing agent in counties with a population between 140,000 to 290,000 people and an incorporated city of at least 140,000 inhabitants. A third bill provided a “more adequate and equitable” salary and covered travel and office expenses for county school superintendents in certain counties. The final bill, among other regulations, limited guards at county jails in counties with between 140,000 and 290,000 inhabitants to eight-hour workdays. This bill was prompted by the federal government’s refusal to house prisoners in jails where guards worked more than eight hours per day. Bradford also co-authored a House Resolution to provide for the appointment of a committee to investigate the supposed teaching of communism “and other un-American and subversive theories and doctrines” in state-supported higher learning institutions. The resolution died in committee.

During the session Bradford supported efforts to resolve a funding deficit for old-age pensions, but the legislature failed to reach a solution before the session ended in July 1939. In September Governor O’Daniel proposed a popular proscription of more than $2 million to prevent a $6 reduction in monthly pension payments. Bradford commended the governor’s efforts but acknowledged that the plan was unlikely to succeed as “most people think they already are paying enough toward support of the state government.” The pension cuts went into effect that October.

In 1940 Bradford announced that he would not seek reelection to the legislature. He cited lengthy sessions, which disrupted his legal practice, and low legislator salaries for his choice, although he expressed an interest in returning to state politics. At the Tarrant County Democratic Convention on May 7, 1940, he was chosen to be an alternate John Nance Garner delegate to the Democratic State Convention in Waco on May 28.

In early June 1940, Bradford was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and admitted to Cook Memorial Hospital in Fort Worth. Henry A. Hull, a fellow state representative for Tarrant County, made efforts to locate a blood donor for him. Bradford remained in critical condition and was treated with blood transfusions. On June 27, he was taken to his home in “much better” condition, but he was readmitted to the hospital on July 17. On July 20 his condition deteriorated rapidly around 1 p.m., and he died within hours. Bradford’s funeral was held on July 22, 1940, at First Christian Church and was attended by a special delegation of state legislators. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Fort Worth.

In Fort Worth Bradford was a member of the Colonial Country Club, the Fort Worth Club, the Knife and Fork Club, and the Junior Chamber of Commerce. Shortly before he died, he had been admitted to practice law before the United States Treasury Department.