Roy Miller "Loved His Corpus Christi"!

Leadership lessons from the past
Roy Miller’s political skills, vision brought Corpus Christi into the modern era
By Mike Carlisle


Before Henry Pomeroy “Roy” Miller, became mayor of Corpus Christi in 1913, streets were made of sand, the bluff was a muddy mess, and water needed to be hauled in, said Bill Walraven, a local historian, author and journalist.

“Miller took the lead in building a water works, storm and sanitary sewer system, a garbage incinerator, installing electric lights, (building) paved streets, improving the bluff, creating a fire department, pushing for causeways, and rebuilding the city after it lay in ruins following the 1919 hurricane,” Walraven said. “He was also a leader in the fight for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.”

In one of his biggest achievements, Miller used his leadership skills to secure Corpus Christi a deep-water port in 1922 after the city had lost a fight for such a port in 1910.
Historian Mary Jo O’Rear also has researched Roy Miller and written about Corpus Christi politics through her work to expand on an article she wrote for the January 2005 Southwestern Historical Quarterly. O’Rear taught history for more than 32 years in Corpus Christi secondary schools and six years at Del Mar College.


CorpusBeat: What brought Miller to Corpus Christi?
Mary Jo O’Rear: Robert Kle-berg, who took over King Ranch, wanted to push South Texas. The Kleberg family was funding a railroad line from St. Louis to Brownsville through South Texas. During a trip to Houston, Kleberg ran into Roy Miller ... and brought him to Corpus Christi in 1904 as a booking agent for the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad. Robert Kleberg and other ranchers were selling off the pastureland to farmers. The ranchers needed someone to convince farmers they could grow great crops in South Texas, which is scrub desert. Kleberg needed someone to sell the idea to Midwesterners, Czechoslovakians, and Germans who were desperate for land.

As mayor, then newspaper editor, Roy Miller worked to secure a port of Corpus Christi. Photo courtesy of Jim Moloney.

CB: Was Miller successful?
MO: Miller was doing a marvelous job bringing in farmers who were tired of living up north, or fresh off the boat from Europe. Miller would load them up on trains called “Blackland Specials” to bring them down to South Texas and show them the land.

CB: Why did Roy Miller have such conviction about a deep-water port for the economic growth and industrial development of Corpus Christi?
MO: Many of the farmers who had come down and set up their farms around Kingsville could not get their crops to Galveston or Houston ports soon enough before spoiling. Miller was convinced a deep-water port in Corpus Christi was the solution. Rockport and Aransas Pass thought they should be the port location as well, so an intense rivalry emerged.

CB: How did Miller build support for the deep-water port in Corpus Christi?
MO: Miller re-invigorated the Corpus Christi Commercial Club, which was similar to a Chamber of Commerce. Miller brought a lot of young men into the club interested in developing the city. This is when he really began to push Corpus Christi as an economic entity. Miller realized politics was the only way economic growth was going to work successfully. Eventually the work propelled Miller onto a city commission and into city politics.

CB: How did people react to Roy Miller being in city politics?
MO: City politics came easy to Miller because he was such an outgoing person. He was full of energy and full of sincerity, but more than that he was a great speaker. He loved speaking and he wrote the same way he delivered speeches.

Miller used the word “excellent” all the time. People flocked to hear him speak. Whether he was selling a candidate, right of way on the “Blackland Special,” or even himself, whatever it was, he was a firm believer.

Miller moved straight ahead to secure the port after being elected mayor in 1913, with backing from Kleberg and local businesses. Corpus Christi had lost the fight for a port in 1910 because the Army Corps of Engneers did not consider it big enough nor developed enough. So when Miller became mayor in 1913, he began to accelerate the changes that former Mayor Clark Pease had started.

