Means of Ascent (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #2)

by Robert A. Caro

But no one was more skilled in the purchasing of votes in San Antonio than Lyndon Johnson himself, and he wanted another organization out working for him in San Antonio on the second Election Day as well, an organization that had never worked for him in the past: that of the city’s feared Sheriff, Owen Kilday. “Dan Quill was a smart little operator,” John Connally says, “but the man with the muscle in San Antonio was Owen Kilday.” The Kilday organization bore a very high price tag. “That was a sophisticated organization,” Connally recalls. Election Day work was handled by Kilday’s numerous deputy sheriffs. They would be responsible for hiring cars and drivers to round up Mexican-Americans and get them to the polls—and to make sure they voted correctly—and, Connally says, “They had a standard rate for a car and a driver, and they were paid handsomely”: $250 for some deputies, $500 for others. “It takes a hell of a lot of money for an organization like that.”