33rd Governor of Texas. He was born in Bowie, Montague County, Texas and christened James Burt Allred, V; finished high school and business college. He enrolled in Rice University in 1917, but left soon after due to financial problems, serving in the United States Immigration Services before enlisting in the Navy in 1918. After the war, he studied law at Cumberland University in Tennessee, and was admitted to the bar in 1921. He clerked in the law firm of Bernard Martin and Ben G. Oneal in Wichita Falls, Texas, then became assistant District Attorney, filling an unexpired term. He was appointed District Attorney, 30th Judicial District of Texas in 1923, thus beginning his political career. He was defeated in this bid for attorney general in 1926, his opponents questioning his qualifications; he was born in West Texas, he was too young to hold state office, and he was a bachelor. In 1930, during an ear of bank failures, economic depression and crimes of desperation, he won the office of Attorney General. During his four years as Attorney General, he fought against business monopolies and against corporate influence on state taxation and fiscal policies and made the evasion of gasoline tax law enforceable. He became the 33rd Governor in 1935, serving two terms (1935 to 1939), during which drivers were licensed, paving of roads began, motor bus regulations began, and pari-mutuel betting was ended. He engineered the Interstate Oil Compact Commission, which forestalled federal control of petroleum production. Allred's second administration brought passage of a teacher retirement system, broadened social security and welfare provisions, additional funds for education, expansion of the services of most existing state agencies, and increased compensation for state officials. Unfortunately for most of Allred's proposals, during his first and second terms, the legislature refused to provide the revenues necessary for financing them. As governor he embraced Roosevelt's New Deal, and during his administrations the legislature passed social security measures that included old-age assistance and teacher retirement programs. He opposed the Ku Klux Klan and repeal of prohibition. Late in Allred's second term as governor, his nomination by President Roosevelt to a federal district judgeship was confirmed, and upon the completion of his gubernatorial term, he assumed his position on the bench until 1942 at which time he resigned to run for the United States Senate. He was defeated and went back to private law practice. On September 23, 1949, he was again nominated to the Southern District of Texas, to another newly created judgeship, by President Harry S. Truman. Allred was again confirmed by the Senate, on October 12, 1949 and received his commission the next day. He served in that position until he died of a seizure in Laredo, the seat of Webb County in south Texas, only a few hours after having recessed court because he was feeling "a little under the weather." He resided in Corpus Christi during this judicial tenure. He is interred at Wichita Falls.