Beauford Halbert Jester, thirty-sixth governor of Texas, had served nearly six months of his second term when he died on July 11, 1949. He tends to be remembered as the only Texas governor to die in office, but his accomplishments deserve greater recognition. Elected as the Establishment candidate in a bitter campaign against a liberal opponent, Jester had a surprisingly progressive administration. During his tenure the state generally expanded its services, began a prison reform program, reorganized the public school system, began an ambitious farm-to-market road program, attempted a new approach to juvenile delinquency, expanded educational opportunities for blacks, created a legislative redistricting board, and established a building fund for state-supported colleges and universities.

"This study is being made to assess the actual importance of the platform in recent gubernatorial elections in Texas. Because an intensive analysis is undertaken, the scope of this thesis has been limited in two ways. First, it is confined to the years 1946-1963 spanning the Administrations of Governors Beauford Jester, Allan Shivers, and Price Daniel. Secondly, in an attempt to compare the executives with one another, platform promises related to education, health and welfare, highways, and taxation adopted at the Democratic State Convention have been included. The method utilized to determine fulfillment of a political promise has been to compare the Governor's recommendations to the Legislature with the resulting action. In particular, an attempt has been made to (1) describe the Democratic primary election, with special reference to the issues raised; (2) to discuss the Democratic State Convention with a listing of the planks mentioned above; and (3) to analyze proposals in the Governor's State of the State Messages and special messages and to compare them with the resulting legislative action." -- leaf 1.