Pratt C. Remmel

Pratt Cates Remmel (October 26, 1915 - May 14, 1991) was the only 20th century Republican elected on a partisan ballot to have served as mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas. He was elected to the first of two two-year terms in 1951, was reelected in 1953, and then defeated in 1955 by the Democrat Woodrow Wilson Mann, who like Remmel was in the insurance business. In 1954, Remmel was the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate against the Democrat Orval Eugene Faubus, who won the first of his six consecutive two-year terms as the state's highest constitutional officer. Remmel's 37 percent of the general election vote was the greatest then attained by a Republican candidate since Reconstruction. In some ways, he paved the beginning of a long route that would bring fellow Republican Winthrop Rockefeller to the governorship in 1967. Rockefeller moved into the state only a year before Remmel ran for governor.

Family, education, military

Remmel was born in Little Rock to former Arkansas Republican state chairman Augustus Caleb "Gus" Remmel (1882-1920) and the former Ellen Lucy "Nell" Cates (1888-1961), who was the Arkansas Republican national committeewoman, a position equivalent to membership on the Republican National Committee, having served from 1928 until 1957. Remmel's father died when he was five, and his mother reared her children without a husband. One of Remmel's great-uncles, Harmon Liveright Remmel (1852-1927, usually known as H.L. Remmel), served as Republican state chairman from 1900-1925 and GOP national committeeman in 1924 and ran unsuccessfully for Arkansas governor in 1894, 1896, and 1900 and for the United States Senate in 1916. ["Arkansas Gazette", December 4 1920; March 8, 1961; "New York Times", October 15 1927; http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/reily-remsen.html#RY7155VBJ]

Remmel graduated from high school in Little Rock in 1933. In 1937, he procured a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. [Bessie Butler Allard, ed. "Who Is Who in Arkansas, Vol. I (Little Rock, 1959), pp. 199-200; "Who's Who in the South and Southwest" (Chicago, 1952), p. 603]

During World War II, Remmel was a United States Navy lieutenant, a pilot, and flight instructor. [ [http://www.tulsaweb.com/port/hallfame96.htm Arkansas River Hall of Fame ] ]

Remmel married the former Catherine Couch (April 22, 1918 - January 24, 2006), the daughter of Harvey C. Couch of Pine Bluff, the founder of Arkansas Power & Light Company and the director the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Lake Catherine near Hot Springs, the seat of Garland County, is named for Catherine Couch Remmel. [Marvon Johansen Browning, "Pratt Remmel dies; GOP mayor of LR ran against Faubus", "Arkansas Democrat", May 16 1991]

Remmel spent decades trying to build the Arkansas Republican Party. In 1940, he became chairman of the Pulaski County (Little Rock) Republican Executive Committee. Thereafter, at various times he was treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee, finance director of the Arkansas Republican Party (1949-1951), chairman of the Young Republicans of Arkansas and vice chairman of the Young Republican National Federation. Remmel attended the national Republican conventions as a delegate in 1952 and 1956 and as an alternate in 1948 and 1960. [Bessie Butler Allard, ed. "Who Is Who in Arkansas, Vol. I (Little Rock, 1959), pp. 199-200; "Who's Who in the South and Southwest" (chicago, 1952), p. 603]

Election as mayor, 1951

In the 1951 mayoral race, Remmel unseated the Democrat Sam M. Wassell, who sought a rarely-given third term. Not since Ben D. Brickhouse (1919-1925) had anyone served longer than four years as mayor of Little Rock. [John L. Ferguson, "Arkansas Lives: The Opportunity Land's Who's Who" (Hopkinsville, Kentucky, 1965), p. 466] Wassell ignored Remmel, for he viewed the Republican nominee as too weak to warrant the reactivation of the precinct organization from the summer Democratic primary. Wassell claimed incorrectly that a Republican could not be elected in Little Rock because the party during Reconstruction had "left such an awful stink they haven't been back in seventy years." ["Arkansas Gazette", October 16 1951]

Remmel termed the Wassell administration "ineffectual, half-hearted, do-nothing government". ["Arkansas Gazette", November 1 1951] Near the end of the race when Wassell detected that Remmel was making rapid gains, the mayor listed his own accomplishments as (1) a newly-constructed airport, (2) the establishment of a municipal budget system, (3) modern garbage disposal, (4) a revised building code, and (5) improvements in city-owned properties. ["Arkansas Gazette", November 4 1951]

The "Arkansas Gazette" (since the "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette", a WEHCO Media, Inc., publication) remained neutral in the mayoral campaign but instead urged the establishment of a nonpartisan city commission-manager form of government. "We don't know what the Democratic Party or the Republican Party has to do with municipal taxation and revenue, streets, sewers, drainage, health and sanitation, parks and recreation," the newspaper declared. ["Arkansas Gazette", October 30 1951] Little Rock established a nonpartisan city manager government starting in January 1958. ["Arkansas Democrat", November 7 1956] Therefore, Remmel's election victory as a Republican cannot be duplicated in Little Rock.

