Mrs. Loewer & State Historian John Ferguson, ca. 1965 |
When the Arkansas Legislature reconvened in 1947, Louise Loughborough and Agnes Loewer of the Arkansas Federation of Women's Clubs took up residence near the coke-box in the halls of the Capitol, button-holing every legislator who passed. "You couldn't refuse to talk to them, you know," state Rep. Dan Stephens recounted.
Rep. Donald Poe gave the various women's groups the lion's share of the credit for saving the Old State House:
"I'll tell you what: from my observation, it was the women folk that finally added the drive that got the Governor's Mansion Bill passed, and also the Old State House Restoration Bill.
"Well they worked harder, they were on the job. They were pushing and doing everything they could, making every contact they could."
The preservationists' point man in the legislature was Pulaski County Rep. Bob Riley, a 21-year old, partially-blind World War II veteran of the South Pacific. Legislators recalled that Riley "weighed about a hundred pounds" and cut an imposing figure as he made his rounds with his seeing-eye dog, currying support for his bills. "Men like Riley had great influence, just because of where they'd been," Sen. J. Orville Chaney remembered.
Painters in the central stairwell in 1950 |
Riley had three bills up for consideration in the session—one to restore the Old State House; one to build the Governor's Mansion; and one to build War Memorial Stadium. All three bills were linked in the minds of legislators. The fact that Arkansas had just won the Southwest Conference Championship did not hurt matters. In the end, the Old State House bill passed without a single dissenting vote. The opposition of the fiscal conservatives simply evaporated.
Rep. Donald Poe reasoned that after flying the flag of opposition to the "Little Rock gang" and going on record as diligent in safeguarding the tax dollars of their constituents, the "good ol' boys" ultimately did what was right.
"Just because we're back here in the backwoods, the mountain area, we've got more brains in the heads of some of these people than you think they have," Poe told an interviewer. "At first thought, or at first hand, we drop back and shake our heads and say 'no,' but we soon catch the drift of things and go ahead and do what's there."
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