Johnson, Cone

Cone Johnson, son of Samuel Caraway and Emily (Swilling) Johnson, was born on June 11, 1860, at Dawsonville, Georgia. He attended Emory College (Oxford, Georgia) and Peabody College (Nashville, Tennessee), where he received the B.A. degree in 1880. After graduation, he moved to Tyler, Texas, where he taught in the East Texas University for two years and read law in the office of Col. W. S. Herndon. In 1883 he was admitted to the bar and maintained an active law practice in Tyler for forty years. While a young lawyer, Johnson served successively as a state representative in 1886 and state senator from 1888 to 1892.

Quickly gaining a reputation as an excellent speaker and debater, Johnson first came to state-wide attention in 1887 when he was drafted as the “champion for the anti-prohibitionists.” It was during this period that Johnson first met and debated with Joseph Weldon Bailey in what was to become a long-lasting political feud.

Although Cone Johnson did not seek re-election to the state senate in 1892, he remained active in Texas politics. Johnson led the fight in 1908 against Joseph Weldon Bailey for delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention, and against Oscar Branch Colquitt in the gubernatorial conquest in 1910. Johnson lost both elections, but in 1912, as the delegate-at-large to the Democratic Convention at Baltimore, he won national recognition as leader of the “immortal forty” Texas delegates and is credited with swinging the Presidential nomination to Woodrow Wilson.

In 1914, the newly elected Wilson appointed Johnson solicitor in the Department of State in Washington. Johnson served as legal advisor to William Jennings Bryan during the latter’s tenure as Secretary of State. In the years prior to the entrance of the United States in World War I, Cone Johnson was credited with having done much toward stabilizing foreign policy. Johnson resigned from the Department of State in 1918 and returned to his law practice in Tyler. During World War I, Johnson was active in Liberty Loan and Red Cross work. In 1920, Johnson again served as delegate-at-large to the national convention in San Francisco, and was voted the chairman of the Texas delegation.

Johnson was appointed commissioner of the State Highway Department by Governor Moody in 1927. He held this position until his death on March 17, 1933.

Johnson was a Mason and frequently appeared in Methodist churches as a lay preacher. He married Miss Sophie Elizabeth Robertson of Salado, Texas on May 8, 1889. They had no children. After her death, Johnson married Ethel Hilton of Galveston.

Sources:

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "Johnson,Cone" http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/JJ/fjo8.html (accessed July 27, 2010).

"Cone Johnson, Texas Leader, Dies at Tyler." Dallas Morning News 18 March 1933, Section 1, P. 1.

From the guide to the Cone Johnson papers Mss 0019., 1891-1930, (DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University)