In Texas two candidates for the Texas senatorial seat led the pack in the Democratic primary. They were Lyndon Johnson and Texas former governor, Coke Stevenson. There were eight minority candidates who hoped to force the race into a runoff. In order to do so they held a caucus in Fort Worth to choose one of the eight to represent the rest. The seven would then withdraw from the race and asked their supporters to vote for Coke Stevenson, the underdog.

One of the seven, however, angry because they had not chosen him, bolted the caucus. His name was Arlin B. Davis … better known to Oak Cliff as Cyclone Davis. Cyclone was one of the characters in our neighborhood. He wore a full beard that reached to his belt buckle. Dallas County had leased a place beneath one of the approaches to a Trinity River overpass. There, Cyclone operated a paint and body shop and planned his next campaign.

His father, Timothy Hardin Davis, was in politics most of his life. He was one of the most electrifying speakers of his day. Standing nearly 6'3" tall and attired in a long Prince Albert coat, he could ascend a speaker's platform with the presence of a Biblical prophet. He received the nickname Cyclone from an 1894 debate with Kentucky Attorney General Watt Hardin. According to an Associated Press reporter, Davis so demolished his opponent that only one sweep of the "Texas Cyclone" was sufficient cause for Hardin to cancel the remaining scheduled debates. As a youngster I interviewed Cyclone II. He told me about his father who he called “Cyclone, The Nation Builder.” His letterhead let it be known that he, himself, was no less than “Cyclone, the World Builder.”

In the primary the plan of the minority candidates was successful in driving the election to a run-off. Six days after the runoff the ballots were finally counted. LBJ won what he humorously referred to as his “87-vote landslide.” History has blamed Johnson’s victory on a fraudulent count of ballots in the thirteenth precinct in South Texas. I think that ignores the revolt of Cyclone Davis.

It was a couple of months after the election that I was in the little neighborhood grocery store where Cyclone himself was holding forth on how his support had won the election. It is certainly reasonable since it could probably be argued that Cyclone’s support was not much more than 87 votes. As we listened to his tirade a man standing next to me touched me and said, “That old man reminds me of the story of Moses and the bulrushes in the Bible.”

I asked him, “How is that?”

“Well,” the man said, “every time he opens his mouth a lot of bull rushes out.”

It occurs to me that this is a message for the day. When you watch the talking heads and the commercials trumpeting the promises of the candidates, keep the story of Moses in mind. Take time to learn all you can about the candidate; action always speaks louder than words. Above all, vote.