Associate Justice, Texas Supreme Court, 1971-1978
Marion Price Daniel was born October 10, 1910 in Dayton, Texas. He attended public schools in Liberty and Fort Worth. He worked as a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram from 1926 to 1927 and for the Waco News Tribune from 1929 to 1931, and earned an undergraduate degree from Baylor University in 1931. Daniel earned a law degree from Baylor University in 1932 and established a law practice in Liberty, Texas. He married Jean Houston Baldwin, a great-great-granddaughter of Sam Houston, and the couple had three children.
After defending two defendants in a high-profile Liberty County murder case, Daniel was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1939. There he became a leader of the "Immortal 56," a group of legislators opposed to a state sales tax, and was unanimously elected Speaker of the Texas House.
In 1943 Daniel enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army, attended officer training school, served in the Pacific and Japan during the Second World War, and earned the rank of captain. Upon his discharge from the military at the end of the war he was elected Texas attorney general.
In his six-year tenure as attorney general, Daniel disposed of more than 5,000 lawsuits, served on twenty-five state boards and agencies, and composed more than 2,000 bills for the Texas legislature. He launched several well-known crusades, including the defense of The University of Texas Law School in its refusal to admit Heman Marion Sweatt, an African American; the disbandment of a majority of the state's organized gambling operations; and the defense of Texas ownership of its tidelands against federal encroachment.
Daniel was elected to the United States Senate in 1952. There he led a national narcotics probe that eventually resulted in the most stringent narcotics regulation in United States history, and he nearly succeeded in the passage of legislation designed to reform the electoral college.
Daniel returned to Texas to run for governor, and following his nomination in 1956, resigned from the Senate. He was elected governor and reelected in 1958 and 1960. He lost a reelection bid in 1962 and returned to practicing law in Liberty and Austin. In 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him head of the Office of Emergency Preparedness in Washington, a post that gave him a position on the National Security Council. He also served as the president's liaison to state governors.
Daniel was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court in January 1971 to fill a vacancy created when Clyde E. Smith retired. Daniel was elected to the position in 1972 and served until retiring at the end of 1978, during his second term on the bench. His contributions were greatest in cases dealing with groundwater, mineral, oil, and gas laws.
Following his retirement from the court he served as legal council for the Alabama Coushatta Indians, providing his services pro bono. Daniel died in Liberty on August 25, 1988 at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried on his family ranch there.
Daniel, Marion Price,
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (accessed October 14, 2006).
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=d000036Daniel Murph. Daniel, Marion Price, Sr.,
Handbook of Texas Online (last updated June 6, 2001).
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/DD/fda94.htmlMemorial Service for the Honorable Price Daniel. The Supreme Court of Texas, May 22, 1989.
781 S.W.2d XXXIII-XLII.