Remmel not only defeated Wassel: he won by a landslide, 7,794 votes (68 percent) to 3,668 (32 percent). He won all but three of the city's then twenty-six precincts. He was the first Republican to have sought the position in a quarter century. Then Democratic Governor Sidney Sanders McMath attributed Remmel's victory to local factors, particularly a divisive Democratic primary with Alderman Franklin E. Loy (February 10, 1915 - February 6, 1999), also an insurance agent. ["Arkansas Gazette", November 7, 1951]

The Little Rock election caught the eye of Republican U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio who told an audience in Biloxi, Mississippi, that he hoped Remmel's victory would be "indicative of a new trend in the South." [Memphis, Tennessee, "Press Scmitar (defunct), November 8 1951.] In the 1952 Republican convention in Chicago, Remmel first favored a largely ceremonial choice, General Douglas MacArthur, a fellow Little Rock native whom he had hosted when the general visited Little Rock. ["Arkansas Democrat", October 24 1954] Delegates Remmel, his mother "Nell" Remmel, National Committeeman Wallace Townsend (1882-1979) and state GOP chairman Osro Cobb (May 28, 1904 - January 17, 1996) all voted at the convention for Taft. The Arkansas delegation split 6-4 for Taft, and an eleventh delegate abstained. ["New York Times", October 17, 1951; Robert A. Diamond, ed., "Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (Washington, 1975), p. 93, 166; interview with Remmel, September 7, 1983] When the nomination went to Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Texas native who grew up in Kansas, Remmel worked for the national ticket, but the Adlai E. Stevenson and John J. Sparkman electors still won in Arkansas, a traditional Democratic political bastion.

Reelection, 1953

Remmel announced that his second campaign would not accent the party issue, and the GOP declined even to offer an aldermanic slate. Remmel claimed that his record had been "fair to all and partial to none." ["Arkansas Democrat", November 1 1953] He spent some $15,000 in his second race and, in a technological innovation, linked six Little Rock radio stations to carry a simultaneous rally.

The Remmel-Kerr race assumed broader ramifications in that Remmel was expected to run for the U.S. Senate in 1954, if former Governor McMath (who was defeated for renomination in the 1952 primary by Francis A. Cherry should unseat Democratic Senator John L. McClellan of Camden in the senatorial primary. Or, Remmel was seen as a possible Republican challenger to Fifth District U.S. Representative Brooks Hays, a liberal member from Little Rock. ["Arkansas Democrat", November 1, 1953] The Democrats denounced Remmel as the "silk-stocking candidate" and the "tool of the Republican Party." Such rhetoric came from Alderman Franklin Loy and Arkansas Attorney General Thomas J. Gentry, who had become hostile critics of the Remmel administration. ["Arkansas Gazette", October 15,,, 1953]

Remmel defeated Kerr, 9,724 (59.2 percent) to 6,693 (40.8 percent). While Remmel claimed that his reelection had partisan implications because Kerr had emphasized party, state Republican Chairman Cobb said that the results merely reflected that Little Rock "places good government ahead of party labels." ["Arkansas Democrat", November 4, 1953] Kerr's campaign manager, Frank H. Dodge, said, quite prematurely it turned out, that Remmel's reelection meant that "the two-party system is now at work in Little Rock." ["Arkansas Gazette", November 4, 1953]

Remmel the Christian

A devout Christian, Remmel was a member of the board of stewards of the First United Methodist Church in Little Rock and the Methodist Men's Club. He was a former state president of the Gideons International, the men's organization which distributes Bibles in public places, such as hotel and motel rooms. [Marvon Johansen Browning, "Pratt Remmel dies; GOP mayor of LR ran against Faubus", "Arkansas Democrat", May 16, 1991]

On his mayoral reelection, Remmel said that one of his objectives would be to "help Little Rock grow more righteous." ["Malvern (Arkansas) Daily Record", November 20, 1953] He addressed a high school graduating class in Corning in 1953 and urged the young people to accept the "fundamental belief in God as the key to success." [Corning, Arkansas "Clay County Courier", May 13, 1953] At a Mena civic club, Remmel warned that the United States was "moving farther away from the Constitution and is giving up freedoms which were bought by the flood of the founders of the country." ["Mena (Arkansas) Evening Star", March 28, 1953]

In his second inaugural address, Remmel quoted from Proverbs and stressed that "in this era of our world's history, we need to turn to God." [Remmel's Second Inaugural Address as Little Rock mayor, Pratt Remmel Collection, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Archives]

In the 1954 gubernatorial race, Remmel conceded that "some folks have said that Remmel is too religious, but that's exactly why Remmel has a chance at all." [Remmel speech at West Memphis, Arkansas, October 26, 1954, Pratt Remmel Collection] While campaigning for governor, Remmel sought the prayers of ministers he met, carried his Bible in his hip pocket, and read five chapters daily. ["Arkansas Gazette", October 10, 1954]