CB: Why did Miller lose his fourth mayoral bid?
MO: Miller ran for a fourth term, the term in which he expected to finally secure the port. But Walter Pope, former city attorney and state representative put his own law partner, Gordon Boone, up against Miller. The action split the city. Then, Pope revealed that Miller had taken money on the side from businesses for special favors. The allegations made it appear that Miller was taking money under the table. Miller never denied the allegation. He explained that he just used the money to finance trips to Washington. He lost the election in April 1919.

CB: What was the result of Miller losing the mayoral election?
MO: All the work ground down to a halt. All the work on the port, the federal efforts, modernization, all of it stopped. Then the hurricane of 1919 struck in September.

CB: How did the new administration respond to the storm? MO: The new mayor, Gordon Boone, set up a relief committee to recover from the storm. Boone placed himself and Miller in charge of the committee.

CB: What did Miller do?
MO: By the next day, Roy Miller had everybody in the city working together, including all the leading political opponents and adversaries. Miller was devastated to lose the election and bitter. But when “his” city, because it was still “his” city, when it was damaged so terribly, he answered the call of Gordon Boone to co-head the relief committee. Miller did a tremendous amount of work during the rehabilitation. But more than that, people discovered through the rehabilitation they could work together despite their differences.

From that point, Miller continued pulling together all of the opposing political factions. People watched Miller work with former political rivals and adversaries like State Sen. Archie Parr and State Rep.Walter Pope to push the port through the state legislature.

CB: What other ways did Miller unite the efforts for a Corpus Christi port?
MO: Miller wrote a series of essays and editorials in the Caller (where he was editor), and canvassed businesses to bring in money for the port. Miller was successful in getting the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce to support Corpus Christi, a major breakthrough because San Antonio had not supported Corpus Christi very well up until that time.

CB: When was the port secured?
MO: In 1922, President Warren Harding signed a bill designating Corpus Christi as a deep-water port, and within four years it was built. Miller was master of ceremonies when the port was dedicated. That is why Roy Miller is considered the “father” of the port. He had a devotion to Corpus Christi. He did everything he could to secure the port.

CB: How do you think people would perceive Roy Miller today?
MO: Well, it’s not fair because people back then looked at things differently. Nobody went about getting votes honestly back then. If you didn’t force people to vote your way because you owned the land they lived on, you were trying to keep people from voting because they were black, or poor or brown.

Roy Miller was a “Progressive” (a faction of the Democratic party). The Progressives wanted to limit the vote to whites only and the Old Guard Democrats like Archie Parr and Walter Pope wanted things the way they were, letting Mexican American and black voters vote as long as they voted the way you wanted them to vote. We have the advantage of looking back. We can say, “Oh, that’s bad, you are using bribery, you are using prejudice, you are using all sorts of things to get votes and that is not right.” I don’t think Miller would fare well at all today, especially if he would try things now that he did back then. Miller was not politically correct.

But, if you put all of that aside, if you look at his enthusiasm, his energy, his love, his personality, I still don’t think he would survive because people are not used to that today. I think we have people who are full of energy and enthusiasm, a passion for whatever cause they have, but we invariably try to tear them down. It is almost like we are uncomfortable with them.

Miller would have been a strong leader, but Corpus would look at him and say, “Now what have you really got going?” Leaders today would love to have Miller’s charisma and sincerity. Because even if people were not quite sure that he was totally on the up and up, they liked him.

CB: Would you describe Roy Miller as a leader who delegated well?
MO: Miller relied on people close to him like his in-laws who were doctors, especially about medical matters, such as closing down everything during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. He also made good choices and use of commission members. All the different areas of the city had different commissions to handle, areas like sanitation, or law enforcement. He did not feel the need to control everything.

CB: Did Roy Miller remain in Corpus Christi throughout his life?
MO: He kept his home here in Corpus. He was a leading politician behind the scenes for years, with homes in Houston and Washington, but he always made time for his home in Corpus Christi. Every time, he and his wife would return home to Corpus Christi, they would fly a Texas and American flag to let everyone know they were home and looking for guests to come over and see them.

Sergio Perez contributed to this article.