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Texas History Minute For years, Morris Sheppard helped shape Texas and the nation. A man of hard work and careful discernment, Sheppard was a leader on Ken Bridges issues of morality and defense and worked to improve the lives of ordinary Texans. Sheppard was born into a political family in Morris County in May 1875. His father, John Levi Sheppard, was a respected attorney who would soon rise to become a judge and later a congressman. Interestingly, Morris Sheppard was related to Robert Morris, a Founding Father who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Sheppard attended schools across East Texas as the family moved often as his father expanded his law career. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1895 and from the UT Law School in 1897. He received a second law degree from Yale University Law School in 1898. Afterward, returned to Pittsburg to work in his father’s law firm. They soon moved the firm to Texarkana. John Levi Sheppard was elected to Congress in 1898 to a district that included most of East Texas and was reelected in 1900. Morris Sheppard’s father was on his way to a third term when he died of a heart attack in October 1902. He quickly jumped into the race to succeed him and won easily. Sheppard rose swiftly in Congress, becoming chairman of the Committee on Public Grounds and Buildings in 1911. In 1912, he was elected to the U. S. Senate as a Democrat. As a Senator, he pushed for programs for indebted farmers and was an early supporter of giving women the right to vote. He fought to eliminate child labor. In 1921, he co-sponsored the Sheppard-Towner Act to help protect mothers and infants at childbirth. This
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act provided funding to help train midwives, funding for health clinics, and funding for public information on nutrition and hygiene. In 1934, with Texarkana congressman Wright Patman, he pushed through the Federal Credit Union Act, allowing the creation of credit unions. But he became most connected with the fight to ban alcohol. Believing that alcohol was a danger to public health and morals, he supported Prohibition and led early efforts to restrict alcohol. In 1913, he pushed through one of the earliest interstate regulations on alcohol distribution. In 1916, he banned alcohol in Washington, DC, through the Sheppard Bone-Dry Act. Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920. He briefly became embroiled in controversy when an active moonshine still was found on a ranch he owned in the 1920s. However, there was never any evidence that he was active in illegal alcohol production or sales. The repeal of Prohibition came up for a vote in Congress in 1933. Determined to the end, he attempted to filibuster the repeal. For more than eight hours, he stood on the floor of the Senate, railing against alcohol and defending the ban. When no one came to his defense, the exhausted Sheppard relented and allowed the repeal to proceed. As chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee from 1933 to 1941, Sheppard agreed with President Franklin Roosevelt’s assessment of the growing dangers of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany and the aggression of Japan toward the United States and supported expanding the nation’s defenses. He died suddenly on April 9, 1941, at the age of 65. His legacy in preparing the nation’s defenses for the coming of war was cemented with the naming of a new air base for him shortly after his passing. Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls opened as an Army Air Corps training site just on the north end of the city in October 1941.
Living with children Q: We have a 3.5-year-old and each night we have a routine that we go through with her--bath, pajamas, brush, choose two John Rosemond books and read them, sing a couple of songs, and pray before lights out. Bedtime typically falls between 7:30 and 8:00 PM each night and she sleeps soundly for about 11-12 hours. We try to go through the routine calmly but most evenings, she finds some way to deviate from it. Almost every evening, she ends up having a screaming meltdown because we've told her the next step, given her time to respond, and she procrastinates in a big way. We've tried skipping books and songs as a consequence, to no avail. Last night, for instance, when it was time to go to her room to read, she threw herself on the floor and screamed bloody murder. We ended up having to carry her into her room. What can we do to make bedtime happier and calmer? I don't want her last thoughts as she closes her eyes to be about the meltdown that just ensued! A: Oh, let me assure you that if the last thought before she closes her eyes and goes to sleep is about what horrible parents you are, it's fine. That is not likely to be her last pre-sleep thought, by the way. But if it is, so what? The fact that your little maniac sleeps for twelve hours after a tantrum clearly means she isn’t traumatized by her meltdowns or having nightmares of the two of you turning into golems. Relax. Take a load off. Your job is not to make sure everything in her life is okay from her point of view. In fact, if you make that your job, she will quickly become a tyrant who wants more and more things “her way or the highway.” If anything, your bedtime rou-
tine is too long. Eliminate a story and all but one verse of one song. My general rule of thumb for bedtime routines is less than five minutes. Any more than that and you’re looking for trouble. At this point, however, even if you cut the routine to five minutes, she is still going to throw a fit. After all, bedtime tantrums are now a habit. In a sense, they are part of her bedtime routine. So, when she begins throwing her tantrum, and at whatever point during the bedtime routine, simply tell her, "Oh, honey, the doctor says that if you start screaming at bedtime, you have to go to bed right away." (The doctor should be every parent’s default fall guy.) Stop the routine and put her to bed and let her scream herself to sleep thinking of what horrible parents you are and the horrible doctor you’ve been talking with. Kidding!! I predict a two-week cure, but that is predicated on not threatening her with bedtime if she begins to throw a fit but simply interrupting the routine, putting her immediately to bed, and leaving the room. As with many things concerning toddlers, there is no easy-peasy way to do this. While she is screaming, just sit in a comfortable chair and repeat the following words: “No pain, no gain.” Or, sing “All Things Must Pass” by George Harrison loud enough to drown out the noise. Family psychologist John Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, parentguru. com. John Rosemond has worked with families, children, and parents since 1971 in the field of family psychology. In 1971, John earned his masters in psychology from Western Illinois University and was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.
