Radio could reach them hardly at all; by now an established political tool in other areas of the United States, it was a tool with limited use indeed in rural precincts few of whose residents owned one; the first survey of the use of electrical appliances in rural areas of the Tenth District, conducted in 1939, would disclose the presence of a radio in exactly one out of every 119 homes. Out of reach of the media, these voters were—most of them, at least—out of reach also of personal influence. Here and there a local influential—a “lead man,” in Central Texas parlance—wielded influence beyond
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