1954 gubernatorial results

Faubus defeated Remmel, 208,121 (62.1 percent) to 127,004 (37.9 percent). The turnout was forty thousand fewer than in the Democratic ruofff. Faubus polled just 16,793 more votes against Remmel than he had against Cherry. Theoretically, large numbers of Cherry supporters either stayed home in the general election for voted for Remmel. The Republican won six counties: Arkansas, Sebastian, Garland, Searcy, and Newton. He received at least 40 percent in five other counties, including Jefferson, Union, and Washington. He carried the cities of Fayetteville, El Dorado, and Brinkley though he lost the respective counties. [Arkansas Secretary of State, "Election Statistics, 1954"]

Faubus recalled Remmel as "a most gracious loser. The day following the election, he and his brother, Roland (Roland R. Remmel, September 26, 1917 - July 2, 2006), came . . . to congratulate me on my victory and to wish me well. Their attitude made a strong, favorable impression on me which I never forgot." [Faubus, "Down From the Hills", p. 62]

Defeat in 1955

Woodrow Mann (November 13, 1916 - August 6, 2002) won the Democratic mayoral nomination over the opposition of persistent Alderman Franklin Loy, who had campaigned more against Remmel than he did against Mann by asking voters why they would even consider giving Little Rock "a black eye" by reelecting Remmel. ["Arkansas Gazette", October 11 1955] Mann claimed that Remmel lacked interest in the office, had refused to allow the city attorney to oppose utility rate increases, had ignored the need for parks and playgrounds, and had failed to secure a third bridge across the Arkansas River. ["Arkansas Gazette", November 6, 8, 1955] Remmel did not commit himself to seeking a third term until a month before the election. ["Arkansas Gazette", November 1, 8, 1955] In retrospect, Remmel said that he should have been contented with the customary two terms and not reached beyond his grasp, but he wanted voters to have a second choice in regard to Mann, whom he considered to have an unsavory reputation in the insurance business. Remmel spent $18,000 in his losing campaign. [Interview with Remmel, September 7, 1983]

The third-term bid brought out the united Democratic hierarchy, including Governor Faubus, Senator James William Fulbright, and U.S. Representatives Brooks Hays, and Wilbur Daigh Mills. All urged the rejection of a two-party system. Faubus later expressed regret over his support of Mayor Mann, whom he called the "mouthpiece" of anti-Faubus forces in the 1957 Little Rock desegregation crisis. ["Arkansas Gazette", October 15, 1955]

Mann upset Remmel by 1,128 votes in a moderately close outcome. Mann polled exactly 10,000 votes (53 percent) to Remmel's 8,872 (47 percent). After his tenure as mayor, Mann relocated to Houston, where he was engaged in the life insurance business. His primary rival, Franklin Loy, also in the life insurance business, later moved to Lexington, Kentucky. ["Arkansas Gazette", November 9, 1955; interview with Remmel, November 30, 1983]

Through his mayoral tenure, Remmel was a former member of the advisory committee to the United States Conference of Mayors and a former chairman of the Arkansas Municipal League. He was once a member of the United States National Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. [Marvon Johansen Browning, "Pratt Remmel dies; GOP mayor of LR ran against Faubus", "Arkansas Democrat", May 16, 1991]

Remmel's obituary

In addition to his Republican and religious affiliations, Remmel was a 32nd degree Mason, a Shriner, and a member of the American Legion, Amvets, the Sertoma Club, Optimist Club, and the United Fund. He was a former Arkansas president of the American Red Cross. He was affiliated with Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and the Little Rock Country Club. ["Ibid."]

Remmel was a board member of the Arkansas River Basin Commission and chairman of the Arkansas Waterways Commission. [ [http://www.tulsaweb.com/port/hallfame96.htm Arkansas River Hall of Fame ] ]

Remmel died in Little Rock. Services were held in his First United Methodist Church. In addition to his wife and brother Roland, Remmel was survived by a son, Pratt Remmel, Jr. (born ca. 1948); two daughters, Catherine R. "Cathie" Matthews (born ca. 1942) and Rebecca Couch Remmel (born ca. 1950); another brother, Augustus C. Remmel, Jr. (June 14, 1914 - February 27 , 2000); two sisters, Mrs. Richard C. Butler and Mrs. H. Tyndall Dickinson, and three granddaughters, all of Little Rock. [Marvon Johansen Browning, "Pratt Remmel dies; GOP mayor of LR ran against Faubus", "Arkansas Democrat", May 16 1991;http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi]

Pratt Remmel Park off Interstate 440 and Pratt Remmel Road are named in Remmel's honor. In addition, Pratt Remmel, Jr., the director of the Arkansas Ecology Center, is the founder of Dunbar Garden, an urban park and green space in Little Rock. [ [http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201618/ Garden Stories ] ]

The Remmels are interred in Oakland Cemetery in Little Rock. [ [http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/reily-remsen.html#RY7155VBJ The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Reily to Remwick ] ]

References

Marvon Johansen Browning, "Pratt Remmel dies; GOP mayor of LR ran against Faubus", "Arkansas Democrat", May 16 1991

"Arkansas Gazette", 1951-1955

"Arkansas Democrat", 1951-1955

http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/reily-remsen.html#RY7155VBJ

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

http://www.tulsaweb.com/port/hallfame96.htm

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=91

http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201618/